Anyway forgive the advertising break: but the Fletch book launch is on Thursday Evening November 1st in the Jimmy Mac Stand. There are still tickets available from reception in the Totally Wicked Bob Lord stand. I can’t believe I’ve just written that. Stan Ternent and Jimmy Mac will be joining several of the Team of the Seventies. Kindo and Mike King will be telling a few gags no doubt.
There was a Sunday night Sept 23rd deadline before we went away the next morning to get the Fletch book final read-through done and any last-minute corrections. That plus final picture layout and captions, again at the last minute. Whilst Mrs T finished packing, I sat glued to a computer screen trying to decide which is correct, ‘useable’ or ‘usable’.
You might be thinking how disorganised is that if it’s all last minute. Answer: that’s publishing for you. You work to their schedules and when they’re ready, and not your own. It’s been the same with most books. Anyway it’s always a relief to say that’s it, done, sent, out of my hands. The final email went to the publisher late Sunday. The taxi was due at 4 a.m. It was due to go to print on Monday, while the plane was in the air. Then you wait for the first hard copy to arrive and you skim it for the mistakes and typos that have still been missed.
There’s a bit in it where Fletch talks about Eddie Howe and the thinking behind the appointment: “The vision is of a young, hungry team that will respond to him, fed by a refurbished youth system providing a conveyor belt of players.” There’s more of course but there in a nutshell is ‘the blueprint’.
After the Leicester defeat (seems an age ago), on the message boards the debate went on about was Eddie Howe in fact up to the job, or should he be given all the time he needs to implement the blueprint. To replace Eddie Howe this early would be financial suicide was one argument; plus which this has never been a board known for quick decisions or ditching managers at the drop of a hat.
You could say Laws was replaced after only a year; so that was a quick enough decision but in fact it was a decision that was delayed twice to give him the extra opportunities to succeed, the first was 6 or 7 weeks before the end of the Prem season and the second in the summer at the end of the season when the wins at Hull and at home to Tottenham saved his job. He is now at Shamrock Rovers on a short contract which is exactly what should have been done when he was appointed here.
Far too early to judge Howe say some, wait till Christmas; look at Reading’s poor start to last season – and then they went on a fantastic run that took them up. Could we do the same?
After the Palace result it was hard to think ‘yes’ to that question.
There was a lot conjecture between the defeat at Leicester and the 2–1 win at Derby; but what a difference a win made. At 1–1, I said to Mrs T (not that we were there) they’ll win 2–1 today, it has that feel about it as we sat with Sky Sports News turned up full. Blackburn had lost at home, the night before. On 89 minutes Jeff Stelling announced: “And there’s a sting in the tail at Derby,” and I just thought this is a Burnley goal. And it was. Austin again; that lad is worth his weight in gold and a poacher of his class can score the goals that can paper over the defensive cracks. Thanks to him, it was a win of the smash and grab, daylight robbery, variety.
Kalkan was delightful as ever. The plane left Manchester early Monday morning. I spotted a couple of Clarets wandering round the airport lounge. Last time in Kalkan another was wandering round the market but too far away to holler, “Up the Clarets.” It’s a fantastic open-air market much of it covered in canvas to give shade from the 30+ temperatures – sorry just had to drop that in. The nicest café/restaurant for me was right by the harbour entrance. I sat there in the shade of the awnings, comfy chairs, Full English, and coffees and snacks while the ladies decamped to the shingly beach just a few yards away. The café: perfect for reading the newspapers or a book while fishing boats, cabin cruisers and schooners swished in and out. I get bored on a beach; I’m much happier eating and watching the world go by. For some reason I’d lost nearly a stone in the last few weeks so I’d no guilt feelings about guzzling breakfasts in Kalkan.
I wondered what I’d come back home to; progress in the Carling and three League wins maybe, or surely two home wins, to rocket us into the top six. I should have known better. We got back with Burnley leading scorers in the Championship, averaging two goals a game and Charlie Austin having scored an astonishing 15 goals already. With stats like that you’d fancy us to be top six at least. But this is Burnley. Er um we were actually jointly, along with several others, just one place above the bottom three and Charlie’s goals were being eclipsed by defensive cracks becoming far too wide to paper over.
A chum texted the Swindon score. You just knew they’d lose there with Di Canio turning on a virtuoso touchline performance according to reports. From what little we gleaned from the papers in Kalkan it seemed Burnley were lucky to get the draw against Millwall. Once we got back home and caught up on website news it seems we were robbed by an abysmal referee’s performance. Two cert handballs ignored and a decent goal disallowed. That’s frustrating; at the end of the season the points lost because of inept referees can make the difference between staying up and going down.
