In games lessons on Tod Park when it was football on that mudbath of a pitch to which we had to walk down Ferney Lee Road from the Grammar School (we were knackered before we even started) you were either Ray Pointer, Jimmy Mac or John Connelly. But Connelly was so different from the rest. He was impossibly good looking with a head of combed-back hair that made him almost ‘hip’.
There was an Elvis quality about him and only once did I ever see him dirty and muddy and that was in the FA Cup game at Bradford City when he (allegedly) scored the two goals (does anybody really know – they were all covered in mud and unrecognisable) in the final minutes. On all other occasions he was immaculate and miraculously kept his feet in an aged when it was a full-backs job to re-arrange his legs and kick him into row Z.
I never saw him as a ‘hard’ man but surprisingly Bobby Charlton in his autobiography did. He was a truly class act and scored thunderbolt 20-yard goals for fun. What did Liverpool pay for Stewart Downing – allegedly £20million – Connelly would be worth five times that. Real Madrid would have broken the bank to buy him. And we haven’t even mentioned THAT goal at Reims. It doesn’t seem that long ago since all the ‘59/60 champions team were still up and about; and now one by one several are no longer here. I saw them all play from 59/60 through to the Cup Final and they were my boyhood heroes. When one of them passes away, a little bit of me goes with them.
After the fantastic Bristol result we were chuffed to bits because we’d booked for the Cardiff weekend with the supporters club. We sat glued to Sky Sports News that night for the updates. The Newport hotel looked great with a pool as well for a swim when we landed there on Friday afternoon. Luncheon was served on the coach in pretty little boxes with a see through lid and was accompanied by choice of red or white wine. Just 24 of us had a 6-wheeler extra-legroom coach to spread out in. All it needed was a hostess trolley serving Strawberry Daiquiris and life would have been complete for one of the blokes who begged to remain nameless when I said I’d be reporting on the weekend. Add to this the revelation that another bloke was a closet teddy bear collector and I began to wonder if I was on the right coach. Burnley Ultras this was not.
The sun shone; the countryside in this green and pleasant land was at its best. A stop at Upton on Severn the village that time forgot with its quaint little shops and stores. This, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness tinged with wood smoke from village chimneys far away at the foot of the Malvern Hills and then the Forest of Dean. Then: across the border into Welsh Wales, through picturesque villages, Pontypandy, Abergiveover, Pontypiddle and Aberbanana.
Dinner on arrival went down a treat and there was a big surprise: who should be sitting next to us but a lad I was at school with in Tod. Barry Shack (leton). We were at Roomfield Juniors together then Tod Grammar School. He was a free-scoring inside forward. I was a dashing centre-forward. How do you recognise someone from Todmorden? No they didn’t use them as extras in that Burt Reynolds film Deliverance. That was folks from Colne. Ask them do they know what Todmorden means? Anybody from Tod knows the meaning of the name – marshy valley of the fox. He answered without hesitation. I rather like one of the older names – Tottemerden.
Tod is also famous because local lad Miles Weatherhill was the last person to be publicly hanged in Manchester. He’d killed the vicar and one of the maids because the vicar wouldn’t let him see his sweetheart who also worked at the vicarage. Armed with four pistols and an axe in he burst in to wreak his bloody revenge. 100 years later Dr Harold Shipman murdered the first of his victims in Todmorden. In 1980 Tod was the scene of one of the world’s most famous UFO puzzles when PC Alan Godfrey was the victim of an alien abduction not far out of Tod on the Burnley road. Godfrey sketched a strange object in front of him in the road from the closest he could get and then experienced a ‘jump in time’ and when he came round there was a period of time he could not account for. There were burn marks on the back of his head and a gel like substance on the back of his neck just like those on another guy who had been found dead on top of a coal heap in the town with no explanation and a baffled coroner. Google Alan Godfrey for the full mysterious story.
A swim before breakfast on Saturday, a fine hearty breakfast, none of us had any thought of a win, a wander round Cardiff centre and John Lewis’s, all the Christmas stuff was out. Thence to the stadium and nary a sign of trouble or belligerence; this is an identikit, Lego-land arena, life and soul sucked out of it, without passion or atmosphere. Men of Harlech blasted over the tannoy as the teams came out. Barely a Cardiff supporter joined in. I thought the Welsh could sing a bit but not this lot - even though they had something to sing about – a decent side that got a dream start within minutes. A speculative long range shot; it hit the post and the rebound was slotted home with not a Burnley defender within yards. Had they been abducted like Alan Godfrey?
