Is it the end for Ronnie Jepson?

Jeppo hasn’t featured since New Years Day when he replaced Lenny Johnrose against Wolves and has since had an achilles operation. It was an achilles injury that halted his Burnley career in its early stages in a game at Reading in September 1998. He didn’t feature in the first team again until the following March and in fact since that injury has only started one first team game, the 4-3 win against Millwall last season. He has played in 59 league games for the Clarets but 55 of those have been as a substitute.

Ronnie’s career started at Port Vale and after a loan spell at Peterborough he moved on to Preston. That’s when he developed the knack of scoring goals against Burnley with a hat trick on his debut.

From Preston he went to Exeter and then Huddersfield before joining Stan Ternent at Bury. When Burnley played their first league game against Bury for 50 years we lost 1-0 and yes, you’ve guessed it, the only goal of the game was scored by Jeppo. It was on to Oldham then and as we fought for our lives in the Waddle season our last away game was at Boundary Park. The game ended 3-3 and Jepson was the scorer of the first Oldham goal.

Maybe that’s why Stan signed him, just to stop him scoring against us. He has scored three goals for the Clarets, two against his former club Bury but his first was the winner against Fulham in his first season at the Turf. He had come on as a sub for Graham Branch and got the winner against the top of the league, and the already promoted, Londoners. It was the goal and the win that ensured our second division place.

Despite his lack of appearances he has always been a popular player with the club. His last appearance was unfortunately greeted with less than the usual approval by the Clarets fans but Ronnie Jepson knew just as well as the fans that it was not directed at him.