Derby memory no yolk

DANIEL LAFFERTY: experienced the fervour of a Burnley versus Blackburn derby showdown.

A LIVE chicken thrown on to the pitch, an equalising goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time and subsequent accusations of ‘fowl play’... it will take something special at Spotland tomorrow to top manager David Dunn’s penultimate derby-day experience as a player.

The former Blackburn veteran of four clashes with neighbours Burnley, Dunn was born between the two towns and knows the capacity derbies have to divide the closest friends and family members.

Even now, in the manager’s own dressing room at Athletic, there exists a border dispute.

It revolves around that contest at Ewood Park in which the visitors handed over free range of their penalty area late on in a dramatic 1-1 draw.

Brought on to the field that day two years ago was Burnley’s Daniel Lafferty. His side had been reduced to 10 men in the second half and his task was to mark Dunn.

No wonder, then, that even now he echoes his manager Sean Dyche’s view on the day that the scorer was standing beyond the last defender at the most crucial moment.

“I came off the bench when we were 1-0 up against Blackburn — and the person who equalised that day is now the manager of this football club,” said Lafferty, creator of Danny Philliskirk’s own late intervention at Swindon which gave Athletic three points in midweek.

“I am sure he won’t mind me saying he was about two yards offside. He was playing on the right of midfield and I was at left-back, so it has been playing on my mind since then! Those matches are very passionate affairs”

Clarets fan Alistair Campbell had tweeted at half-time - with Burnley 1-0 up - that the “only real threat came from the chicken someone put on the pitch.”

That feathered intervention was part of a protest by Rovers supporters at the club’s owners.

At Athletic, the mood from board room to players is far more united, to the extent that like Lafferty, his Turf Moor colleague Cameron Dummigan would be happy to remain farmed out to longer-term if such a deal can be brokered.

Both full-backs are on loans that can be extended past their current end point of October 31.

“All the lads around the club have been good ever since we came here and I can’t ask for any more,” said the impressive Dummigan (19), who made his senior debut in Athletic’s 3-3 draw at Gillingham at the start of the month.

“The plan now is to play as many games as I can here, get my loan extended and then push on towards the first team at Burnley.”