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At John Lennon Airport, Liverpool, the Lennon statue had been defaced. Someone had added to the inscription ABOVE US ONLY SKY.
Now it read BELOW US ONLY WEST HAM. "Probably done by one of our lads," said Evertonian Uncle Arthur. He had another little joke ready.
Rooney wants to see the chiropractor because he has a stiff back. So he phones up for an appointment. "How flexible are you," asks the chiro. "I can only do Tuesdays," says Rooney.
Rooney wanted to leave United and Ferguson looked devastated and browbeaten when he went public. If we were bored silly with the story of the Yanks at Anfield, then we were simply swamped by Rooney Tunes. God it was on non stop, incessant, never-ending, and analysed all day long, all night long, the same things being said over and again. But only one guy knew why he wanted to go and that was Rooney. Except - most of us thought it was something to do with him wanting more than £90k a week. Except - most of us thinking, ey up chuck, he's been tapped up.
And then almost as soon as it started it was all over! In a complete U-turn Rooney had made up with Sir Alex, Sir Alex was a genius, Rooney's worries had been answered, Rooney apologised to all and sundry… oh and now he had a wage packet of £250k a week for the next 5 years funny that.
I read Doug Ellis's book the other week, 'Deadly Doug'. He was the old Villa chairman for years and got his nickname on account of him hiring and firing managers, except he said it wasn't for that, it was because he was such a deadly fisherman. Anyway, he had one chapter called 'Tap, Tap, Tap', because tapping up was and still is so widespread. Just about every big deal that takes place starts behind the scenes long before the deal takes place. Burnley fans can be forgiven for wondering just exactly when the Owen Coyle/Bolton Wanderers tapping up process began and the first feelers were being put out.
But in our neck of the woods Rooneygate and the death threats he was receiving was only of diversionary concern. Our biggest worry was the way that Eagles was playing - and the vultures in attendance at Burnley games watching him and plotting and probably planning a January bid. Two years ago we wondered if he was all hype and just over-rated United reject. Now, it looks like the kid is coming good. £10million please if you're interested Mr Moyes, Hughton, Bruce et al.
"Unplayable," said Laws. If I were him I'd have been keeping quiet and saying the opposite to the Press. "Eagles hah don't make me laugh, bloody rubbish," he ought to have been saying after the Barnsley game to put scouts off the scent.
For Bikey the Reading game coming up must have had mixed memories. His tantrum when he was sent off in the play-offs at Turf Moor was just hilarious. His absense in the return leg made the win there so much easier. When he turned up for his first session at Gawthorpe with his new team-mates, they all ripped their shirts off; footballers' humour eh - nothing if not predictable.
But, there was no humour in the final result, Burnley 0 Reading 4: the weather was dull, the day was drab and Mrs T and me were stupidly looking forward to the game after the Tuesday night second-half fiesta. We'll never learn will we? Along came Reading, nothing special, nothing brilliant, just better and sharper than us on the day. They didn't have to be special; we were so awful that Accie Stanley Reserves could have come along and given us a walloping.
It was clear from the off that it was going to be one of those days, with a Burnley start that was sluggish and lethargic. Except it wasn't just the start it was most of the game. You could see something was wrong; passes went astray, Reading were first to everything, everybody was half a yard off the pace. And talking of pace, it was the lack of it that was the undoing of Cort, who, caught out and struggling to keep up, let his forward get past him and then brought him down in the penalty area with a poor tackle. From where we were it looked generous but if Cort was quicker, it would never have happened anyway. From that point on it was an uphill battle.
It was an uphill battle because time and again from Jensen's goalkicks Reading immediately regained possession. With unerring accuracy they went to Reading players most of the time. The rest of the time they were aimed in the direction of a static and immobile Iwelumo who struggled all afternoon to win a ball in the air whenever he had a marker in close attendance. On the rare occasions that Jensen did look to throw the ball, no one made a run. Eagles strangely spent a lot of the game in the middle or drifting inside, instead of hugging the touchline as he had done against Barnsley and Sheffield.
