Billy Joe Burns has scored a few special goals down the years. But the veteran defender reckons the one he hit last week against Bruno Magpies to take Crusaders into round two of the Europa Conference League is up there with his best.
Stephen Baxter’s boys produced a stunning performance to turn around a 2-1 first-leg deficit to claim a famous 3-1 victory, courtesy of strikes from Paul Heatley, Jude Winchester and that belter from Burns.
“I’ve scored a few good goals in my day. They don’t come that often, but that one us up there with the best,” he laughed.
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“A few of the boys said that I was away celebrating even before the ball went over the line. It was one of those ones that when I hit it, I knew where it was going.
“My first touch was actually quite bad, but when you are in those positions, you have to focus on getting your head over the ball and trying to get a good connection. Nine times out of 10, they end up on the motorway behind the ground.
"Thankfully the underside of the crossbar was there to stop it and the ball finished in the net.”
The big prize for the Shore Road boys is a money-spinning outing in front of 30,000 fans against crack Swiss side Basel at St Jakob-Park tonight.
“We are looking forward to it,”said Burns.“They are a top European team; they have been about the Champions League and the Europa League for years.
“When you are kid, playing in games like that is the stuff you dream of. You want to play against the big European teams. We want to enjoy every minute of it.
“Being realistic, it will be difficult to get through this round, but we’ll go there and give it our best. It’s great for the League in general that ourselves and Linfield got through a round.
“It shows how far the Irish League has come because we are now expected to get through to the second round in European football.”
Burns is expected a different type of challenge against Basel after Magpies arrived at Seaview ready for war.
“They were not a typical European side. If anything, they were laying the boot into us. They were getting into our faces, but we are an Irish League team, we are used to that.
“They perhaps caught us off-guard out there (in Gibraltar). It was difficult playing in the intense heat, so to come away with just a goal in arrears, it gave us a good chance to go through.”
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