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Steven Fletcher - gave us an early lead against Wigan
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Could you blame them? All of us knew that the fantastic run of home wins would one day come to an end. It was Wigan who brought us all back down to earth with a 3 - 1 win that they thoroughly deserved.
On a day of swirling wind and brief but heavy showers, and having gone behind to an early Fletcher goal, Wigan equalised in bizarre fashion, and then went on to dominate the game by the time it ended. Their support was threadbare but vocal, the away area only half full, but the football they played merited better. Martinez we knew from his Swansea days gets his teams playing football on the floor. At Wigan he has players who can play on the floor with all the qualities needed in the Premier League … pace, agility, strength, athleticism, movement - and gamesmanship. Then, when you have several muscular players over 6' tall, with giraffe-like legs long enough in midfield to stretch and win balls several feet away, you have a terrific combination.
Against Wigan, Burnley looked, by the time the game ended, like a struggling Championship side and you could well be forgiven for thinking this was the day the bubble burst. Wigan had all the attributes needed. They had beaten Chelsea and Aston Villa and drawn against Man City. They taught us a lesson. It was quite chastening. You don't mind when you lose away, we'd hardly expected anything different and from Chelsea and Liverpool and Spurs we'd still come away optimistic and cheerful. Nobody expected anything from those games, but to lose at home was different. Home games were the ones we were relying on and had come almost to expect to win having developed the 'fortress Turf Moor' feeling. Wigan came and broke down the walls.
There's still something quite music-hall about the name Wigan Athletic. You still can't equate them with being an established Premier League side. Dammit they were only founded in the 30s and are known as the pie-eaters. They had a decrepit stadium; they wallowed in the basement divisions for years. There's even a Wigan Pier. But they came and taught us a lesson and it was clear that they have a level of player ability that Burnley do not. Take Eagles and Mears out of the Burnley equation, and Burnley were pedestrian, laboured, and ponderous. Sure there were occasional passages of short, sharp, incisive passing moves that were exciting and had the applause ringing round the ground; sure we took the lead, but the essential second-half memory was one of eventually being over-run, swamped and being dominated by the long spells of possession that Wigan enjoyed. By the end there were spells of possession that must have consisted of 30 passes or more and their supporters acclaimed them with cries of "ole… ole…" It made uncomfortable viewing.
We didn't begrudge them this win. They have not spent millions; despite their Mexicans and South Americans and an almost all-black team, they retain a homespun, small-town feel. Of course they have more money than we do but you feel it is well spent and carefully husbanded. Barry Kilby paid them many tributes in his programme notes. They have an old-school chairman with old-fashioned values. He is down to earth, not afraid to be outspoken. "Marlon King will not play for us again, footballers should set examples," he said, the minute King was jailed for an assault on a woman. You think of the other big-name players who have somehow escaped jail sentences, taken back into the fold by their money-oriented clubs who should have been given short shrift and slung out on their backsides.
It was a bit of Blake magic on the left that set up the first goal of the day. Fletcher slid the cross home. It was a bit of Jensen hesitation that gifted their equaliser. From nowhere, with him stranded and nowhere to be seen, the ball was loose and driven home from near the edge of the box. At some point he had slipped on the greasy turf and then lay inert. Somehow an ankle had been ricked and after treatment and then a bit of hobbling he was replaced by Penny. It was initially difficult to judge whether or not the goal was the result of indecision and hesitation, or the slip; but then when replayed on TV it did seem that even though there was hesitancy, without the slip he would have comfortably retrieved the situation. The game was changed. At this point the game was still there for the taking but it was Wigan who took their chances. Before going 2 - 1 up Eagles had burst through with a fantastic run at pace, the goal was in front of him, the chance was on, but it went wide - finger-tipped by Kirkland said some - but not the referee.
