Francis Burns Profile

Francis Burns

Fran­cis Burns, born Glen­boig, Scot­land, Oct­ober 17, 1948. Hail­ing from North Lanark­shire, Fran­cis Burns joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted straight from school in 1965 and sig­ned pro­fes­sion­al terms the fol­low­ing year. A re­li­able de­fender, he made his com­pet­it­ive de­but in a 3-1 Di­vi­sion One vic­tory over West Ham Uni­ted at Up­ton Park on the 2nd of Septem­ber 1967.

Fran­cis Burns ma­naged to es­tab­lish him­self in the Man­chester Uni­ted fir­st te­am the very next cam­paign, but un­for­tu­nately his soc­cer ca­reer was to be ham­pered by a series of car­til­age in­jur­ies in the time to come. In the sum­mer of 1972, the slightly built de­fender was bluntly told by Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager Frank O’­Far­rell that he had to seek his for­tunes else­where as he had no fu­ture at Old Traf­ford. Af­ter hav­ing played a total of 156 fir­st class ga­mes for Uni­ted, the thought­ful full back was sig­ned by fel­low Fir­st Di­vi­sion te­am South­ampton for a fee of £50,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1972-73 sea­son, but af­ter on­ly six weeks at The Dell, the in­jury prone play­er went down wi­th an­oth­er bout of car­til­age trouble. Fail­ing to settle down at South­ampton, he made just over 20 Foot­ball Lea­gue out­ings for the So­uth Coast si­de be­fore he re­turned to North­ern Eng­land to join Sec­ond Di­vi­sion te­am Pre­ston North End at the start of the 1973-74 cam­paign. At Deep­dale, for­mer Man­chester Uni­ted and Eng­land star Bob­by Charl­ton had taken over the once proud club and bo­th Da­vid Sad­ler and Nob­by Sti­les were on the books. Af­ter sev­er­al good years wi­th The Lil­ly­whites, the quietly spoken Burns mo­ved on to Lea­gue of Ire­land club Sham­rock Rov­ers where he fin­ished off his act­ive play­ing days at the end of the 1981-82 sea­son. At the age of 38, he emig­rated to Perth in West­ern Aus­tralia where he foun­ded an in­dus­tri­al clean­ing com­pany as well as work­ing for a loc­al ra­dio sta­tion. Fran­cis Burns Play­ing Ca­reer: Man­chester Uni­ted, South­ampton, Pre­ston North End, Sham­rock Rov­ers. Play­ing Hon­ours: UEFA Euro­pean Cup 1968.

 

Francis Burns Quickfacts

Fran­cis Burns played in six of Man­chester United’s Euro­pean Cup mat­ches in the 1967-68 cam­paign, but the Scot lost his place in the fi­nal to Re­pub­lic of Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Shay Brennan.

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