IT’S the summer of 1982 and World Cup fever is sweeping across Burnley.

The Three Lions are on their way to another early exit, but it’s the exploits of a robust centre forward in the dark green of Northern Ireland that is capturing hearts and minds around Turf Moor.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Billy Hamilton had already been with the Clarets for two and a half years when he jetted off to Spain, with Burnley teammate Tommy Cassidy also in Billy Bingham’s squad for the Green and White Army’s first finals appearance since 1958.

From the moment he arrived in East Lancashire Hamilton was revered at Turf Moor for his barnstorming approach to the game and his appetite for celebrating goals in front of the fans, but in 1982 he and his Northern Ireland teammates took the World Cup by storm, and everybody in Burnley was captivated by them.

Their campaign started slowly, draws with Yugoslavia and Honduras leaving them staring at a first round exit, but on the night of June 25 Bingham’s side were to cause one of the greatest upsets in international football history.

Hamilton turned provider, crossing for Gerry Armstrong to score the only goal as they shocked hosts Spain in front of 50,000 people in Valencia.

From a personal point of view things would get better for Bingham in the second round group stage, scoring two goals in the 2-2 draw with Austria, but it wasn’t enough to see the underdogs through to the semi-finals.

“From a team perspective I will always remember that performance against Spain,” said Hamilton, now 57, “it was the probably the best team spirit and camaraderie that I have ever been involved in.

“But from a personal point of view to get two goals to keep us in the running against Austria was pretty special. One was a great team performance and the second was a great individual memory, to score two goals in the World Cup was an incredible feeling.”

The win against Spain was enough to see Northern Ireland through to the second group stage, where they came up against France, as well as Austria.

With only the team finishing top of the group going through, Hamilton’s double against Austria kept them in contention, but a 4-1 defeat to France on July 4 ended their World Cup adventure.

Hamilton returned to Burnley and the impact his exploits in Spain had had on the fans of his club side soon became clear.

“A couple of supporters told me it was the first time they had had someone to watch in a World Cup since the 1960s,” he said. “I think they liked having a Burnley player to watch and support in a World Cup, and Tommy Cassidy was in the side as well so there was two Burnley players there.”

Speaking from the trophy and engraving shop he has owned in the County Down town of Bangor since 1996, Hamilton does have one gripe about the 1982 tournament.

Officially he ended up with two goals, while Armstrong was credited with three, leaving him as fifth top scorer in Spain, alongside Brazil’s Falcão and France’s Alain Giresse.

But 32 years on Hamilton is keen to point out that it should be himself who was his country's top scorer, not Armstrong.

“I actually scored three goals in that tournament, which not a lot of people know,” he points out.

“When we played France we were 3-0 down and going out and Gerry Armstrong had a shot which was going wide, but it hit me on the ankle and went in.

“Gerry claimed it and he ended up our top scorer with three goals, but it was actually me that got three. We were out and I wasn’t too bothered about it, but I have a bit of banter with him now about it.”

Hamilton’s Burnley adventure came to a conclusion at the end of the 1983/84 season, and he moved on to Oxford for £95,000 plus Neil Whatmore.

But his career for his country, which took in 41 caps and five goals, was far from over, and in 1986 Northern Ireland were back at the World Cup, this time in Mexico.

Hamilton was still only 29 but he wasn’t fully fit and admits he struggled in the heat, with matches played at high altitude in temperatures that regularly went well beyond 30 degrees.

He started the first game, a 1-1 draw with Algeria, but came off the bench in the last two games, as Spain took revenge for 1982 with a 2-1 win, and then Brazil won 3-0 in the final group game.

“I had moved on to Oxford by then and I was struggling with injuries,” said Hamilton. “Billy Bingham told me to come to the training camp in Albuquerque and if I coped with that I could go on to Mexico. But in truth I was only about 90 per cent fit at most, and at that altitude and heat it was hard work when you were 100 per cent fit.

“We were a high energy team, we based our game around pressing and getting in the faces of the opposition, but we couldn’t do that in the heat of Mexico. You had to try and slow it down and play a more controlled game in the conditions, using short bursts, but we couldn’t really adapt to that.”

Hamilton’s international career came to an end three years later, and Northern Ireland haven’t been back at a major tournament since those heady days of the early-to-mid 1980s.

He played eight times at a World Cup finals, with teammates Jimmy Nicholl, Dave McCreery, Norman Whiteside and Sammy McIlroy the only other players to feature in every game of the 82 and 86 campaigns.

But Hamilton is in no doubt which side ranks as the best in his eyes, and it is between the 1958 and 1982 vintage for the title of Northern Ireland’s greatest ever team.

“In 1982 it was the best Northern Ireland squad I’d ever been involved in,” added Hamilton, “there were some great players in that team, Sammy McIlroy, Martin O’Neil, Norman Whiteside, Pat Jennings, the team almost rolls of the tongue still, it made for a really strong team.”

And from June 17 to July 4 in the summer of 1982 it was a strong team that had more than a few fans in East Lancashire glued to every game.