It's no longer easy

Robbie Blake - has he scored our greatest ever goal?

They date back to the 50s and early 60s when Tottenham were so good and their nearest rivals were Burnley so of course Burnley came up in the conversation a lot. They talked about Jimmy McIlroy and all the clever free kick scams that Burnley used so well. "We used to pinch a lot of them," said Cliff Jones. And then they talked about goals and one of the great games of all time when the two sides shared eight goals at White Hart Lane. Tottenham had gone 4 - 0 up but Burnley made it 4 - 4 and in the last ten minutes could so easily have won the game. Eight goals in a game; marvellous stuff thought the spectators, one of them Les Gold a Spurs man, who remembers Dave Mackay bowing to the stands when he scored and how Bob Lord was apoplectic with rage at this unsporting insult.

Cliff Jones said something about how Bill Nicholson the manager had once given him praise for a good game he'd had. Nicholson was the manager and was known for his parsimoniousness with compliments. "That's unusual," said Jones to him. "Remember son," said Nicholson. "A pat on the back is only two feet away from a kick up the arse."

Very often there's only a fine dividing line between a pat on the back and kick up the arse when it comes to scoring goals. A player takes a shot from way out; if he strikes it right it goes in like a rocket. Mishit it by a fraction and it can go sailing over the crossbar and how we moan. In their moments of modesty most footballers will say they just hit it and hope, as they score a screamer. Bobby Charlton always used to say his only aim was to hit the goal area as hard as he could somewhere between the sticks. If it went in it was a bonus. His target was one goal for every four shots.

It used to be such a simple matter - choosing Burnley's greatest ever goal. There were three contenders and it was generally accepted that Tommy Cumming's goal on January 19^th 1952, was the greatest ever. It even had a little book written about it. Taking the ball from the edge of his Burnley own penalty area he strode the full length of the field and let fly a rocket that was in the back of the net before anyone could blink. What made it so special was that Tommy was a centre-half and in those days they just didn't do this kind of thing. My father saw this goal and still talked about it in 1962 when Tommy scored another.

Then there was the John Connelly goal in the European away game at Reims in 1960. Burnley were under the cosh not just from the Reims team, but from dodgy refereeing and a crowd so partisan that no Burnley player felt safe from rockets being fired at them and bottles being lobbed. And that was just in the warm-up. John went on a mazy never-ending run that seemed to start somewhere in the suburbs of Paris and went on and on and he skipped tackles and evaded defenders and then slipped the ball home.

And then there was Ashley Hoskin's goal at Swansea in the 80s when things were so bad at Burnley that if you'd said then that in 2009 we'd be in the Premier League beating Manchester United 1 - 0, they'd have sent for the men in white coats, given you a sedative, and gently led you away to be examined. What a goal it was, as good as any you'd see anytime, anywhere, but seldom remembered or talked about because it came from a time when Burnley were in the doldrums, the wilderness and for sure it wasn't on MOTD or Football First. It's on an old dodgy, hazy video I have and I still marvel at it. There's certainly a case for saying that this is Burnley's greatest ever goal.

So there we are, until the final games of last season it was never a problem arguing about what the top three goals were. And even the youngsters who had never seen Cummings and Connelly would generally accept the wisdom of their elders even though Glen Little had once scored a contender.

But now it is just so difficult. What made me realise this was Robbie's wonder-strike against Manchester United last Wednesday night. Those of us who were there will remember full well how scruffy Stoke's goals were in the opening game. Typical Stoke goals they were, one from a free kick and one from a long throw, the latter a messy own goal into the bargain. Gawd imagine having to watch Stoke every week we all said and this continual hoofball they play. Effective it may be in keeping them up, but this was horror stuff, not for the purist and based as much on physical intimidation as anything else. Burnley showed last season that football can get results and already this season the pundits are echoing that view. Anyway, I wonder when was the last time at Stoke that anyone saw a goal of the class of Robbie's the other night.

I thought the goal he scored years ago against Preston at Turf Moor from a free kick 35 yards out was the nearest contender. But I always discounted it. Somehow, however, I can't discount the goal last Wednesday, and what will make it sit up in the memory in years to come are a number of things.

Firstly there was the sheer ferocious, savage, magnificent power of the thing. OK it was inside the penalty area but the utter technical excellence of the strike was text book. Fletcher tried something similar from almost exactly the same spot in the next game against Everton. His went wildy wide. Will Robbie ever strike a ball more cleanly? The cameras were there to record its flight from every angle (no movie camera ever captured Cummings' goal). The images were beamed to homes all round the world, pictures on front and back pages in every nation and city across the globe. Not just Robbie achieved instant world recognition but Burnley Football Club and Burnley the town. If one goal ever put a place on the map it was this one because it was a Premier League goal. It was the single, solitary goal that decided the result. It was never off SKY for days. A full house, millions of viewers, iconic photographs, T shirts, mugs, videos, interviews… it went on and on. The goal and who it was against and the final result made us everyone's favourite 'other' team.

But: I still couldn't decide if it was the top goal of all-time contender because then I got to think about Wade Elliott's Wembley goal and Pato's guided missile at Reading. If we say Connelly is top three because he ran half the length of the field at Reims then surely Paterson's must come into the reckoning. He received the ball from near the halfway line, he ran and ran and ran some more; the defence retreated, he ran some more, and then released a guided-missile shot from distance of such perfection and accuracy that it was simply outstanding. As it heads goalwards time seems to stand still every time I watch it and I am convinced that the goalkeeper must reach it - but of course he never does. For good measure it was a crucial game and it was one of the goals that took us to Wembley.

Elliott's was the £60million Wembley Final goal and if for no other reason then maybe that is a deciding factor; a goal that took the club from financial meltdown to stability and security, and football nirvana. Plus, on top of that it was a damned good goal in its own right had it been in any game. The long mazy run from the halfway line, the lay-off, the ricochet and then the precise curling shot into the top corner from distance. Could it have been more perfect? Take into account the occasion; that it was the one single deciding goal, the prize at stake and the virtuosity of the strike, then this goal too is up there in the greatest ever goals category.

Such a quandary then, what to do, what to decide; so maybe there is only one solution. We don't have a top three anymore, we have to have a top six. I find it utterly impossible to make any kind of decision on this. I suppose the only way to twist my arm to make a decision would be if I was offered £1million pounds to stop sitting on the fence. In that case, I think I'd go for Robbie's against Manchester United. I think it was the impact it had, the sheer unexpectedness, one minute in the air the next second in the back of the net. There was almost a vicious brutality about it. It was a goal that had us wide-eyed, open-mouthed with a did-that-really-happen quality it was over so fast. There was a nano second stunned silence and then the massive roar of acclamation and the stands shaking with the number of fans on their feet. Alex Ferguson was gracious with his praise afterwards and so was the media.

We've been so lucky haven't we over the last months? We thought it could get no better than Tottenham, Arsenal, Reading and Wembley, but Wednesday against Manchester United was yet another of the great nights at Turf Moor to add to the list and to record in the history books. It was a night that we will remember years from now and say "I was there."

The top three Burnley goals; I don't think we can have such a thing any more. We have a top six. And don't forget there's the 40 yard, dipping, swerving strike that Gudjonsson made against Preston early in the season. It's a measure of the significance and quality of the other goals that not even this one makes my top six. If pressed, really pressed, and it's very much a personal thing, I guess the new top three would be Robbie's, Wade's and Pato's. But please don't ask me in which order. Sorry Tommy, John and Ashley, you're still up there. But, tempus fugits as the saying goes. Time and history moves on. And that's the way it should be. The news boys are in town.