A class act
8:50am Thursday 22nd May 2008
Tom Burlison - peer, union leader, and exprofessional footballer - died on Sunday aged 71.
Owen Amos looks at his life, from FA Cup goals to the House of Lords and everything in between.
A Lord for 11 years. A Labour Party treasurer. A deputy general secretary of the General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union. A Freeman of Gateshead. But, like any exprofessional footballer, you imagine Lord Burlison of Rowlands Gill - Tom, for short - would prefer we begin with his most famous goal.
January 6, 1962, and Hartlepool played the famous, First Division Fulham in the FA Cup Third Round. Thirty Pools' fans even chartered a plane south. Fulham were 3-0 up when Tom was in the box against George Cohen, the England full-back and future World Cup winner.
"I found myself in the area with the ball and somehow it got through the legs of Cohen," Tom told The Northern Echo in 1993. "I'd only Tony Macedo (the Fulham goalkeeper) to beat and did it with my usual calm and panache. It didn't inspire a late rally, but it was quite memorable. If I'd stopped to think about it, I'd have missed."
Tom was born in Edmondsley - just north of Durham - in 1936, the son of a miner. He signed for Lincoln City in 1953, before arriving at Hartlepool in 1957. He played 148 league games in seven years, scoring five times.
Shortly after nutmegging George Cohen, Burlison and Hartlepool - or Hartlepools, as they were known - went to Wrexham. They lost 10-1. No one flew to watch. "It snowed like hell, Wyn Davies (the Wrexham forward, who went on to play for Newcastle and Manchester United) leaping round all over. A bit humiliating, that."
Already a panel beater, he left football in 1964 and worked at Hardy's furniture shop, Seaham Harbour. In 1964, Lol Morgan persuaded him to play for Darlington. He played 26 times - including an FA Cup tie against Arsenal - and scored twice, including a goal at Aldershot in his final game.
He was a half-back - midfield in today's money - though played everywhere "except centre half and goal". He said in 1985: "I was usually half way between back at Chester-le-Street when I should have been in the attack at Bradford."
When he left Darlington, aged 28, he'd completed a three-month job as GMWU recruitment officer and was offered a permanent post. This despite being, in his own words, a "shy lad". "It's a deficiency, and it remains," he said in 1993. "I still have to force myself to do things. I'm not a natural on television, nor the world's best speaker. There are two ways to be a trade union official - one is to be a table thumper, and the other is to be a carer. I was able to fulfill it in the quiet fashion that suited me."
The carer's career took him through the GMWU, becoming general secretary in the North, which covered Cleveland, Durham, Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, and Cumbria. He was also chairman of the regional TUC and, in 1985, ran for national general secretary of the GMWU.
Before the vote, a Northern Echo profile said: "The squat ex-professional soccer player has the physical presence of a little bull and the mental agility and charm of a matador.
To his members, he's still Tommy, one of the lads." The leader column said "he represents the human side of trade unionism", and tipped him to improve the country's "appalling industrial relations performance".
He lost to John Edmonds, but continued climbing the union and Labour ladder. In 1987, he helped run Neil Kinnock's failed general election campaign.
"Heavy defeat at the polls didn't dim applause for the campaign," The Northern Echo wrote. He became Mr Edmonds' deputy in 1990 and, in 1992, was elected Labour party treasurer - with 3,307,000 votes.
In 1991, he was tipped to stand as Labour's candidate in Sunderland North, but preferred to carry on his union work. Six years later he was in Parliament, on the House of Lords' red benches. The Echo asked if he was the first professional footballer to become a lord. As it wasn't mentioned again, we presume he was.
Tony Blair picked Burlison alongside other Labour supporters, including Ruth Rendall and film producer Sir David Puttnam. Delia Smith, apparently, turned it down at the last minute. No chance of Tom doing the same.
A year later, he was off the bench and on to the sports pitch. This time, strangely, the baseball diamond. The Durham Saints, newly formed, asked the "celebrated guest" to throw the first pitch in their Northern Conference game against Sheffield Bladerunners. It probably didn't match scoring in front of 18,000 at Fulham.
IN 1997, as well as his lordship, he became honorary life president of Hartlepool United.
It's not known which honour pleased him most. Six years later, though, he was omitted from a top ten of Pools' "celebrity fans" in the programme for Rochdale at home. Included, among others, were Iron Maiden guitarist Janeck Gers (third), Alan Shearer (eighth) and Peter Mandelson (ninth). "There was no place at all for Lord Burlison of Rowlands Gill," wrote The Northern Echo. "Particularly unfortunate seeing as he was the only one who was there."
Wherever he lived, he remained a North-East lad with a North-East accent. When running for the GMBU's top job in 1985, he said: "I've got a grass roots background. My father, a miner, died from a disease of the chest. If I get the job, one thing I could not forget and would not forget is my roots in the North-East. I would use any opportunity which became available to project and assist the North."
In 1993, The Northern Echo wrote: "It is hard, impossible, to imagine a nicer chap." The interview was done in London on Budget Day, over dry white wine and beer. "I'll tell you what,"
said Tom, as our interviewer departed for the last train North. "I wish I was going back up home with you."