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Things have been a bit rough here at Thomas Towers recently, including Mrs T being proper poorly, so much so that it was close to being a hospital job for a while. Coughing up money left right and centre for someone we know has fallen on hard times, (the violins will be out soon) so the offer of two weeks in a chum's villa in the sun was a no-brainer. Out came the plastic from the part of the wallet where the moths usually live.
Manchester's finest filled the airport, a week's package funded by their giros. How people drink pints of beer at 6 in the morning in airports is beyond me. The plane we were on was one of those late-year pensioner specials with an average passenger age of about 70. Up at 34,000 feet we were still on a high after the 4 - 3 win over Preston and 3 and a bit hours later landed in glorious hot sunshine. Alas the pool was like ice after a couple of days' rain earlier in the week. I dipped my toe in and thought it had been cut off. Never mind, if our Turf Moor heroes have ice cold baths to help fitness, then I too can plunge in, I thought, so in I went. Then I remembered - they get paid £7,000 a week.
We knew we'd miss four games, Middlesbrough, Palace, BOLTON and Bristol City. We cursed when we saw the Cup draw and even thought about cancelling the trip. But two weeks blue skies and pork chops won the toss.
Book number one I read lazing on the sunbed was 'Slipless in Settle' by Harry Pearson, the guy who wrote 'The Far Corner', all about footie in the northeast. That was one of the funniest books I've read and the cricket book is similar format, except this time he wanders round the northern cricket leagues looking for characters and oddities. One of the funniest lines mentions Burnley.
' "Hitler's biggest mistake was that he never bombed Blackburn," people from Burnley would tell you. And some of them weren't joking." '
Chums always text us the scores of any games while we are away. The best night was back in Cotterill's time when Barnsley went 2 - 0 up but then we pegged them back and won 4 - 2 with a Gifton hat-trick. Texts came after each goal. It was as exhausting as being there. Another year we watched Wolves 0 Burnley 1 on SKY in a bar in Nidri.
I loved reading the Harry Pearson book. Years ago in the fifties I was brought up watching Lancashire League Cricket on Saturday afternoons. My father took me to most of the Todmorden games and for a spell they had a cracking team when Jim Burke was pro. Before my time there were even greater pros like Bill Alley at Colne, and my father's eyes glazed over when he talked of Learie Constantine. Is there a finer name than Polli Umrigar? I can't decide if that's my favourite name of all time or Albert Cheesebrough.
Quite a few Burnley footballers played cricket for Burnley. Tommy Lawton was one. Leighton James was no slouch. Harry Potts could have been a cricketer but he chose football. Tommy Lawton once got a £20 collection for scoring a 50 at Burnley. It was a fortune in those days but he needed a wheelbarrow to cart it home as it was all in pennies and halfpennies.
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Under normal circumstances we would have been there at Middlesbrough, only a couple of hours up the A1 from Leeds. Those who went must have come back well miffed at the manner of the defeat, the winning goal in the 94th minute from a 30 yard free kick, and the Middlesbrough first from a ball rolled across 20 yards out that could have been far better defended.
I was sorry to come to the end of Pearson's book. Did Brian Johnstone really say "the bowler's Holding - the batsman's Willey." For sure John Motson never said anything similar. When I got to the end I re-read the Bacup pages. I must have a fixation about this strange place where bits of League of Gentlemen were filmed. Pearson describes it as making Haslingden look like St Moritz. I remember it too as the place where someone I know owned a factory that supplied piles to the construction industry. It was a sure conversation stopper at any cheese and wine party when he said in the loudest possible voice that nobody knew more about piles than him and he had produced some of the biggest ever seen. You could hear the cheese cubes plop into the wine glasses all over the room.
The day after the Middlesbrough game we got the morning papers from the bookshop in Nidri. 11. 30, what better way to read them, hot sun, boats coming in and out, the last of the excursions, the summer season nearing its end and for us a full English in a café by the water, the sun on our faces as the SKY News weather showed rain and wind sweeping across the UK. The guy obligingly switched to SKY Sports news. Seems Boro did to Burnley what Burnley did to Preston. The Estonian Kink found a chink (twice) in the defence. His second was the kind of goal where you either credit the striker or moan at the goalkeeper for being beaten from 30 yards. Let's credit Kink. It was in before Beast could blink. Little Robbie couldn't have scored a better goal.
I finished the second book 'Paperboy' by Christopher Fowler - a childhood memoir by a little lad who preferred books to football largely because he was geeky, had no friends and no relationship at all with his father. It took me to Saturday and the game at Crystal Palace. We spent the day wondering if this would be the first away win. Alas no, but it should have been by all accounts. "Unlucky and hit the woodwork twice," texted a friend. By now, in truth, football seemed a fair way away, with wonderful shimmering sea views, cloudless blue skies, pork steaks and crème brulees, and in the evening down to join the regata festivities in Syvota. Early on the band was warming up onstage. There was a terrific pianist playing a mix of jazz, blues and boogie; just wonderful against a backcloth of sails and setting sun and the music drifting across the harbour. Then the guitars joined in to ruin it. After we left, the English yet again distinguished themselves abroad with drunken punch-ups.
