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| Joel Pilkington has hung up his boots |
One of those kids was Richard Chaplow who is now playing his football at Millwall, but another was Joel Pilkington who has this weekend decided to hang up his boots at the age of 30.
Although he was involved with the first team it was another year before he actually got on the pitch with the Clarets and he made just four substitute appearances for the club, his last being the 2-0 win against Bournemouth in the FA Cup in Steve Cotterill's first season charge.
He played for a number of non-league clubs before settling in at Ramsbottom United, signing for them from Runcorn Linnets in 2009. He's gone on to make 235 appearances for Rammy, all but 20 of them starts, but yesterday, after playing in Saturday's FA Trophy game against Nantwich Town, he announced that he was retiring from playing at the age of 30.
Joint manager Anthony Johnson said of him: "He has been struggling to get up for football for a while now, really since he broke his arm last year, but he has been 100 per cent committed to us, never missed a training session in six years he has been with us, but he just feels that he can't do what he normally does and, as a man who has got that many principles and morals, has taken the decision to step away from the game."
Johnson added: "He will be massively missed and we all wish him well. You can use all the superlatives you want. I could sit here all day talking about him as he is arguably the best signing we made as he was the first call we made when we took over."
During his time at Ramsbottom they have won two promotions and now, in the Northern Premier League's Premier Division, they are playing at the highest level in the club's history.
That move worked well for Pilkington but Brian Jensen won't be saying that about his move to Crawley where he has now been made available for immediate loan and for permanent transfer in January.
Manager John Gregory signed him in the summer but he's made only one league appearance since mid-September having been replaced by Jamie Ashdown and they were beaten 5-3 by Notts County in that game. He was one of five players told last week that they could move on.
Meanwhile, Kyle Brownhill, who spent last season with our development squad, has swapped bottom of the league for bottom of the league.
Having been released by the Clarets at the end of last season he signed for Hyde who had just been relegated to the Conference North after a disastrous season in which they won just once.
Things aren't much better this season and they are currently bottom of Conference North with just one win in 18 games. They are already six points adrift of Stalybridge the club closest to them.
They were replaced last season by Telford. They won the North Division but are now, themselves, occupying bottom place in the Conference Premier.
Brownhill has made the move from Hyde to Telford on a month's loan and made his debut two days ago as a substitute in their 3-1 defeat at Barnet.