There was a sort of inevitability about the goal that put Wigan 2 - 1 up. It came from a swift move, a lay-back and a shot from the edge of the box that went in off the post. On other days it might have bounced the other way. The head of steam that Burnley countered with, was relentless for several minutes but then the sting was skilfully taken out of it by a Wigan player who went down after a challenge, lay motionless, except for the odd twitch, for two or three minutes, was carried off, presumably unconscious, recovered, received touchline treatment - and then, strangely, bounded back on like a frisky gazelle. We think perhaps this was theatrical play-acting of the highest Hollywood Oscar order. Burnley were never the same after that. Although Carlisle hit the bar with a looping header, Burnley's steam evaporated; Wigan took over and from a peach of a corner that was whipped in, the near-post header was slammed home when it came back out to an unmarked Wigan predator. Where was the marking we asked?
Meanwhile Blake had faded into stark anonymity. The pundits in the crowd wanted to see the trickery and pace of our own South American. Instead, Blake was replaced by Nugent, hardly the paciest player on the planet. Sad too that for Jensen this was now two games in a row where he has been fallible and susceptible. This is not the same talisman who was so outstanding last season. Later on Eagles switched to the left, Elliott went wide right. Wigan were hardly troubled. Even the blundering, normally catastrophic, error-prone, bottom-heavy centre-back Titus Bramble looked good.
The drive home gave an hour for reflection. We knew that home rule would end one day. But what was abundantly clear was that Burnley in some departments were still very much a Championship side playing uncomfortably at a higher level. Passion and adrenalin, plus a vociferous home crowd, will only get you so far. Wigan fans said this was the best they'd seen them play this season. Of course it had to be at Turf Moor. Jensen left the ground on crutches but the News of the World with an appalling report, half of it blatantly vilifying Jensen, clearly insinuated that this was a faked injury. The club/Jensen should look to take legal action.
It was all such a shame that the celebrations of the previous evening could not be continued. It had been the Jimmy McIlroy book launch. Over 500 people had been there to eat Pie and Peas and birthday cake at a bargain £5 a head, listen to music from the Powder Jazz Trio, meet a few other legends who were there, and enjoy an evening skilfully held together by MC Jeff Brown "You buy one you get one free" of Safestyle fame. When I first mooted this book to Jimmy Mac 18 months ago his first comment was one of "who wants to read about an old has-been like me." He worried that no-one could possibly remember him playing or how good he was in his pomp. The fact that over 500 people turned up should have allayed his worries. Knowing Jimmy, so self-effacing, so embarrassed by it all, they probably won't have been.
But once again we saw what a proper little football club this is. Several weeks earlier I had been contacted by someone who wanted tickets for the launch. She told me how her mother in law, 93 years old Gladys Woodall still had a season ticket in the Bob Lord Stand and had been supporting Burnley for over 70 years. Good God, I thought, she must have seen Tommy Lawton start at Burnley. Wouldn't it be nice, she asked, if her mother in law could be made an honorary life member in recognition? Could I help, did I know anyone at the club? She had also written a letter, could I pass it on? At what other Premier Club could an ordinary fan ring up the chairman and suggest that Gladys be made an honorary member? At what other club would the chairman set the wheels in motion? Gladys is a fiesty character, no doubt about that. In the past she has berated the kiosk staff for not selling her a tonic water without the gin, and only family intervention once stopped her from a shoving a potato (she had just been shopping) up the exhaust of a car in her parking spot. When her grandson was once manhandled by a hairy policeman she and her handbag soon sorted out the bully in blue. He had met his match.
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David Nugent - seldom heard of since moving to Portsmouth for £6 million
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So, on launch night the Chairman made the announcement and Gladys met her hero Jimmy McIlroy. Of course it went down well. And not only that; it turned out that Margaret Woodall who phoned me in the first place and I had been at infants school together - SIXTY years ago, when she was Margaret Price. Life works in mysterious ways and how things sometimes happen can be quite surreal. Hmmm, like what I wrote about David Nugent in the Jimmy Mac biography. It was a paragraph about how modern England players such as Jenas, Crouch, Defoe and Downing would barely have registered on the radar screen in the 60s and 70s when there were so many great players. I mentioned Lafferty going to Rangers for £4million and Nugent ("a journeyman centre-forward") going to Portsmouth for £6million - "and seldom heard of since." The book was prepared for print, it was too late to change - and then guess what - we went and bloody signed him.
