IT has been a sad time for Burnley Football Club recently with the loss of legendary former striker Ray Pointer and former chairman Frank Teasdale.

I attended Ray's funeral last week, and it was a beautiful service.

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There were quite a few familiar faces there, including plenty of ex-Clarets. And while they are always sad occasions they are a good chance to reminisce.

We talked about Ray most of the time.

But it all took me back to when I was the groundstaff boys as a 16-year-old, looking after the first team dressing room.

I got to know all of the players, including Ray, and they were a tremendous bunch.

They always took an interest in the youth team and asked how we had got on every Saturday.

At Christmas time, because I looked after all their training gear and cleaned their boots during the season they used to give me a bit of extra money.

I was only on £8 a week and £3.50 was for my digs, I sent my mother £2 home so the rest had to do me for the week, so that Christmas bonus really helped.

I used to have a laugh with them.

They won the league the first season I was with them and they called me the lucky mascot.

Ray was a player I admired. He stood out because of his blond hair, but he never stood still. He was on the move all the time.

It was something I was advised about and picked up on, and it stayed with me all the way through my career.

When the centre half says to you ‘Will you stand still’ you know you’ve beaten them!

Yesterday, it was the funeral of Mr Teasdale.

He was a tremendous person and loved his Burnley Football Club with a passion and will be sorely missed by all at Turf Moor.

Rest in peace Frank, it was an honour to know you.

To matters on the pitch, and while I would have taken a point at Reading before the game, with the way things panned out it was disappointing not to get more.

Hal Robson-Kanu's scraping of the penalty spot should have got more than a yellow card.

But even so, we had good chances that were missed.

All the best ones fell to Andre Gray, but I'm not criticising him for he is a class act and he will get back to scoring goals and winning us points.

The Reading manager, Brian McDermott, said nice things about Burnley after the game.

He was happy with a point against a team who he is sure will be in the Premier League next season.

Well, if Andre starts taking his chances again, I couldn’t agree more.