New supporters' clubs leapt up like spring flowers at the beginning of the season, Sussex Clarets, Solent Clarets, and Cumbria Clarets; but the Burnley Football Supporters' Club is one of the longstanding bedrocks of Claret travelling support.
You want a seat on their coach; you ring Joyce and Stefan. They organise coaches to every away game and perhaps twice a season for a long weekend, more often than not for a London game. They don't get paid, they probably don't get many thanks and I bet they've never had a letter from the club to thank them for their efforts. There are others like them at a whole host of supporters' clubs.
What would football clubs and fans do without players like Chris Eagles? Life would be dull without them. There is no denying the lad has some talent and it was used to good effect in the promotion season. Brought on in short inspired bursts he did damage to tiring teams, scored key goals, and on occasions had moments of real impact.
I hesitate to say that he is typical of the modern footballer with his styled hair, designer clothes, the green boots, the Hollywood smile, and the Alice-band. He isn't. For every Chris Eagles there is, in fact, a legion of lower league players, maybe even a few Championship players, who lead normal lives, who are in no way glamorous, and whilst not exactly on the bread-line, have bills to pay just like the rest of us, are married with two kids and drive three-year old family saloon cars.
But Chris is not exactly average in his image. He came from Manchester United where he was a starlet. He went on to continue the mode at Burnley, humble, homely Burnley, where the average wage in the town is not much more than ten shillings and sixpence a week, some older folk are still deaf from working in the mills long ago, and it is not that long since people stopped wearing clogs.
So, what did he do at the beginning of the season? Well: he turned up for first-day training in a flash Lamborghini, a style of car just about de rigueur at Old Trafford, but a car just about as out of place in Burnley as a fur coat in Egypt.
The price of the car would have bought a street of houses in Burnley. Reports vary between £140,000 and £150,000. (The great Jimmy McIlroy, by the way, has a battered old car that is ten years old if it is a day and worth just £2,000 under the Government scrappage scheme).
But, and here's the fun bit, what happened when Eagles first bought his Lamborghini Gallardo, was that he was pulled up by police (said The Sun) and the car was taken off him because he had no insurance. And there he was, not best pleased, by the roadside left to fend for himself - and it's a rare Premier League player (don't forget we are in the Prem, it still seems unreal) these days who can fend for himself, what with their minders, go-fers, managers, hangers-on and agents.
Anyway, he eventually got it back and was thus able to make his way to the BFC car park where he parked it alongside Michael Duff's more domestic Ford Focus. Sometimes in football, fact is dafter than fiction.
The pre-season tour of Scotland took place in August and that was after the Haluks had already organised coaches to friendlies at Bradford City and Morecambe. The Scotland tour was a six-day affair with two games, one at Kilmarnock and the other at St Johnstone. It wasn't just the two football matches to think about though; there were excursions and sightseeing days to plan as well.
The coach left Turf Moor on Tuesday Morning August 4th and headed for a lunch stop at Dumfries. The players had already been on a gruelling trip to the far west of the USA. A training trip to the east coast of the USA isn't that much of a journey these days, but west to Los Angeles, comprises something like 9 hours to Atlanta and then another five to LA and that's not counting all the hanging about in airports. Other than the two games they played the highspot apparently was the buffet at the Beverly Hills Hotel where they were joined by Paul Fletcher and Brendan Flood, our very own Del Boy and Rodney, plus the chairman on his honeymoon with Mrs Kilby.
Had it been Manchester United tucking into the Chinese banquet heads might have turned in their direction. As it was, nobody had the faintest idea who Burnley FC were, and the Chairman apparently had no idea that he was in the exalted company of Scarlett Johansson sitting in a corner of the restaurant.
Somewhere underneath the palm trees Jose Mourinho, Sandra Bullock and Barry Manilow were also lurking in residence. Our footie heroes were advised not to bother them and ask for autographs as these celebrity folk do like their privacy.
In Scotland the new signings were on view, Easton, Eckersley, Fletcher, Edgar and to our great delight the Ecuadorian Ferraro Ferrari Fernando Guerrero. There hadn't been a flurry of signings in this quantity since the days of John Bond - but whilst he specialised in searching out old worn-out veterans (Gerry Gow anyone?) and crocks (Joe Gallagher he of the wonky knee), this 2009 batch were young, talented, lean (perhaps lean is a bit flattering to Easton) and hungry. Eckersley was another one of the young starlet-breed from Manchester United unable to break into the first team there on a regular basis.
He was clearly delighted to be joining Burnley to get first-team football. "I was delighted to sign… although after Man United the only way is down…" he said. Thanks a bunch lad… there must be a compliment in there somewhere.
Anyway, hoping we'd see better displays in Scotland than we did against Leeds, lunch stop in Dumfries for me and Mrs T was the restaurant in the Robbie Burns Museum. I don't know about you but I've always found Robbie Burns to be the most over-rated poet in the English language. Ah, but there's the problem, he writes in Scottish, and half of it is indecipherable and incomprehensible to a Sassenach like me. I'll say no more, the Scottish contingent at Turf Moor gets bigger by the day.
Our hotel was in Irvine and from our time there on a previous pre-season tour we knew the food was good, the beds comfy, and the armchairs in the reception lounge soft and inviting. What more do you want? A well stocked bar I suppose is the answer. Most people found it without difficulty.
