113: David Burrows, Coventry City, Merlin’s Premier League 97 Official Sticker Collection

I would say over to Richard Allinson for today’s post on David Burrows but I feel that would be doing him a disservice. Not only do you get to find out about the former Liverpool and Coventry man, you also get to find out more about Rich’s own footballing exploits. Apologies in advance to members of the Calverley u12 team of the mid 1990s - this might bring back harrowing memories.

Liverpool’s 1990 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace will go down in memory as one of the best cup ties in the tournament’s history for many a reason. However, watching back the recent BBC re-run I noticed something slightly odd about the eleven that finished the game for the Reds. They had four fullbacks on the pitch. That is, Barry Venison, Steve Staunton, Glenn Hysén and David Burrows. Perhaps the least talked about of the lot is Mr Burrows.

My main recollection of him is of his time at Coventry City, largely due to stockpiling an inordinate amount of Burrows swaps. It has to be said that looking back over his career I must have had a lot of spells of memory blackout between 1985 and 2003. I remember Burrows at Liverpool, I remember him at Coventry and I thought I remembered him at Sheffield Wednesday but then I realised I was thinking of Mark Pembridge. As for his time at West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Everton, Birmingham City and, seemingly, Sheffield Wednesday - not a clue. And so off I went down a 1990s football rabbit hole and let it be said now that from here on in this piece has very little to do with David Burrows.

I was delighted to find out that Burrows once had to play in goal for Liverpool after the ever eccentric Bruce Grobbelaar was sent off against Spartak Moscow in the European Cup Winners’ Cup. Watching someone playing out of position is always fun, however, there is something so glorious about an outfield player having to go in nets. Similarly, goalkeepers fancying themselves with the ball at their feet often ends in tremendous entertainment.

As a kid I always played in goal and to be fair I was quite happy there. I got to wear ridiculous shirts and have a sit down in my area if the game got boring. However, I distinctly remember one match when, with my team about twelve goals to the good, our manager (who was also coincidentally, and helpfully, was my Dad) decided that as well as the team were performing the game clearly needed livening up a bit and so the goalkeeper (me) was dispatched up front with some other poor sod having to take my place in goal. I wouldn’t be recounting this story 28 years on if I hadn’t smashed in a hat-trick. But I did. Might even have it on my tombstone: “Here lies Richard Allinson - scored a ten minute hat-trick away v Calverley u12s.” I’m not alone in being equally adept at both scoring and saving goals. A bit of Wikipedia research shows a Brazilian goalkeeper called Rogério Ceni apparently scored 131 goals between 1990 and 2015. It sort of begs the question as to how much time he actually spent doing his day job for him to score that many goals. Obviously though goalkeepers do generally make dreadful outfield players. I point you to Rene Higuita v Cameroon at Italia 90 for conclusive evidence.

And so back to David Burrows. Sort of. When he was forced to take over Bruce Grobbelaar’s shirt (but presumably not his commitment to match fixing) he almost saved a penalty and conceded one more in his ten minutes between the sticks. This has nothing on the first recorded case of ‘outfield player what went in nets’. In 1920 Queen’s Park’s James McAlpine, having scored twice as an outfield player, went in goal and kept a clean sheet. Not quite a clean sheet and a ten minute hat-trick but good effort all the same James. It was news to me that Glenn Hoddle played in goal for Spurs three times - presumably he volunteered to do so in order to give him more headspace to think up the lyrics to Diamond Lights. Alvin Martin has the (probably) unique distinction of scoring against three different goalkeepers in one match, the third being, bizarrely given his height, Peter Beardsley. Special mentions have to go to Lucas Radebe and Vinny Jones here too. Interestingly, Pele also once took over the gloves in a professional game. You’re unlikely to get Neymar doing that, although he’d probably be pretty good given his penchant for diving about.

David Burrows then. Played nearly 400 professional games at the highest level, played for England under 21s, won the league, the FA Cup and two Charity Shields. He had a great career and I apologise for using his story as a way for me to shoehorn my childhood hat-trick into proceedings.