And look at Coyle, he sent a video of poor referee decisions to the FA. It didn’t do him much good did it? Gartside gave him the chop having explained they had set targets. After ten games they clearly weren’t being met. Phil G wields the sharpest axe in football methinks. I wondered if he’d already contacted McCarthy. In a bar watching Sky Sports news I got talking to a guy from Scotland who knew his Scottish football inside out. To my astonishment it was he that mentioned the great conspiracy theory that has been much mocked, that Coyle at Burnley and Gartside’s phone call to Flood recommending him for the Burnley job was part of a plan to help him get his feet under the table at a ‘small’ English club before being taken on eventually at Bolton. I’d put that theory to bed long ago but blow me along comes a Scottish bloke who’d watched Coyle’s progress in Scotland and talks about it – funny that. Anyway true or not, nothing will ever convince me that there wasn’t contact between Bolton and Coyle weeks before he jumped ship.
Speaking of ships we had a couple of delightful boat days in Kalkan. One of them was memorable for the noise of a little phut phut engine as a tiny boat tied up alongside us miles from anywhere in the middle of a deserted bay. Just when you thought life held no more surprises we looked down and there was a bloke singing ‘just one Cornetto’ in his bobbing boat in the middle of which was strapped a huge freezer filled with ice creams. How that boat managed to stay afloat will remain a mystery.
We groaned again as the text came that said Burnley 3 Wednesday 3. The hat trick by Austin and his goals tally reminded me of something Steve Cotterill said that at Burnley we don’t get strikers who score 20 in a season because at 15 we sell them. As I powered up and down the pool like an Olympian the Imam was singing away on loudspeaker from the top of the Mosque tower down the hill below. This he would do half a dozen times a day the first coming at 6 every morning. The story goes that one of the Imams was so bad, there were so many complaints he was sent away to Istanbul for voice training.
You couldn’t get away from the John Terry news out there or Ashley Cole’s tweeting or the passing away of John Bond. He was much maligned at Burnley much of it unfairly. In the first few weeks of the season he was here, there was a home defeat (Crewe I think) after which the Board knew they had dropped one almighty clanger appointing him. After the game they sat in the boardroom until the small hours deciding whether or not to cut their losses and sack him. They elected to keep him. So who was at fault that season – the Chairman John Jackson for appointing him in the first place (it was very much his decision), the Board for not sacking him early on, or Bond himself?
Then I saw that Fletch has serious competition for his ‘Magical’ book. There is a new book of Les Dawson jokes just out as well. There was one I particularly liked:
“My wife’s a real treasure… I’d love to know where they dug her up.” Mrs T was not amused.
2–0 up at Palace our chum texted as I completed my thousandth lap of the pool (that’s a lifetime 1000; not in just one afternoon). Sounds promising I thought but then you knew as soon as it was 2–1 the game was up. The reports when we got back home made for sorry reading. Where do the problems lie, defence or lack of it; midfield, or lack of it, individual shortcomings; managerial inexperience; or tactical greenness? There’s a fascinating debate at the heart of all this; does a good manager make good teams, or is it just good players that hit a purple patch and make a good manager?
We left Kalkan reluctantly, bathed in warm sun. Alas the plane journey home was marred by the family from hell (or Wythenshawe) behind us. Actually there were three young families with between them six small girls all under-6, and for good measure a two year old. They filled the rows behind us like a swarm of banshees. The toddler screamed and wailed for the next 4 hours. As soon as they sat down the dads dished out chips and burgers they’d bought at the McDonalds. My heart sank as a pair of feet immediately began to kick the back of my seat. The noise was deafening. They were all from Manchester. Next to me were two ladies in their 70s; they’d been on a quiet Bridge holiday.
It turned out one was from Rosehill, Burnley, and the other from Clayton le Moors. The one next to me was a Burnley fan and we chatted for hours. I somehow managed to sell three tickets for the Fletch book launch at 30,000’. Just a shame I didn’t have a bag of books. Meanwhile the tribe of dervishes behind us never sat still for 4 hours; they climbed on the seats, fell into the aisles, shouted for sandwiches and generally caused mayhem and migraines amongst everyone unfortunate enough to be near – most of us OAPs trying to get a bit of shut-eye.
Anyway back to the Coyle saga. The fascinating thing over the last year has been the way in which he has been given such a free ride by the media and how seldom Bolton’s poor results were featured. But over at Blackburn, Steve Kean and his dodgy tenure were hardly out of the Press. Whilst Coyle, according to SKY, remains “much respected”; Kean is very much derided and was a figure of fun for months. It would seem that Coyle’s articulate image remains intact (outside of Burnley and Bolton that is) and his photogenic mastery of the media and permanent availability for an interview, an opinion or a quick soundbite, will I suspect see him in a decent job ere long. Henry Winter almost nominated him for the next Papal vacancy during and after the Muamba story.
I’m firmly in the camp that thinks he has got his just deserts; but nevertheless the images of Wembley 2009 and the run up to it, plus those first few great months in the Prem will never go away. By some fluke he was the right man with the right bunch of players at the right time at Burnley – so amen to that. I can’t see it being repeated.