WHEN Brian Flynn returned to Burnley early on in the 1982/83 season he was hailed as the returning hero.

A five-year spell at Leeds had come to an end and the Welshman was returning to Turf Moor during one of the Clarets’ most memorable and tumultuous seasons of recent memory.

But Flynn said he now regrets the move and should never have returned to the club where he made his name and the town he still called home.

“Looking back I shouldn’t have come back,” he said. “But when I did come back it was a special time because of the cup runs.

“Financially it was a disaster, I took a 50 per cent pay cut to come back and I did it because it was Burnley Football Club, but they took me for granted.

“They knew I had an affinity with the club. There were no other offers at the time but it was a situation where it was make your mind up time quickly.

“I’d got injured at Leeds and I asked to go on loan to play a few games and I came back to Burnley for a month. When Burnley made an offer for me they said make your mind up quick because we need to know and then when I came over and met them they said this is the package.

“I said I’m earning twice as much as that, but I took it. It was still a good wage relative to the time but looking back in hindsight they took me for granted, they thought ‘he’ll come back because it’s Burnley’.”

During his second permanent spell at Burnley Flynn made another 80 appearances and was a regular in the 82/83 season which featured runs to the League Cup semi-final and the FA Cup quarter-final, but ended in disappointment with relegation to the third tier.

Flynn said: “There were two great cup runs, one ridiculous cup run in the League Cup. It was brilliant to be involved in those, absolutely fantastic.

“White Hart Lane was memorable, Brian Miller had just been sacked, we were driving down there to be slaughtered, we were struggling in the league, people said we were just going to turn up and Spurs were going to walk all over us.

“What a team they had, Hoddle, Ardiles, it was the full package, and we played them off the park and beat them 4-1, that’s not a freak result, 4-1 is a battering.

“We were better than them, we deserved to win, Billy Hamilton scored an unbelievable hat-trick.

“It was an unbelievable atmosphere at White Hart Lane, we must have had at least 7,000 Burnley fans there as well.

“People remember the two Liverpool games and how contrasting they were.

“We lost 3-0 at Anfield and won 1-0 at Turf Moor, but it could have been two in the second half, there was a sense we could do it. Had we got the second at the start of the second half it could have been, but the first leg was what did us.

“The cup run would have taken its toll that season, it was the same team that could beat Tottenham and Liverpool, it’s the old domino effect, once you’re on a downward spiral it’s difficult to stop it in the league.”

After relegation Flynn’s days were numbered and he said he was forced out of the club at the end.

He added: “Again when I look back I should have dug my heels in and said I’m not going, I was forced out of the door by John Benson.

“I was literally forced out of the door, I spoke to him about it many times and he just wanted me out.”

After leaving Burnley for a second time in 1984 Flynn spent a year at Cardiff City, but his Burnley connections would come in handy during the twilight years of his playing career.

After Cardiff he signed for Doncaster thanks to the influence of the man who signed him for Burnley as a 15-year-old, Dave Blakey, and then went to Bury to play under two of his former Turf Moor team-mates.

“I went to Bury because Martin Dobson and Frank Casper were there,” he said.

“They asked me to come and sign for them and because of them two I did, they were the big influence, a massive influence in me signing.”

After a short spell at Bury he had his first experience of coaching at Irish club Limerick with another former Claret, Billy Hamilton.

“Me and Billy Hamilton had a sort of a pact,” he said. “He got an offer at Christmas 1987 to go and be manager at Limerick and he said ‘I’m not coming unless Brian Flynn comes with me’.

“He phoned me up and said ‘come and be player/coach’. I said ‘I’m quite happy at Bury, things are going ok here’.”

Flynn was convinced to make the move in the end though and the two saved the club from relegation.

That was a taste of things to come for the former Burnley legend.

Flynn had been bitten by the coaching bug, and a career in management awaited.