From our house above the water we could see dozens of boats from Syvota setting out the next day, fanning out left and east to Meganissi, right and west to Vassiliki, or straight on and south to Ithaca, Cephalonia and Captain Correlli's mandolin. The third book, a John Grisholm thriller, I whizzed through. Simple plot, short words and sentences, and nothing too complicated; his formula for success.
At the end of week one, we moved from the south of the island up to the northern end nearer to Lefkas and the calorie filled restaurants. By the time of the Bolton game I'd started a Robert Ludlum, Jason Bourne book and my head was going round trying to follow the multi-layered plot, the procession of villains and secret organisations. Why didn't I bring the two Brian Clough books I muttered as the Bourne plot shifted from Bali, Spain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Russia and new names and hitmen appeared on every page.
From the next house high up in the hills there were clear and wonderful views over the olive groves to the coast, the Bay of Actium and beyond that the mainland far away. Yes, that Bay of Actium, where Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were defeated by the Roman navy under Octavian in one of the great battles of history.
Because of our 15 minutes fame in the Premiership waiters and barmen in Lefkas had actually heard of Burnley. They used to laugh some years ago when I mentioned Papadopoulos and Michopoulos in Stan's time. Now they say, "Ah Chris Eagles, kala, he very good. Owen Coyle is malacca." (Rhymes with banker if you're trying to figure out what it means). There used to be a Michopoulos joke. One day the goalie was walking down the street by a burning building. High above him a woman is leaning out of the window ready to throw her baby down.
Michopoulos shouts up to her. "Hey I am Greek goalkeeper, throw me the baby."
The woman shakes her head. "No, no, you no good, you always dropping crosses."
Tuesday came, the BOLTON game, the Bourne book doing my head in. If you're not from Burnley the significance of this game was lost. The day passed nicely while we waited for news and texts. In the morning we were agog when the police turned up at the villa.
"Police," said a stern faced miserable looking guy as he parked his car on the gravel.
"Quick, hide the gin," I said to Mrs T wondering what the hell they wanted.
"We come about the goats," said one in pigeon English.
Suddenly it clicked. "I am from agriculture police; there are goats that trespass in the garden here, yes?"
We'd seen goats wandering round earlier in the week, eating the shrubs and geraniums. Herds of wandering goats are a problem when the local shepherd spends most of the time high on weed letting his flock wander anywhere. Policeman number 2 shouted from the flower bed. He'd found hoof prints and goat droppings. The first policeman returned from the car. "Do you recognise any of these," he asked showing me a book of pictures of goats. I'd heard of mugshots, but goatshots, this was ridiculous. But yes, there was one of the blighters, the one with only one horn and a patch over one eye. "That's one of them," I blurted, pointing. "Is there a reward?"
The feds sped away. We departed for the street market at Vonitsa. It makes Skipton market look like Harrods. We had lunch in a seafront taverna with the castle high above us. (And the bit about the goat pictures I made up).
Late in the evening as we ate pork chops (again) and Greek salad (again) the first half against Bolton was being played at Turf Moor. On 44 minutes the first text arrived to say 1 - 0 with an Elliott goal. "Coyle getting plenty," said the next text. At full time the flurry of texts was fast and furious. The last one came the next day: "Terrific game - only one word for Coyle - history."
For a normal Carling game at this stage you might expect around 4,000 people. This one had a staggering 17,600. The vast majority came for one reason, to vent their spleen and hurl their opinions at Owen Coyle. The win was a wonderful bonus and well deserved. The Sun had a marvellous picture of Coyle looking like he'd aged 30 years against a background of banners and baying spectators.
I plodded on with the Bourne book to the bitter end. I cannot recall any book I have read where one bloke has been shot as often, stabbed as often, half strangled as often, beaten as often, kicked as often, half drowned as often (and trampled by bulls) and still survived.
I turned to the next book 'Merde Actually' by Steven Clarke, a simple tale of an Englishman trying to understand the French as he opens a tea room in Paris whilst hampered by a rampant and complicated love life involving willing Frenchwomen. The English have tried to live with the French for centuries. Didn't we have one at Burnley once - Gnohere? And didn't he go a bit loopy at the end?
Saturday the 25th, the Greek summer was fading, replaced by rain, wind and thick scudding clouds low over the hilltops. "Merde," I muttered when I woke and looked out the window. "This could be back in Burnley."
"Merde" is my new favourite word, much more melodious than its English translation but just as expressive. I finished this laugh-out-loud book in one day, a joy to read, and one to recommend.
"Merde" is what I said when I hit the scales back home in Leeds after two weeks of pork and souvlaki and chips and crusty bread. Oh and starters like feta cheese in honey and filo pastry.
"Merde, not good enough," is what I said when I heard it was Burnley 0 Bristol City 0.
Give you three guesses what I said when later I read that we'd hit the woodwork twice, had 15 shots on target, James had kept them all out and Alexander had missed a penalty.
Yep - merde actually.
QPR still top and Leicester bottom, with PNE in the bottom three; and (merde), Burnley only 8th.