Footballers who have played league football for PNE & Southampton since 1888
A-K
BASHAM Steve (PNE signed Feb 99 – 68 apps 15 gls) (Soton 19 apps 1 goal)
BOGAN Tommy (PNE signed Oct 48 – 11 apps 0 gls) (Soton 8 apps 2 gls)
BROWN Eddie (PNE signed Aug 48 – 36 apps 16 gls) (Soton 57 apps 32 gls)
BURNS Francis (PNE signed Aug 73 – 273 apps 9 gls) (Soton 21 apps 0 gls)
FOLLY Yoann (PNE signed Mar 2005 – 2 apps 0 gls) (Soton 14apps 0 gls)
FULLER Ricardo (PNE signed July 2002 – 58 apps 27 gls) (Soton 31 apps 9 gls)
Francis Burns Profile
Francis Burns was born in Glenboig Lanarkshire on 17 October 1948 and joined Manchester United as a 15-year old in 1964. He broke into the first team at 18 making his debut on 2nd September 1967 in a 3-1 win against West Ham United at Upton Park. His first goal came a week later on his home debut in a 2-2 draw with Burnley.
He featured regularly throughout the season as the team's left-back and appeared in the opening seven games of the European Cup campaign up to and including the first leg of the semi-final when United beat Real Madrid 1-0 at Old Trafford. However, Burns missed out on the final against Benfica as Sir Matt Busby elected to play the more experienced Shay Brennan. Injury kept him out of the majority of the remainder of the season, though he did return to feature in both legs in the European Cup Semi-Final defeat with AC Milan.
Wilf McGuinness took over the reins at Old Trafford for the 1969/70 season and Burns became a permanent fixture for the first three quarters of the campaign and obtained his only Scottish cap against Austria in Vienna on 5 November 1969. Francis' United career was curtailed thereafter by a series of cartilage injuries and he left in June 1972, whilst Frank O'Farrell was in charge, for a fee of £50, 000 to Southampton. He made his final appearance in a 0-0 home draw with Everton on 8th March 1972. he had made a total of 121 league appearances scoring 6 goals.
Burns found it difficult to settle on the south coast and made 21 appearances during 1972/73 as Southampton
finished 13 in Division One. Although he didn't score in the league he scored a goal in a League Cup replay against Chester.
In August 1973 Burns signed for Bobby Charlton's Preston for £35,000 linking up with two other former Old Trafford colleagues in Nobby Stiles and David Sadler. He made his debut at Aston Villa in a 2-0 defeat and scored his first goal, a header, in his fourth league game in a 2-0 home win against Millwall. He was mainly used in a midfield role and although Preston suffered relegation to the Third Division he had played well during the season and deservedly won the player of the year award. In his first two seasons for Preston he only missed one league game. Burns captained Preston for a while and played a major role in Preston's promotion to Division Two under Nobby Stiles in 1977/78.
Burns played a total of 314 league and cup games for Preston and is 22 in the list of most appearances for the club .Burns reached 100 appearances in August 1975, 200 in January 1978 and made his 300 appearance at Swansea in November 1980 taking a total of 7 years and 3 months. His final game was also against Swansea in the last home game of the season losing 3-1 as Preston were eventually relegated to the Third Division leading to the departure of Nobby Stiles at the end of the 1980/81 season.
Burns played briefly in Ireland for Shamrock Rovers in 1981 before emigrating to Australia in February 1987, later managing the Western Australia club Italia FC.