Absolutely nothing came off. Chances were there, opportunities did present themselves but the shooting was abysmal. Of 13 shots just three were on target.
It was pretty clear that most of the players on duty were one degree under but it would have taken more than a Beecham's to gee them up one suspected. From that it was fair to say that changes could have been made earlier. When Thompson and the lively Paterson did eventually come on it was too late. To compound matters Cort was sent off for a second tackle and second yellow, from where we were that looked late and clumsy. This was his first red card in the last nine years.
The pain and torture continued as Reading, who had lost on Tuesday, added goals three and four.
Who'd be a football manager? One night you see your team play superbly. Four days later you wonder if it can possibly be the same players. Fair play to Brian Laws he did not blame the referee acknowledging that half his team performed even worse than the man called Miller, whom he thought was diabolical. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer wrote 'The Miller's Tale.' What fun he'd have had with this plonker.
Ye Miller cameth the game for reffing...
hif performance fimply dire and effing...
twaf awfuyle for ye fanf to sit...
and watche thif uttere firft claffe twit...
Burnley might well have been awarded three penalties of their own by a different referee; Iwelumo brought down, Rodriguez taken out, Thompson shoved in the back. Throughout the game identical fouls were sometimes punished and sometimes not. The body check on Rodriguez was ignored; an identical one was awarded when it happened in midfield. All through the afternoon sometimes baffling decisions, sometimes infuriating, and cries of 'you don't know what you're doing'.
It was just one of those days; the end of an impressive unbeaten little run of 7 games where we'd seen some classy stuff and been so unlucky in other games.
What a shame it had to be the day that several members of the 1st Battalion Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, all Clarets, were at the Turf to see the game. For seven months they had been in Afganistan during whch they lost three colleagues including Burnley's own Jordan Bancroft.
At half-time one by one they walked on to the pitch to be presented to Chairman Barry Kilby. I can be a soft old git sometimes and I had lumps in my throat and moist eyes at the show of warmth and esteem that rained down from the stands. Say what you like about the rights and wrongs of the war in Afganistan but these guys go through hell, and none of them ever know if they will return. The applause rang round the ground from the vast majority of people there including the Burnley subs and Reading fans.
But wait, not quite everyone; two Burnley subs were barely interested. Why should they be you might ask? What's it got to do with them? These chaps know what they're letting themselves in for; it's a job and they get paid to do it; they shouldn't be there in the first place…
Well: maybe it's a generation thing but a lot of us were brought up to show respect to blokes like this. Maybe it's just that Paterson and Wallace are paid employees of the club and were just a few feet away from these guys. Maybe it's just the decent thing to do. Maybe it's a bit of the old headmaster in me that bridles when I see poor behaviour whether it's from someone who is 14 or 24. And the conduct of Ross Wallace and Martin Paterson was truly poor.
Whilst the Chairman of their club made each presentation, Wallace and Paterson, just a few feet away, were fooling around, rolling about on the grass, behaving like fourth-form schoolboys, practising cartwheels, handstands; displaying immaturity, insensitivity, and a gross lack of respect. And, what they seemed totally oblivious to was the fact that all this was in front of thousands of spectators.
Add to that dear old Bertie Bee misbehaving himself in front of the Family Stand making sexual gestures when he became aroused by the SKY TV girl and this was not a good day. Trust me I'm no prude, enjoy a good lewd joke, have a very earthy sense of humour and am certainly no saint… but there's a time and a place for everything… and sometimes not. The matchday experience today was not good. On balance, I think I prefer to see parachutists landing on the Cricket Field roof.
QPR still top with 29 points, Bristol City bottom, and Burnley 7th on 20 points; Rooney now on £12million a year and Steve Cotterill's Portsmouth with 5 wins out of 6.