99% sure of safety

Last updated : 08 April 2013 By Dave Thomas

Sean Dyche said it was very much the complete performance. I suppose it was. It had everything we wanted and then everything we’ve come to expect – with the addition of one or two extras, including the linesman going head over heels when he tripped. Being the simple folk we are it was the kind of thing that makes us guffaw and gets a million hits on Youtube.

Marney was back and what a massive difference that made. It was as if he’d never been missing with his non-stop running, interceptions, smart tackles and general meanness. No coincidence maybe that McCann had his best game for weeks alongside him. Again it was both Vokes and Austin up front though neither scored. Both of them on a better day would have had two each.

Dean Marney was back and made a massive difference

Chances came thick and fast especially in the first 20 minutes when it looked like a cricket score was on the cards. Not many teams have come to Turf Moor as poor and bereft of ideas and skill as Bristol City. Take Adomah out of the side and they have nothing. It’s a mystery to me why he is still at City and hasn’t been snapped up by a better club.

So: in that opening spell Burnley ripped ‘em apart and should have had four goals in the bag. Heaton the Bristol keeper made two or three stunning saves. They didn’t score and so poor were Bristol that you just knew they’d scoot up the field (in the shape of Adomah) and score. It was in a period of play that had become dull and tedious after Burnley had lost their buzz and I was reading the programme. Suddenly Mrs T was digging me in the ribs and when I looked up there was Albert galloping through with Mills in his slipstream. With Albert by now in the penalty area and Mills gasping for breath, out came Grant with a fairly tame attempt at an interception. 1–0 to Adomah and City. The handful of City fans went mental of course. We groaned and feared the worst that the poorest side in the division would do a smash and grab. It had all the signs of a classic ridiculous result.

By now I was also glancing over to the Jimmy Mac area more and more. It was Ladies Day at the Turf. On Friday it had been Ladies day at Aintree. The Mail did a big spread of pictures with some of the Liverpool gals looking almost as beautiful as the horses. Whether at Burnley or Aintree most of these girls tottered and balanced precariously on heels high enough to give them a nose bleed. With the sun casting its warmth and bounty on the ground, lots of the ladies began to emerge into the daylight to watch the game, several of them probably too inebriated to know which team was which. As we’d driven into the ground several were standing outside the main doors of the Jimmy Mac in all their finery. That is to say what there was of it – most were in tight fitting, bare shouldered, strapless little numbers of all shapes and sizes. Is it sponsored by Matalan I wondered? Several of them looked strangely orange. Around them a haze of smoke gathered from the fags they were gasping on. On such occasions there’s usually a couple of injured players up there as attractions (I use the term loosely); although if they’re not injured when they go in, they might well be when they come out. I wondered who the victims were this time. Alastair Campbell was in there one year and confessed he’d never had his bottom pinched, fondled and patted so much in his life. A couple of years ago I went to Ladies Day at Beverley Racecourse. It was not a pretty sight seeing dozens of them well and truly blathered and wobbling up and down the terraces, and I vowed never to go again. There should be a law against it.

Meanwhile the game headed towards half-time and the Ladies headed back in to the warmth and sanctuary of the bar and refreshment area. Some of them looked like they’d already had a few too many sherberts already.

Second half and surely to God this would not end in a defeat? Three points were essential but this is Burnley is it not and results and pickings had been slim of late. The equaliser came almost out of the blue in slightly comic fashion. Did Shackell know anything about it? A Stanislas corner arced over, missed everyone and hit Shackell, from where we were, on the chest it looked like. Not even his best friend could possibly say he knew anything about it as it bounced off him and into the net. Behind the goal bosoms bounced and heaved in celebration. Some say he did head it, but Mrs T says not. And she knows best – she tells me.

Meanwhile folk ask how her thumb is. Well I’m still under it but it’s slow to mend. 10 hospital visits and another six to the physio. 

Once that goal went in a Burnley win seemed inevitable and just a matter of time… we thought. A cross from the right and at the opposite side of the box McCann was in yards of space and fired home. It was his first goal since – Bristol City last year. Two one and coasting, the sun shining and all looked good at the Ladies end.

