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Date and Place of Birth 18th March 1972 - PAISLEY
Transfers to and from Burnley from TRANMERE ROVERS - 8th January 1999 (£350,000) to TRANMERE ROVERS - 5th March 2001
First and Last Burnley Games BRISTOL ROVERS (a) - 9th January 1999
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN (h) - 24th February 2001 sub: replaced Kevin Ball
Other Clubs BRISTOL CITY, WEST BROMWICH ALBION, BLACKPOOL, TRANMERE ROVERS ---------------------------------------- TRANMERE ROVERS, KIDDERMINSTER HARRIERS |
Burnley Career Stats
| Season | League | FA Cup | League Cup | Others | Total | |||||
| apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | apps | gls | |
| 1998/99 | 20 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 20 | 2 |
| 1999/2000 | 33(9) | 3 | 4 | - | 2 | - | 1 | - | 39(9) | 3 |
| 2000/01 | 19(3) | - | 1 | - | 1(1) | - | - | - | 21(4) | - |
| Total | 72(12) | 5 | 5 | - | 3(1) | - | 1 | - | 80(13) | 5 |
Profile by Tony Scholes
Micky Mellon spent just over two years with Burnley, but it was a successful two years for the club and he more than played his part, scoring one of the two goals against Scunthorpe that clinched promotion in May 2000.
That was just over a season after he'd joined us, but it was Bristol City where the Scottish midfielder started his career as a youngster in the late 1980s. He didn't make an early impact with them and in 1991 they loaned him out to League of Ireland club Cork City. He did well with them and Bristol City made him available but the Irish club couldn't afford the £8,000 asking price.
He was never able to establish himself in the first team and in February 1993 he signed for West Brom, then in the third tier of English football, in a £75,000 deal. He was a regular there but his stay was all too short and before the end of 1994 he was on the move again, this time Blackpool signing him for £50,000.
He became a firm favourite at Bloomfield Road and was in the side that missed out on promotion under Sam Allardyce in 1996 in a play off defeat to Bradford City. He was their player of the year that season.
That signalled the end of Allardyce and a year later Mellon also moved, signing for Tranmere in a £300,000 deal. He'd played almost 150 games for Blackpool but this was an opportunity to play at a higher level for a side managed by John Aldridge.
A regular in the side, it came as a big surprise when in January 1999 he left to join Stan Ternent's Burnley side. From what was then Division One (now the Championship) he didn't just drop one division but he dropped to a side that was struggling at the bottom of it.
He cost us £350,000 and that looked money very well spent when he turned in a superb performance on his debut in a 4-3 win at Bristol Rovers. He played in all but one of the remaining games that season and scored two goals. The second of them was the late equaliser at Wrexham that started the unbeaten run of eleven games that ensured we wouldn't go down.
In the following season we won promotion and Mellon played over forty of the league games, some of them from the bench. He scored three goals and although he again scored against Wrexham, in a 5-0 win, the other two were certainly memorable.
In November 1999 he scored the only goal of the game against Blackpool on the Turf. The ball was played to him by Andy Payton and Mellon simply hammered it home with just thirteen minutes to go. It was a cracking goal but it was the celebration that will long be remembered.
The Blackpool fans had been barracking him all afternoon so he decided to go and celebrate the goal with them. He run the length of the field to the cricket field end backwards pointing to the name on his shirt. That certainly shut them up.
His third of the season, and what proved to be his last goal for Burnley, was in that promotion winning game at Scunthorpe. The home side went in front with a Lee Hodges goal but just four minutes from half time Mellon hit the equaliser that allowed us to go on and win the game in the second half.
After promotion he continued to be a vital member of the side and had played in over twenty league games when, out of the blue, he was dispatched back to Tranmere on a free transfer in March 2001. Such was the speed of the move that it was even rushed through on loan first to allow him to play for Tranmere in a home match against Preston the following day.
And as the season came to a close, with the Clarets chasing a play off place, he came on as a sub for the Wirral club at the Turf in a game the Clarets won 2-1.
He went on to play another 140 games for Tranmere before being released at the end of the 2003/04 season and after a short spell at Kidderminster he ended his playing career.
Mellon coached at both Witton Albion and Lancaster City and in the summer of 2007 he joined Burnley's Centre of Excellence as a coach, concentrating mainly with the Under-15 and Under-16 teams.
On 23rd September 2008 he was appointed as manager of Fleetwood who were promoted to the Blue Square Conference North. For a while he combined those duties with his youth coaching at Burnley but in December Director of Youth Development Martin Dobson revealed he had left the club to concentrate on the job at Fleetwood.
A player who was with us just for two years. He was very much part of Stan Ternent's team that first saved us from going back to the bottom division and then won us promotion a year later. And there's not many players scored in promotion clinching games for us.
Micky steered Fleetwood to promotion to the Football League in 2012, winning the Blue Square Premier League. Despite having them in seventh place in League Two in his first season he was sensationally sacked and replaced by another former Claret Graham Alexander.
He returned to the game at Barnsley, assisting Dave Flitcroft on a temporary basis when manager Keigh Hill was sacked in December 2012. When Flitcroft landed the job, Mellon was appointed as assistant manager.
Flitcroft was sacked at the end of November 2013 with Mellon stepping in as caretaker boss for four games, including an away game against Burnley. He was hoping to get the job full time but Barnsley appointed Danny Wilson. Mellon remained as assistant manager until 19th March 2014 when he was sacked along with goalkeeping coach Ian Willcock.
On 12th May 2014, Micky returned to football management with Shrewsbury. He signed a one year rolling deal with the club following their relegation to League Two with the club confirming he would be assisted by Michael Jackson, who had been previously operating as caretaker boss, and former Burnley goalkeeper Danny Coyne.
Links
Three ex-Clarets moving on up (16/04/12)