MICK DOCHERTY 

Burnley Career Stats

Profile by Tony Scholes

At a recent Clarets Mad dinner Mick Docherty joked that he asked his dad why he was sending him to Burnley when he was a youngster, and his dad replied that Burnley was far enough away from the family home.

The Docherty family were then in London with Tommy at the time manager of Chelsea, and although the distance to Burnley was over 200 miles and satisfied dad's idea of being far enough away the real reason was that the former Scottish international knew of our reputation at the time in terms of bringing through young players.

In some ways my memories of Mick Docherty are as a youth player, as the first and only captain to lead our club to the FA Youth Cup, but his Burnley career has been much more than that. He played in over 150 league games for us and twice enjoyed spells at the club as a coach.

But it all started in the 1960s when Tommy sent his eldest son Michael to Burnley. The first time I saw him play was in the first FA Youth Cup tie in that winning season of 1967/68, played against Yorkshire Amateurs. The game was only a couple of minutes old when an elderly Burnley fan asked a group of us: "Which is Docherty's lad?" Before I could reach for my team sheet to check he answered it himself. "You've no need to look lad it's the number four, he runs like his dad."

I'd never seen Tommy play but by the end of that season I'd seen plenty of young Mick and was at the Turf on that glorious May night in 1968 when we turned round a first leg deficit to beat Coventry and lift the trophy.

He also won four England youth caps and by then end of that first season at Burnley he was only a few months away from his first team debut which came in a 1-1 draw against Stoke in mid-December 1968. There were to be just a handful of appearances that season and a few more in the following season as the Clarets twice finished in mid-table.

However, once Jimmy Adamson took over as manager there was to be a more regular first team role and he played around three quarters of the games in the 1970/71 season as we suffered relegation.

Docherty had played in midfield for much of his four years at Burnley but there was to be a change of role in Division Two. Just two games into the first season following relegation John Angus suffered an injury from which he didn't recover and Adamson took the decision to move Docherty into the right back position and that's where he stayed for the rest of his playing career.

For the next two seasons he was a regular in the side but as we came close to clinching promotion in 1973 his contribution came to an end when he tore knee ligaments in a 2-0 win at Huddersfield. Two days later promotion became certain with Billy Ingham in his place.

He was fit for the return to the First Division and was back in the side that kicked off with a 2-0 win against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. But for the second time in just a few months in Yorkshire his game was brought to a premature end with him stretchered off. This time it was more serious. At the time we were informed he had a knee injury but it was what is now known as the dreaded cruciate ligament injury.

Docherty's season was at an end on the opening day and he played just once in the following season, ironically in at Bramall Lane against Sheffield United. By the start of the 1975/76 season he was fit to resume but as the Clarets struggled he lost his place after a defeat at Norwich in January, the first game following the dismissal of Jimmy Adamson.

He was released at the end of the season and he moved to Manchester City. His stay at Maine Road was a short one and just before Christmas he rejoined former manager Adamson at Sunderland. He played for the Roker Park club for three years but in December 1979, at the age of 29, he was forced to hang up his boots.

He continued as a coach at Sunderland before moving to Hartlepool as manager for the first half of the 1983/84 season. From there it was to Wolves and Blackpool before he returned to Turf Moor in January 1989 as assistant manager to Frank Casper.

This time his stay was eighteen months before he was persuaded to take a similar role at Hull City by their new manager Stan Ternent and his replacement at Burnley was Jimmy Mullen. Just six months later he and Ternent left Hull and Docherty's next port of call was Rochdale, initially as coach before succeeding Dave Sutton as manager, a position he held for a season and a half.

It looked for a while as though his career in the game could be at an end but in the summer of 1998 it was back to the familiar surroundings of Turf Moor as part of Stan Ternent's backroom team and he remained with the Clarets for the next six seasons. Initially brought in to work with the youth team he also took charge of the reserves before eventually becoming first team coach. He held that position until the summer of 2004 when, along with Ternent, Sam Ellis and Ronnie Jepson, he left the club.

He joined Gillingham in 2005 as Jepson's assistant and held the manager's position temporarily when Jepson resigned in the early part of the 2007/08 season. He didn't get the job permanently and by the end of the season he was part of the match day team at Turf Moor looking after the sponsors and corporate guests.

That was expected to continue into the 2008/09 season but the call came in May 2008 to join Ternent and Jepson again, this time at Huddersfield to continue his career in the game. That call came just four days after the fortieth anniversary of the night at Turf Moor when Mick Docherty led the young Clarets to the FA Youth Cup.

Mick Docherty was one of three players from that youth team who went on to have good first team careers at Burnley, others had long careers elsewhere. He became a very good right back for us and enjoyed a playing career that was never outside the top two divisions of English football. Since, he's been a coach that for much of the time and at the age of 57 has been able to land himself yet another job.

I think it is fair to say he's had a long and successful football career and he's even followed in his dad's footsteps on the after dinner circuit, although I'm not so sure he's got just as many one liners as Tommy.

Having left Huddersfield when Stan Ternent ended his time there as manager, Docherty returned to Turf Moor as a coach within the club's Centre of Excellence.