We were there for five nights - does he mean the hotel or the bar I hear you ask? With just two friendly games that left plenty of time for trips and visits. In my other life as a teacher years ago I organised more coach trips for the school I worked in than I care to remember. It's a big responsibility. Now, it was sit back and be organised by someone else who had the running round to do. Who else but Joyce Haluk? It was rather nice.
The itinerary was varied.
Tuesday: Travel - with lunch in a rainy Dumfries.
Wednesday: Visit the Auchentoshan Distillery near Erskine Bridge, then on to Loch Lomond… very generous full measure free samples of several brews in the bar area. Some folk came out almost Auchensloshed. At Loch Lomond snooze in the afternoon sun by the water's edge.
Thursday: Round of golf in the morning around the hotel pitch. Visit coastal Ayr in warm sun and snooze for an hour on the soft sandy beach. From Ayr to Kilmarnock for the football match. Of the match we shall say little, for there was little to keep one awake.
Friday: The short journey to Gourock. Board the ferry and cross the Clyde to Dunoon. Afternoon in Dunoon, a sleepy little seaside town… snooze in the sun again.
Saturday: To Perth for the afternoon football match against St Johnstone. Of this football match too we shall say little for there was little to excite the palate other than little Robbie and the electric Ecuadorian who lit up the dullness when he came on.
Sunday: Home via a visit to the New Lanark World Heritage Site where philanthropist and all-round good egg Robert Owen looked after his workers in the 19th century. By good egg we mean that they only had to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. (Cogitate on that all you spoiled, molly-coddled footballers, who scribble-something-indecipherable when asked for an autograph, and think it's clever).
Set out with such brevity and simplicity the itinerary gives no notion of the effort involved in organising it all or the attention to detail that make these pre-season tours a success. It's generally the same 30/40 or so people who join the trip. You get to know the faces, make good friends, swap stories, and enjoy the banter. These trips are a great leveller. We're just all football fans, Burnley supporters… on a tour like this almost a family. Joyce Haluk is mother hen.
"Right then, anyone fancy a brew," means we are on a stretch of road, motorway usually, where she and Stefan can get the refreshments going in the coach galley area. Galley is a bit of an exaggeration. It's just a squashed space in the middle of the coach where by the miracle of modern technology (and Stefan's contortions) a bit of hot water turns powder into something resembling coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate or soup.
If Chairman Barrie is on board for a weekend trip setting off on a Friday there will be a box of sandwiches and cakes for each passenger. If Barrie is feeling flush there will be bottles of wine. He runs Dolphin Bakery in Burnley.
Apparently the price of flour just goes up and up and up according to Barrie. I know that because on the last trip he told me seven times. Every time I see Barrie I always think of the old Home Pride Flour advert on ITV years ago that had loveable little men in bowler hats announcing that graded grains make finer flour.
Kevin is a regular on these trips and is as fanatical a supporter as you could wish to meet. He's famous for the pipe. As soon as the coach stops he hops off and lights up. Before the coach sets off anywhere he'll be standing having a last minute lung-full before boarding. He's always easy to find. Just look for the feet sticking out at the bottom of the clouds of smoke that envelope the rest of him. Good tobacconists are hard to find these days, he says. There used to be one down every street.
I love these trips. But this time it was just a shame about the football. I know they're only pre-season games; they're not the real thing, you're not supposed to make judgements; they're about fitness, getting games under the belt, settling new players in… etc, etc, yawn, yawn… but even the blessed Owen wasn't too chuffed after the Leeds game when in all honesty we were given a bit of a lesson (and their three best players were missing).
And up in Scotland take away the delicious Kilmarnock pies, the appearance of little Guerrero, Blake's display at St Johnstone, there wasn't a great deal to enthuse about was the general consensus on the coach returning to the hotel.
McDonald too when he came on was impressive at St Johnstone, and deserves a run probably at the expense of McCann, was another verdict. But overall in the two games in Scotland there was barely a shot on target, half a dozen moves worthy of the name and Carlisle's hapless headed own-goal over the head of the advancing Jensen was reminiscent of some of the pantomime goals we have seen so often at the Turf in previous seasons.
Perhaps the highlight of the St Johnstone experience was the appearance of the rowdy and vociferous Dundee branch of the Kev McDonald fan club. There must have been 40 of them causing mayhem up at the back of the stand in their bright blue tops and traditional kilts. Quite how half a dozen of them came to be ejected from a friendly before it even began is anybody's guess but turfed out they were to the amusement of the rest of us.
A penalty in the dying minutes ended the tour in Perth and even though there had been what seemed like at least 36 substitutions the ref mercifully added not one second of extra time. Perhaps he was being kind to the travelling Clarets. Less kind were the administrators acting on behalf of the Modus creditors who smartly removed £3.7million (plus interest) from the Burnley coffers, with the potential for things to get legal and messy had there been no agreement.
So, there we are then, two games in Scotland, two defeats, both by a single goal, just one goal scored in the last three games and certainly not firing on all cylinders after the pre-season programme. But on the plus side three players were selected for the Scottish squad to face Norway - Fletcher, Alexander and Caldwell. And in Los Angeles they all got to see Scarlett Johansson.
But: pre-season games - they're not proper games are they? Plus which Jamie Redknapp picked Wade Elliot as a player to watch this season, and Jeff Stelling predicted that Burnley would be a surprise package.
I'll settle for that.