It was as if Burnley heads went down immediately. Any thought of a good result to add to the excitement of the Blackpool win and then the drama at Bristol, was soon dispelled. This was truly a damp squib of a performance, lax, lifeless, limp, lethargic and lackadaisical. This was back to earth with a bump and a resounding thud. By the end it was a rout.
The Cardiff manager, Malky Mackay, said it was their best display of the season – the complete performance. From Burnley it was the complete surrender. There was simply nothing of any consolation. Not one player had anything remotely resembling a decent game other than Stock in the first half and Vokes in the second.
By the time the whistle mercifully put us out of our misery we were shrammed and disinterested having seen three more goals conceded. The Burnley defence resembles the Maginot Line – you just ignore it. At least we were only an hour from the hotel, the bar and a good dinner. Pity the poor sods, we thought, who were heading straight back up the motorways having witnessed that no-show.
Back in the hotel room, Len Goodman on Strictly was berating one of the celeb dancers. “You gotta come airt n’ give it some,” he was telling the poor celeb that hadn’t done so good. He should have seen the Burnley performance. I daren’t think what Craig Revel Horwood would have said. “Just not enough swivel darling, just not enough swivel.”
If this was Terry Pashley’s last game in charge, we guessed he might have been relieved to get back to the youth work he loves. The talk on the coach was of who might be the appointment, Dyche or Holloway? Whoever: it needed to be someone who could come in and lift the place, we said, raise the bar, rid the place of some of the lightweights. Too many of this side are so easily brushed aside and lack any kind of physical presence.
Dyche, meanwhile, resembles a cross between a James Bond villain and an SAS veteran. If he can make us less of a soft touch and remind this team that the object of football is not to give the ball away time and again, then that’s a start.
The message of this game was a simple one; stop Charlie scoring and you’re halfway to beating Burnley. He got barely a kick in this game other than a speculative lob/cross/ shot that might actually have crept in. It’s a worrying thought; if his goals do dry up, what happens then.
On the Sunday morning I got the Wales on Sunday paper. “Burnley and Charlie brushed away with total contempt,” it began. That’s as far as I got. I folded it away and got on with the more important job of loading my plate with eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding, mushrooms and tomatoes. Next it was carefully slide the toast under the lovely runny eggs so that the yellow drizzled into the toast. You can lose 0–4 and still feel that all’s well with the world with a breakfast like that.
Sunday was dull and damp. Ross on Wye for a couple of hours on the way home was pretty much shut. Bolton had lost but there didn’t seem quite the same satisfaction now that you know who wasn’t there.
In truth these supporter weekends are less about the football and more about the eating. Late afternoon and there was another large meal back in Upton again. This time it was roast pork with all the fixings. The Focaccia that came with the mushroom and potato soup caused great consternation. Focaccia isn’t something that’s all that common in Burnley or something that’s made in great batches at Barrie’s Dolphin Bakery. Being sophisticated and a bit of a man of the world I knew straightaway it wasn’t cake.
For pud, the Chocolate Brownies with squirty-on chocolate sauce, topped with a blob of ice cream, were to die for. I slept much of the remainder of the journey home on a nose-to-tail motorway with thankfully no holdups and still no news of any new manager. Dragging on now, was the consensus although Sean Dyche seemed the favourite … or had been offered the job according to just about every newspaper… or was thinking about it… or was now more tempted by the Palace job… or had even been seen at Cardiff… or yes and he was bringing Ian Woan as assistant…. And yes he would be unveiled on Tuesday.
The intriguing tweet on Saturday came from Director Brendan Flood… “We have five director opinions… some ambitious… some cautious.” The ‘ambitious’ camp versus the ‘cautious’ camp, has perhaps been the story of the last two or three years at the club. Was it Holloway (who allegedly wanted £1million a year) the ambitious but financially complicated choice and Dyche the more straightforward cautious choice with no complications? Did McCarthy want £750,000 a year and to bring several of his own people in?
What is desperately needed at this football club now is some hope and belief and an injection of vitality. The last two years have drifted by without any real sense of dynamism or vigour. Bit by bit attendances have declined this season. Flood’s tweet was most definitely illuminating. Caution would appear to be the mantra despite the Rodriguez money and continuing parachute payments. This season I’ll settle for keeping the Championship place and the new man finding his feet and deciding how to stir the place up a bit out of its increasing torpor.
And the next supporters’ club weekend trip is to Brighton in February where everyone eats Focaccia and sips Strawberry Daiquiris. It should be a gud’n.