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This Is Why We Had To Sell Him - Adamson
7 May 1971
Herschel Avenue, Burnley
That £190,000 feeling - Ralph Coates and his wife, Sandra in the front garden of their home yesterday with daughter Lisa.
From an article by Keith McNee:
Burnley manager Jimmy Adamson yesterday made a dramatic "please understand our position" appeal to Turf Moor fans only a few hours after the completion, in the car park of a Staffordshire hotel, of the record £190,000 transfer deal taking England forward Ralph Coates to Tottenham. Coates who gets more than £9,000 from the deal because he went without asking for a move, was meanwhile stating that if Burnley hadn't agreed to let him go on Wednesday he would probably have handed his new contract back yesterday and refused to re-sign.
Mr Adamson said that offers for, and inquiries about, Coates had been received at Turf Moor over the past three weeks. He said: "Because of our economic position we had to find some money and sell a player. We did not want to sell him, we HAD to sell him. Money received through the turnstiles is not enough to pay the massive wages that were required. Until the system is changed the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. Some method will have to be worked out of big clubs helping smaller ones like ours financially if we are to save this country as a competitive soccer nation."
The deal was completed in top secret, at about 8.30 p.m. on Wednesday with Coates and his Burnley born wife Sandra travelling to the Post House, an hotel just off the M6 in Staffordshire, to meet Tottenham boss Mr Bill Nicholson. Also present was Burnley chairman Mr Bob Lord, his Tottenham opposite number, Mr Adamson and Mr Dave Blakey, Burnley's chief scout. Ralph Coates said that it had been a big shock and it happened all so very fast. The first he had heard about the transfer was at 4.15 on Wednesday afternoon when he was mowing the lawn at his house in Herschel Avenue. Dave Blakey had arrived and said that Burnley and Tottenham had agreed terms for his transfer and not long afterwards Ralph Coates and his wife, Sandra, were in Dave Blakey's car on the way to Staffordshire.