And then yet again we sat back and let Bristol begin to dictate, not quite as authoritatively and menacingly as Forest had done the game before, but nevertheless there they were, the trademark panics, the hoofs clear, the kicking the ball anywhere with never a man up front in space to provide the target. Once again Adomah went into Bolt mode, skimmed Mills for the umpteenth time…   and just like Forest a penalty is given away – except was it? Mills barged Adomah well outside the box and made the tackle just outside. It was only inches but definitely outside the box. Adomah sprawled well inside it and the ref blew. There was a groan of collective resignation round the ground. Here we go again, we thought, two points down the drain.

But: the game that had everything provided the next thrill as Grant saved the penalty, this time choosing the right way to dive. With the pen saved the referee was forgiven his goof; had Grant not saved it and the scored levelled at 2–2 we’d have been seething at yet another incorrect decision and still worried about safety. High fives all round, Grant the man of the hour, Bristol’s fate sealed. And even then the complete performance wasn’t over.

Paterson’s goal happened so quickly it was impossible to appreciate the skill he showed.  The video showed a diagonal cross came to him as he lurked in the corner of the 6-yard box. Deftly, knowing exactly what he was doing, he calculatingly headed it against the head of the defender two yards away; he knew the ball would bounce back to him (how often must he practise this in training) and it duly did, whereupon he lashed it fiercely on the volley into the net. It was a goal that in the great scheme of things will go unnoticed, but if it had been Messi or Ronaldo, it would have been flashed around the world as a stroke of genius.

Managers and coaches scream at their players; “use yer ‘ead son… use yer f*****g ‘ead.” It’s a special player that deliberately uses someone else’s. Goal of the game… gerraway… this was my goal of the season. The cheek of it, the inventiveness, the inch precision was quite sublime.

Adomah: please sign him up Sean. We’ve had a procession of weak and ineffective loan wingers, and ‘bought’ wingers this last 12 months, the lad from Fulham the latest one that can be parcelled up and sent back. Thankfully Stanislas is at last emerging as a force. The Jamaican lad, signed by Howe, rumour has it, on the strength of a video, is now departed on loan to Norway. If he thought Burnley was cold, then he’ll have a shock over there. Adomah, though, is a one man demolition force, and has terrorised Burnley every time I’ve seen him play. Bribe him, tempt him; tell him it’s Ladies Day every week in Burnley. Give him an honorary UCFB doctorate. And anyway with a name like Albert Adomah he deserves to play for us. It’s the best footballer name since Albert Cheesebrough.

And speaking of Howe, it could well be that he’ll be back in Burnley next season as his team go second in Division One. It’s a funny old game. To my dying day I’ll say he was making a real Horlicks of things at Burnley; but back on his home patch, he can do no wrong at the moment. And Flynny won again at Doncaster. A weekend in Bournemouth next year with the Supporters Club next season should be very pleasant. Just the afternoon in Doncaster will be enough.

Down the stairs we went all smiles into the warm sunshine, an award winning beef and red wine pie at The Ram to look forward to. Let’s just say we couldn’t have played Bristol at a better time when we desperately needed three points and they duly donated them. We drove home 99% sure that the three points made things safe. In the programme an interesting stat; yet again Burnley top the table for most shots off target. Didn’t we head this last season as well? Before the Bristol game it was 231. If only 10% of those had gone in how many more wins would that have been? You can moan as much as you like about any manager, he can have them doing drills, and practices and routines and shooting day after day in training; but if they can’t shoot straight during a game, then it’s hardly his fault, or if a goalkeeper makes several stunning saves. It was the Burnley players that missed a hatful of chances, the Bristol ‘keeper that made some magnificent stops. It was Mills and Grant that offered only token resistance to Adomah when he scored. Yet at half-time in the Bristol game a group came down the stairs calling for Dyche’s head and the booing was clearly audible.

Another stat; Burnley were third in the poor discipline table with 79 yellows and three reds. Three more yellows were added in the Bristol game one of them quite needlessly by Wallace. Of Burnley’s 25 shots, 12 were off target to add to the total.

But: maybe this is carping when we should be jubilant now that Championship football is as good as assured again. To go nicely on the mantelpiece along with the Burnley win came the Blackburn defeat at Sheffield Wednesday. It was almost too much to hope for; surely they cannot mess things up and suffer relegation again. This isn’t gloating on my part; it’s just total astonishment that a club can be run so badly and lurch from crisis to crisis so frequently. Of course we make fun of the Venky’s and Shebby but surely they must have some idea of the mess they have made of things.  Surely they can’t be that hopeless – can they?