JOHN TALBUT 

Date and Place of Birth 20th October 1940 - Headington   Transfers to and from Burnley junior then pro - October 1957 to West Bromwich Albion - December 1966 (£32,000)   First and Last Burnley Games Leicester City (a) - 26th December 1958   Leicester City (a) - 5th November 1966   Other Clubs ---------------------------------------- West Bromwich Albion, KV Mechelen

Burnley Career Stats

Profile by Tony Scholes

On Boxing Day 1958, with Tommy Cummings unavailable due to injury, manager Harry Potts brought 18-year-old centre half John Talbut into the side for his debut at Leicester.

He did well in a 1-1 draw at Filbert Street and 24 hours later was in the side again for the return match against them, this one ending in a 3-3 draw. He'd done well, but it would be another four seasons before he established himself as a member of the first team.

Oxfordshire born Talbut had moved with his family to the north east whilst a young boy and that's where he played his first football, playing for school, town and then Durham schoolboys. In 1955 he was called up to the England schoolboys team and Burnley quickly moved in to sign him as a junior.

On his 17^th birthday in October 1957 he signed his first professional forms, although he was just part time as he continued to work as a draughtsman. But his form in the reserve team soon had him knocking on the first team door.

That opportunity, albeit briefly, came with those two games at Christmas in 1958. They were his only two appearances in the first team that season and in the following season, as the Clarets lifted the League Championship, John Talbut played exclusively reserve team football.

He played just twice in the 1960/61 season, the first of which being the Chelsea home game when we fielded a reserve team, and there was to be only three games in the 1961/62 season. So three and a half years after his debut he'd played just seven league games plus one game in the inaugural League Cup competition.

John Talbut's career changed in August 1962. Cummings played the first two games of the new season at centre half but they were his last appearances for Burnley and when we travelled to West Brom for the third game it was Talbut named in his place.

Such was his form in the Burnley side that he won England Under-23 honours and was all ready to join Alf Ramsey's full England squad for the summer tour in 1964 but an injury in May playing for the Under-23 team ruled him out and his hopes of a full cap had gone.

From winning his place in Burnley's first team he missed only one game in two seasons alongside Brian Miller and was also the first choice in 1964/65, but the emergence of Sammy Todd and Dave Merrington started to make it more difficult for him.

In his last eighteen months at Burnley he struggled more for a first team place and when West Brom came in for him in December 1966 he signed for them in a £32,000 deal. He'd played a total of 160 first team games at Burnley, scoring just the one goal in the League Cup against Shrewsbury just a short time before his sale.

He'd not scored a single league goal but that was all set to change very quickly with his new club. He made a very impressive debut against Spurs at the Hawthorns but as so often happens he was soon facing his old club.

It was just his second game for West Brom and he lined up against Burnley at the Turf on New Year's Eve 1966. He couldn't stop a rampant home side and we won the game 5-1 with West Brom's a late consolation. Both Willie Irvine and Andy Lochhead scored twice but the first Burnley goal was a John Talbut own goal after just four minutes in front of the old cricket field end.

Despite that difficult start he became a firm favourite at the Hawthorns but in his first season he had to sit and watch their run to the League Cup final due to him being cup tied. They lost that final to Queens Park Rangers but a year later there was better news for both Talbut and West Brom. He was in the side that lifted the FA Cup in 1969 with a 1-0 win over Everton, the goal scored by the late Jeff Astle.

It wasn't his only Wembley appearance either. In 1970 he lined up there again for West Brom but this time they were losers again in the League Cup, beaten by Manchester City.

He had one more season in league football in England but lost his place to new signing John Wile from Peterborough. When John Talbut won his regular place in the Burnley side in August 1962 the opponents were West Brom and when he played his last league game for West Brom in December 1970 it came against the Clarets. He played in the FA Cup later in the season with Wile cup tied, but with no prospect of winning back his place he signed for Belgian club KV Mechelen.

He was with them for three years, eventually becoming player/coach, before hanging up his boots, and for many years after he continued to live in Belgium running pubs. However, in 2001 he returned to England and to South Shields where he'd spent his formative years.

John Talbut was a big strong centre half who for some time at Burnley looked destined to become a top player. It didn't quite happen but his entire career in England was spent in the first division, a career of almost 300 league games.