WHEN Burnley's third choice keeper Tony Parks went on loan to Doncaster last week, he didn't realise he would be playing in one the struggling club's most important games ever. Pete Oliver asked him how it went.

THEY may be bottom of the Nationwide League and in an absolute mess off the pitch, but Tony Parks still jumped at the chance of joining crisis club Doncaster Rovers.

With first-team opportunities limited at Turf Moor, the Burnley goalkeeper signed on loan for Rovers just in time to make his debut against fellow Third Division strugglers Brighton at their Gillingham home on Saturday.

Unbeknown to him, Parks was walking into a cross between a wake and a party as the two clubs most threatened with relegation to the Vauxhall Conference shared their tales of woe over past and present boardroom troubles and hoped together for a brighter future.

In his Press interviews after signing the previous day, it had been suggested to Parks that this was the biggest match in the club's history as they tried to close a seven-point gap on second-from-bottom Brighton.

"From an outsider's point of veiw it goes a bit over your head," admitted Parks. "But when I got out on the pitch and saw the fans and the banners and saw how emotional they were, you see what it really means to people."

Even if the depth of feeling hasn't been communicated on a national scale, a quick glance at the league tables and the list of managers employed by the club this season gives an indication of the turmoil at Belle Vue.

Parks said: "There are problems there. I don't know what problems or how they got them but it doesn't take a fool to know that you are not walking into the most harmonious of clubs. I can't sort out those problems but I can do my bit on the pitch."

And Parks revealed he had no hesitation about joining the cause once Chris Waddle offered him the chance to get some games under his belt. "It should be good for both parties," said Parks. "It gives me first-team football and hopefully Doncaster will be happy with the job I will do for them.

"If they get the results and points to help them out of trouble then I have done my job. I never thought twice about it."

"It's a good opportunity to get match-fit and to play in the Football League. All I want is to play football and it has been difficult for opportunities at Burnley.

"I think Marlon (Beresford) has done a really good job. The problem for keepers is that they can only play in one position. Myself, Marlon and Chris Woods want to play in the first team but Marlon doing well closes the door for myself and Chris."

Parks certainly fulfilled his part of the bargain by keeping a clean sheet in front of a crowd of 6,339 at the Priestfield Stadium to keep alive Rovers' faint hopes of narrowing the gap and subjecting Brighton to the kind of agonies they endured last season when they only preserved their League status by drawing at Hereford on the final day.

"There's still no substitute for first-team football and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A battling 0-0 draw made it a decent start for me," he said.

"They are still seven points adrift at the bottom but the lads were pretty positive before the game. In their situation, it's a silly cliche but the only way is up. They are long past worrying about the consequences because the more they worry the worse things will get."

Parks' penalty heroics in the 1984 Uefa Cup final with Tottenham earned him one of the game's highest honours but the 35-year-old still professed to feeling nervous before Saturday's game as the importance of the occasion and the prospect of another debut sunk in. "On the Saturday morning I got that buzz and felt nervous which was no bad thing. I wanted to impress the supporters, my new team-mates and the manager who had signed me for a month."

His list of previous clubs also includes Brentford, West Ham, Falkirk and Blackpool and what the future holds remains unclear once his current 12-month contract at Turf Moor expires in the summer.

"I would love to stay at Burnley," he said. "I have been really impressed with the place apart from the fact that I haven't played in the first team.

"Every contract is a bonus at my age. I want to stay in the game and I would love that to be at Burnley."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.