EVEN a Friday night shopping expedition to a Burnley superstore could present major obstacles for the Mullen family, writes TONY DEWHURST.

Jimmy Mullen's loyal wife Sharon can still picture the exact spot.

"We were just coming out from the frozen food section and the check out girl jumped out from behind the till.

"The lass was on her knees, kissing the floor."

For four years Jimmy Mullen could do no wrong at Turf Moor.

He delivered Burnley back into the promised land of the First Division and breathed life into a club on the critical list.

After two sensational promotions, Mullen would have given the Ayatollah a run for his money in the reverence stakes.

Yet, 18 months down the line from his Burnley exit in February 1996, Mullen is still searching for a route back into the game he gave so much.

"I can never forget Burnley and I never will. All those very special moments. Wembley, York, Spurs, Derby - points in my life that will live with me forever.

"Perhaps the most special day was when we were going up to Carlisle with a chance of winning the Fourth Division championship.

"I was stood outside the hotel in Penrith, which overlooks the M6, and all three lanes were a sea of claret and blue heading towards Scotland.

"If that wasn't moving enough there were all these Burnley fans sat in their cars wearing Jimmy Mullen masks.

"It was the strangest sight I'll ever see in my life.

"When we got to Brunton Park, Burnley had taken over the whole ground. I can remember peeping out of the tunnel and seeing all those masks again.

"My dad, who was stood besides me started weeping and that set me off."

Buried deep under that bearish North East shell, there is a affectionate, charitable and sensitive man.

And as the journalist nearest to him in those final few months, I know how much the parting of the ways with the club he adored hurt him emotionally. An intense love affair was at an end.

I can still picture the gaunt figure of Mullen driving away from Turf Moor for the final time on that snow-bound February morning.

But there is no question that Mullen still harbours a deep affection for the place. "I went down to see the physiotherapist one Sunday last summer," he recalled.

"I asked Andy Jones could I have the key to the players' tunnel just to take a look at the stadium.

"It was the first time I'd gone back.

"I walked down that tunnel and I thought about the new man coming in and thought 'You lucky so and so'.

"The ground looked fantastic with the new stands built up and all the special memories came flooding back."

It seems bewildering that Burnley's most successful manager since the 1960s currently has no permanent appointment in the domestic game.

Admittedly, there was the swift decline into relegation from the First Division with Burnley patently unprepared for the rigours of top flight football.

But Mullen remains philospohical. "I sometimes think to myself how many black cats have I run over," he smiled.

"I can't explain that, it is out of my hands. That is not for me, that is for other people to decide.

"I am a person who takes a lot of things to heart and football can reduce me to tears.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt when I got that telephone call from the chairman that day. It wasn't a great shock because it didn't take a genius to realise it was on the cards.

"It was a very sad day but I think that experience has made me a stronger person.

"But it hasn't diminished my love of the game. I'm hungry again and I'm itching to to get back involved as a manager."

Mullen admits he has 'found his life again' following the final trials and tribulations at Turf Moor.

Sharon, who Jimmy met during his time at Cardiff, bore the brunt of events.

"We'd sit in separate rooms," recalled Sharon.

"Jimmy would go in the front room and I'd sit somewhere else in the house. Jimmy just couldn't relax and we lived his every emotion. As a family we lived, breathed and finally shed blood for Burnley Football Club."

Jimmy recalled: "I could always rely on Sharon's support but I must have been horrible to live for those first couple of months.

"I took it badly and I felt I'd let myself and my family down.

"When I was manager it would be an obsession. I used to come home and think: Where, how, why?

"When I left I'll never forget people like Colin Todd and Brian Flynn, genuine people, who were on the telephone with little offers of scouting work.

"That put me back on my feet and I will always remember them for that." His 18-month sabbatical, broken up by a short stint with League of Ireland club Sligo Rovers, has given Mullen precious time to take stock.

He has toned-up his physical appearance - Mullen has lost a stone in weight - and looks as lean as a flyweight boxer.

He still turns out for the Burnley Veterans charity team and was recently coaxed out of retirement as a "handy, utility player," for Burnley Sunday League side Crooked Billet.

And a more serene attitude suggests a man more at peace with the world.

"Football is still all-consuming to me, but like most footballers, I love a round of golf," he said.

"But I'm also a film addict. I love watching films, that's a real passion, especially the old black and whites.

"I don't like the weepies but I adore James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, WC Fields and Charlie Chaplin.

"I found 'One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest' immensely moving.

"Seven was a brilliant thriller while Tom Hanks gave an exceptionally powerful performance in Philadelphia about a person with AIDS.

"I'm a great fan of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro too. Seeing them come together for the first time in Heat was very special.

But nothing can erase Mullen's achievements at Turf Moor.

"It sounds strange but perhaps I gave the club too much success too quickly.

"All of sudden the expectations were immense.

"But the one thing that still gives me most pleasure of all is that I was glad I gave a lot of people a lot of football happiness at Burnley.

"I'll tell you my favourite moment of all, though, and a heck of a lot of Burnley fans will remember it.

"The ball flew down the line at York. Mike Conroy crossed it and John Francis came flying in from nowhere to smash the ball into the roof of the net.

"That was it. We had won the Fouth Division championship. I got back to the dressing room and there was this bloke sitting there with a cloth cap. It was my dad.

"The players were singing: 'There's only two Jimmy Mullen's', then they chucked me in the bath.

"That experience at York had to be one of the ultimate moments in my life because it meant we had produced the best team and Burnley were back on the road again."

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