Mike Prosser writes an historical novel about the Wigan Lass.

Mike Prosser writes an historical novel about the Wigan Lass.

Special feature: Introduction by Don Hale.

https://donhaleblog.blogspot.com

Mike Prosser is a prolific writer with a very keen in interest in football, and especially for his beloved team Burnley FC. He has compiled several books about the club including Quiz Answers and Facts, plus another about Goalscoring Legends.

His latest work, The Wigan Lass, however, is a dramatic historical novel and seems set to be another popular topic, charting the twists and turns about a young girl growing up in poverty after WW2, with the author later gives adding a sporting mention following the eventual upturn of her fortunes, and the town of Wigan, linking rapid developments to the Rugby League and Football League Clubs.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mike Prosser is a plumber, heating engineer, author, and football statistician from Essex. He has supported Burnley Football Club since 1959. 

The Wigan Lass.

Born plain Christine Smith in Ashton in Makerfield in 1943, a poor young urchin, she became the black sheep of the family. With her two elder sisters and her hard working parents, they had all suffered the depression of the war years, but Christine felt left out of everything later in her early life.
Good times followed as well as many bad times, with their twists and turns ,ups and downs and sad and heartbreaking times which followed the deaths of many close to her.
The story also portrays the miners’ strike in the 1980s and the hardship the northern towns of England suffered. She also avoided near death in a car accident, having had her car sabotaged due to the jealousy of others who were never ever brought to book.
Having endured the pain and heartache , The Wigan Lass later came good and became a Samaritan in order to help others.
The town of Wigan and its success and changes, are also made clear with the development of both the Wigan Warriors Rugby League side and Wigan Athletic Football Club later in life.
The town discovered a new lease of life with many small businesses replacing the old mines that were now redundant. The story has a dramatic finale, which brings back memories of her early childhood and the things she’d dearly missed.

*This is a link to the Amazon online sales: https://amzn.to/3DRk9VR

Burnley FC History Quiz Answers and Facts.

Burnley Football Club celebrated their 140th anniversary, having transformed in 1882 from a small-town Rugby side, to one of the biggest Football Clubs in the land. 
When the local Rugby side Burnley Rovers changed to association football in May 1882, they were not even the biggest club in the town with so many smaller local clubs making the change at the time. Burnley as they were now known dropped Rovers from their name.
Eventually they overcame their early barriers with good fortune, hard work and belief to become the leading club in the town of Burnley. 
Six years later, they were selected as one of the six northern sides to represent the Football League in its formation of 1888. 
This fascinating book the records that 134 years later having endured 12 relegations and 11 promotions, two world wars, winning two Football League championships, and one FA Cup victory, that they also employed 29 managers and 19 Chairman, whilst registering some 5,018 League games played as of the 22nd of May 2022. 
They have also played in and won every division. This publication makes for entertaining and interesting reading, that will test the most ardent of Burnley followers with 500 history questions, answers and facts.

*This is a link to the Amazon online sales: https://amzn.to/3DJ4wjg

Goalscoring Legends of Burnley.

Over the past 130 years Burnley Football Club have had some sensational goal scorers, including in the 1890s Billy Bowes and Jimmy Ross. Richard Smith, a small and wiry centre-forward became the Club’s record goal scorer with 24 League goals from the 1907-08 football season. 
It was goalscoring phenomenon, Bert Freeman, who broke that record in the 1911-12 season with 32 goals. Then two seasons later he scored the winning goal against Liverpool in the 1914 Cup Final. In the early 1920s, Burnley had the likes of Bob Kelly and Joe Anderson before record goalscorer George Beel joined the Club in 1923. 
Beel broke many records at Burnley, including 11 hat-tricks and becoming top League goalscorer six times. He also scored a total of 188 goals from 337 senior appearances. His 35 League goals from the 1927-28 season still remains a goalscoring record for Burnley. 
Louis Page was also a prolific winger and will be remembered for the six goals he scored at Birmingham in April 1926. After World War II, it was Harry Potts who became top League goalscorer on three occasions, followed by Jimmy McIlroy in the late 1950s who scored 131 goals from 497 senior appearances. 
The forward line up from the 1960 League Championship winning side contained three natural goalscorers: John Connelly, Ray Pointer and Jimmy Robson who in the 1960-61 season scored a record 37 goals from four of the Club’s competitions. 
Willie Irvine equalled Jimmy Robson’s scoring record five seasons later. Andy Lochhead was the first Burnley player to score five goals twice whilst becoming leading League goalscorer on three occasions. Frank Casper also shared this honour a few seasons later. 
In the 1980s during a period when the Club were playing at a lower level, Irish international Billy Hamilton became top League goal scorer four times. Local born Andy Payton became the Club’s golden boy in the 1999-00 promotion season, when he scored a total of 27 League goals as well as becoming top League goalscorer on three occasions. 
Throughout the 2000s Burnley had Robbie Blake, Jay Rodriguez and Charlie Austin who scored a total of 28 goals from the 2012-13 season. This was followed by Danny Ings, Sam Vokes and Andre Gray from the 2015-16 promotion winning season, with 23 goals.

*This is a link to the Amazon online sales: https://amzn.to/4kOJeBs