ONE of Burnley’s golden oldies who walked out with the players ahead of last weekend’s FA Cup tie with Lincoln City described it as ‘one of the best days of my life’.

The club replaced the usual younger mascots with a group of older fans as part of Burnley FC in the Community’s work, meaning 11 lifelong supporters aged 65 and upwards walked out with Tom Heaton and the rest of the Clarets’ starting line-up.

John Callaghan, 72, was alongside Joey Barton and said it was a day he would forever savour, despite the result.

“It was a wonderful experience. It was most unexpected,” said John, who has been a Clarets fan since 1954.

“We found out at the Leicester City match that it was going to happen. My daughter was a guest of the Premier League then after the match I met her at the entrance to the Bob Lord stand.

“I went in and had a chat and one or two staff from Burnley asked how long I’d been going. So I said since 1954.

“We chatted about the club, I mentioned my scarf that I’ve had since we won the championship in 1960 and I still wear it. It went from there really. They said, ‘How about being a mascot?’.

“I wasn’t sure really, I said, ‘I’m not putting a shirt on!’. I didn’t know how many it involved. My daughter rang the following week to ask if I was up for it and I was.”

After being talked into being a 72-year-old mascot, John was hanging around at the back waiting for the players when he ended up accompanying Barton out onto the pitch. He said; “I walked out with Joey Barton. I went to the back and was pretending I was left wing, number 11. You didn’t know who was coming with who until a couple of minutes before.

“I had a great chat with Joey coming on to the pitch. He was really good. I said, ‘It’s great to see you back again’, and he said, ‘Well, I don’t think I should have left really’.

“He said, ‘As you come on to the pitch the sound is amazing’. As we walked on the noise was fantastic, it was like being in a cauldron. It was a fabulous atmosphere.

“I took it all in and went on to the pitch. Going on Joey was talking about how it was a big pitch after what the Chelsea manager said.”

John and some of the other mascots became media sensations overnight and he did interviews with BBC 5Live as well as foreign TV stations.

He added: “I said to my wife (Anne) on Sunday morning, apart from getting married it was one of the best days of my life. We’ve done all sorts in my lifetime but the day as a whole with the interviews and everything was fantastic.

“We couldn’t appreciate enough what the club did for us. Especially to do it when the club is on the up.”

Neil Hart, CEO at Burnley FC in the Community said: “Here at Burnley FC in the Community, we work with a huge range of individuals and the senior citizens in our local area are very important to us. As well as the range of projects we offer to this group, we also wanted to give this special experience to them to show how much we value that lifelong commitment to the club. We loved working with them to make this happen.”