No not mixed up, mayhap just too brief in my description, I never meant to insinuate they were a spent force...far from it.
But they peaked in 59-60 winning the league...just before the the Maximum Wage was abolished in Jan 1961.
This swung the momentum to teams in Cities with big populations and hence big gate receipts...not over night obviously
Though tbh, only Ipswich under Alf Ramsey did it with a cheap squad well managed...and maybe Clough with Derby...and Forest
Burnley were always a tough team, well managed. Bob Lord set up an Academy to bring them in and sell them on...the same deal that many think Brands invented at Ajax.
But don't take my just word for it...
"When we won the championship in 1960 the population was only 78,000, which makes it the smallest town or city to host a top division winning side. I don’t think that record will ever be beaten,” says Quelch.
“It was only sustained by the artificially level playing field that they had in those days, before the abolition of the maximum wage.
“They were a really leading edge club. That was the irony, that you had a decaying mill town and then you had one of the brightest exponents of modern football, not only in the country but on the continent.”
"Burnley continued to compete in the upper echelons of the English league, but by the mid-Sixties they were stagnating.
Fan favourite Jimmy MacIlroy was sold to Stoke in 1963 for £25,000, to, as we found out years later, balance the books at the time.
Between 1971 and 1985 there would be five relegations and two promotions across four divisions."