Old timers might remember David Burnside of West Brom who played throughout the late fifties and sixties. His funeral was in October. He was an old-styled ball player and great schemer of the Jimmy Mac type and the story goes he signed for West Brom because of the legendary Arsenal hard-man Wilf Copping. Copping who was made of iron and shaved with a blow-lamp always said, "The first man in a tackle never gets hurt." Anyway after his playing days were over Copping was trainer/coach at Bristol City and the young David Burnside, a trainee at Bristol, was told by Copping he had to be 'hard' to be a player. Copping growled ferociously as he said it and then began violently heading and butting the dressing room wall several times. Burnside said that seeing this was what made him sign for West Brom as soon as he could.
The next game at Turf Moor was Hull City, one of the bottom three clubs, and fresh with their accountants warning that they were in grave danger of financial difficulties and that those difficulties threatened "their ability to continue as a going concern," especially if relegation happened. Somehow, the report suggested, Hull would need to find £23million over the next 12 months in order to continue within current income levels. You reap what you sow, as the saying goes. Southampton showed the folly of vast over-spending and living beyond one's means. Hull received an early warning.
While we had lost, the bottom three had all garnered a point. Hull of course were brought to Burnley by manager Phil Brown, he of the perma-tan and glistening white teeth. I swear they twinkle and sparkle even in the dark. At Press conferences he often appears with a sweater or towel like a fashion accessory draped carefully round his neck. You half suspect he has a stylist round the corner. It's not his fault I suppose (or is it) that you naturally bracket him with Steve McClaren as a bit of a poser. Didn't the latter hire Max Clifford to help him improve his image when he was England manager? It didn't seem to help much. Who of us will ever forget the headlines after the Wembley game in the rain: "the Wally with the brolly."
Some games are massive. This was one. Lose this and the wheels were truly falling off and the slow slide towards the bottom three under way; which is of course where everyone expected us to be already. Hull arrived in turmoil. The chairman, Paul Duffen, handed in his resignation two days before the game saying that he took full responsibility for the club's poor position and that it needed someone to come in and shake up the snow globe and bring in a new catalyst. Translate that if you can. The day before that there was intense speculation that Phil Brown had left the club. This turned out to be unfounded and he responded by saying that the players were one million percent behind him. As a former schoolteacher I can of course say that this is mathematically impossible. Add to the mix a transfer embargo placed on Portsmouth because of unpaid transfer fees to other clubs, and it was all good news for Burnley.
The photographers were out in force in front of the directors' box. This could only have been to capture new chairman Adam Pearson (come to sort things out). If Hull lost, which they did, the smart money was on manager Brown being sacked. Cue terrace wit as the hordes lustily sang "sacked in the morning, you're getting sacked in the morning, sacked in the morning, you're getting sacked in the morning" to the strains of that old Latin classic Guantanamara, as Burnley established a 2 - 0 lead in the second half.
You had, however, to feel for Hull and Brown. When you're down, you're down and luck does seem to desert you. A generous penalty (said Hull) gave Burnley a 1 - 0 lead. A generous referee decision disallowed an equalising goal. And then a red card for a Hull player nicely finished off their misery. The 'equaliser' had team, bench and Brown ecstatic, the Burnley fans silently glum. Hull joy quickly evaporated. Burnley fans morphed back into life. None of this is to suggest that Burnley didn't deserve the win. Such was their superiority they might have had four or five but for the ball sticking under players' feet at key moments and last ditch tackles and interceptions. Some of the Burnley football was a joy to watch. They attacked down the right wing at will. Every player played to his maximum; Eagles had his best game for an age. Half of what he does ends up in nothing, yet all the time when he runs at defenders he causes panic and excitement. Mears was outstanding with searing runs down the flank, the two centre-backs rock solid, and Alexander on his 100th league appearance for Burnley scored both goals with an ageless performance The first goal being the penalty and the second a superb strike lashed home low along the ground from well outside the box.
What a crucial win this was and do you know what? We are only four points off the top four. The end of October, played eleven, lost six and won five… 15 points and almost halfway to safety and another season in the land of milk, honey, bovril and Holland's Pies.
