Multi Trophy Winner Had Flirtation With Wolves
Keith Burkinshaw turned 90 two days ago and will be well remembered by Wolves fans of a certain age as an accomplished adversary in the opposition dug-out. What is much less known than his FA Cup and UEFA Cup conquests with Tottenham, though, is the fact that he might have fashioned a playing career at Molineux three decades before. Charles Bamforth explains.
Keith Burkinshaw faces the camera for a post-match interview.
Memories of Tottenham prevailing over Manchester United and lifting the Europa League trophy in Ange Postecoglou’s momentous final game remain strong several weeks on.
But it wasn’t the first time Spurs had secured European glory. As we know only too well, they triumphed over Wolves in the 1971-72 UEFA Cup.
They then achieved success in 1984 by lifting the UEFA Cup again, this time under the astute management of Keith Burkinshaw, the man who had taken Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa to White Hart Lane – and a man who could very easily have been a Wolves success story.
The South Yorkshire Times and Express carried an article on August 25, 1951, headlined “Mark Crook’s Starlets”. It was a piece about the legendary Wath Wanderers nursery and, in only the second season of the Northern Intermediate League, the richness of promise was evident.
The article said that two completely different teams would be fielded for the two opening games of the season at the Hough Lane ground in Wombwell, the first against Hull at 11.30am and the second against Newcastle at 6pm.
Named at right-half for the first of these fixtures was one Keith Burkinshaw, aged 16, from Barugh Green, a village in the metropolitan borough of Barnsley. He was one of the few players among the 22 who would be invited to Wolverhampton to appear in the Wolves A or B sides.
That call came for the fourth team in the Worcestershire Combination on March 7, 1953 – a 3-0 win at Brierley Hill Alliance. The team read: Peter OWEN, Ronald ALLEN, Gerald BROADHEAD, John TIMMINS, Maurice SIVERNS, Keith BURKINSHAW, Tom GRIFFITHS, Lionel STEPHENSON, Jimmy MURRAY, Dennis McDONALD, Tommy ASHER.
Broadhead was another promising lad from Wath, who had previously been a reserve for the Northern Intermediate League representative side against the Lincolnshire League. Burkinshaw had featured at right-half in that team too.
Barry Stobart – had good cause to admire the quality of lads coming out of Wath.
But perhaps the lad who might have been considered even more likely to succeed was Tommy Asher, from Doncaster. He was an England schoolboy international. Barry Stobart once recalled that he didn’t manage to get into the Doncaster Boys team because Asher was barring his way.
Asher managed only one Central League game for Wolves, though (in May, 1953), and was in the club’s 1953-54 FA Youth Cup squad when they lost to Manchester United in the final. In May, 1954, he signed for Notts County, where he played 31 League games and struck four goals, and later played for Ilkeston.
But, getting back to Harry Keith Burkinshaw (to give him his full name)…..twice more, he got the nod for the third team in the Birmingham and District League. The first was in a goalless draw at Kidderminster Harriers, where Wolves fielded: Peter OWEN, George SHOWELL, Malcolm SPENCER, Dick NEAL, William WAINWRIGHT, Keith BURKINSHAW, Derek DIMMER, Ron HOWELLS, Harry SMITH, Brian PUNTER, Maxie CLEWS. Neal was another from Wath and a good mate of Ron Flowers, who was much higher up the pecking order by now.
Burkinshaw’s final game in a Wolves shirt in the A team was in a 4-2 defeat away to Shrewsbury on May 2, 1953. That team read: Derek PARTON, Arthur SPENCER, M SPENCER, NEAL, WAINWRIGHT, BURKINSHAW, DIMMER, Bobby MASON, Joe BONSON, Roy PEARCE, Gordon WILLS. Arthur Spencer and Joe Bonson were also both products of the highly profitable Wath stable.
Some six month later, Keith Burkinshaw signed for Liverpool! After leaving Wath, he played for Denaby United while working at Dodworth Colliery, attracting the attention of Aston Villa, Lincoln, Stockport and Oldham as he did so. But he signed on the dotted line at Anfield, some of the Wath talent clearly having been creamed off.
Burkinshaw became a regular at centre-half for the Reds’ reserves but had to wait 17 months for his only game in their first team – a Second Division match with Port Vale. He remained at Anfield until December, 1957, before signing for £3,000 for Workington, where he played almost 300 matches in the Third Division (North) and later the Fourth Division.
Keith had received one accolade while on Merseyside and fulfilling his National Service. In October, 1955, he was one of 14 players selected to represent Western Command in a game to be played against one of those clubs he had faced as a Wanderer, Shrewsbury. Among the 14 were Ron Howells, Bobby Mason, Micky Lill and Jimmy Murray (all of them team-mates of Burkinshaw’s in those junior sides at Wolves), Don Howe, Jimmy Armfield and the legendary Duncan Edwards.
Between November, 1964 and March, 1965, Burkinshaw was player-manager at Workington, before heading to Scunthorpe in May, 1965 and becoming caretaker player-manager. He hung up his boots in May, 1968 and coached in Zambia, before doing likewise at Newcastle and Tottenham, duly replacing Terry Neill at the Spurs helm.
John Richards and Steve Perryman shake hands before the 1981 FA Cup semi-final between Wolves and Keith Burkinshaw’s Spurs at Hillsborough.
He remains one of the more successful Spurs gaffers after Bill Nicholson and, as well as winning the UEFA Cup, led the club to FA Cup glory in both 1981 and 1982.
We well remember that first success, not only for Ricky Villa’s astonishing goal in the final but for the fact Tottenham did for Wolves in a replayed semi-final, the first game at Hillsborough having finished 2-2.
The UEFA Cup final triumph against Anderlecht was Burkinshaw’s last game as Tottenham manager and he is famously quoted as saying as he left that ‘there used to be a football club over there’.
He subsequently managed the Bahrain national side, Sporting Lisbon, Gillingham, Malaysian side Pahang and Swindon. In May, 1992, he became assistant to Ardiles at West Brom and took over from his protégé when the Argentine couldn’t resist the chance to move into the gaffer’s seat at Spurs.
Albion had climbed out of the third tier before the duo separated but 1993-94 was a tough one for the Baggies in what became known as the Championship and they clung to survival with a better goal difference than Birmingham, who were relegated. Wolves finished eighth but Burkinshaw got the better of his old club in both fixtures that season – 3-2 win at The Hawthorns when ex-Wolf Tony Lange was in the home goal and visiting substitute Cyrille Regis was given a moving ovation as he went on.
At the end of February, Albion triumphed 2-1 at Molineux, where Andy Thompson, Robbie Dennison and Regis all lined up against their former club.