NO FOND FAREWELL In older days fans would riot as their star players secretly departed to a bigger club - Gainsborough Trinity/Burnley

NO FOND FAREWELL 

Ⓒ Mark Metcalf 

In older days fans would riot as their star players secretly departed to a bigger club - Gainsborough Trinity/Burnley 

On Monday 3 December 1888, three strangers with suitcases alighted from the Manchester train on platform 1 at Gainsborough’s Great Northern Station. Burnley had started the first season in the Football League (note – there was just one league consisting of 12 clubs) very badly and were bottom of the table.

Non-League Gainsborough Trinity had transformed their season after they employed football agent John McCabe of Leith, Edinburgh who obtained the signatures of four players - Shamrock Coyne, an Irishman from Hibernian, and three Scots, William McKay from Hearts, Alec Brady from Sunderland and John ‘Jack’ Angus from Newcastle West End. Each player was paid double the match fee paid to local players. 

Now, Burnley’s directors sought to boost their hopes of avoiding a re-election battle by obtaining the signatures of some of the four men.

Jack Angus had let slip what was going on and said he was not involved. The station porter was warned to listen out for Lancashire accents, the news of the poachers’ arrival immediately swept through Gainsborough as they made their way to hide out in the lodging houses of the three players set to transfer their allegiance to the Turf Moor club.

Britannia Ironworks closed for an hour at dinner time and so when all six men finally emerged to make a dash for the Manchester midday train they were pelted with eggs and tomatoes, then punched and had their clothes torn before they finally reached the sanctuary of their railway carriage.

As the train departed, disgruntled Gainsborough fans threw more eggs. Angus’s loyalty pledge to the club later disappeared when he left without warning to go to Everton.

He was later converted into a ’keeper during a short spell with Sunderland and returned to play eleven League games in the 1890–91 season when Everton captured the Division One title. He died of typhoid fever in the summer of 1891.

With only nine players to call on, Trinity withdrew from their weekend FA Cup game against Grimsby. Letters to the local paper expressed the hope that Trinity would not sign any more Scots!