VINCE Overson is scrapping his summer holiday plans as he battles to revive his Football League career.

Overson has been released by Burnley after an injury-ravaged second spell with the club where he launched his career in the late 1970s.

But he is determined to bounce back and win a contract elsewhere and will spend the summer months bidding to earn a place in someone's pre-season plans.

"I was going to go on holiday but I don't think I will. It's make or break and I have got to throw everything into it," said Overson.

The central defender, who will be 36 next Friday, didn't play a first team game for the Clarets this season and knows that everything now depends on him regaining match fitness.

He added: "I have got to get myself 100 per cent fit and see what comes of it. I have got to be realistic and nobody will take me unless I am fit.

"I had a few games in the reserves and it took a bit of time to get into the swing of things but I felt fairly comfortable. "I know it's there but to play in today's football takes more than being able to organise and pass the ball, you have to be able to get around the pitch."

Overson will spend the next few weeks training with Burnley physio Nick Worth at Turf Moor before treading the lonely road back to peak fitness by himself.

"I know what's at stake and it will be no great hardship if you know what's at the end of it.

"Once I get myself fit I am quite confident that if I do have a pre-season somewhere I will get myself fixed up," he added.

"I have got to keep avenues open and I will not be writing football off. When I have trained I have been as good as anybody else. I know I am a fit player, playing under Lou Macari for six years you have to be.

"I need to get some mileage under my belt, get training with someone and take it from there."

Overson played under Macari at Stoke and Birmingham, having joined the Midlands club in1986 after seven seasons in the Clarets' first team. He had five seasons at Stoke before Adrian Heath brought him back to Turf Moor only for the move to turn sour through a catalogue of injury problems.

Overson played eight league games last term but this season has been restricted to outings in the reserve and 'A' teams where his attitude has been praised by both Chris Waddle and A team boss Alan Harper.

"There was nobody more disappointed than me. I wanted to come back and do well and I haven't, not through lack of effort but because it didn't work out injury-wise," he added.

"I have not really been injured in my career and it just happened when I came back here. I wanted to do well for Burnley because I have a soft spot for them." Overson was one of three senior players released by Burnley this week along with Nigel Gleghorn and Ian Helliwell. Gleghorn has already fixed up a teaching and coaching job and will continue his footballing career as player-coach of ambitious Unibond League club Altrincham.

Former Burnley manager Jimmy Mullen has been offered a two-year contract by Telford United.

Telford have been relegated from the Vauxhall Conference but the club is confident that Mullen, who joined the Bucks Head outfit in mid-season, can lead them back from the Dr Martens League.

However, Mullen is also believed to be interested in the vacant manager's job at Second Division Walsall.

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