Out But Not Down

Clarets celebrate Robbie Blake's goal in the cup win over Spurs

It was true, classic, Burnley. Create the opportunity, build up hopes, and then knock them down again. The feeling at the final whistle matched that on the final afternoon of last season. Gutted. Frustrated. Deflated.

But let’s not dwell on what might have been in the cup. We still have bigger fish to fry. We’ve built up a momentum on this cup run which has carried through into the league. The challenge now, after the dust has settled and the TV cameras have forgotten about us, is to keep it going now we have only the catch-up race for the play-offs to concentrate on.

And we have had a great season in the cups. We’ve beaten Fulham and Tottenham, gained our respect against Manchester United, and won ties at places like Huddersfield, Grimsby and Brentford where once we would have folded. It might be a slightly false statement given the way the draw unfolded, but it is a measure of our progress that we are disappointed to have lost a cup quarter-final we believe we should have won.

We’ve gained a lot of friends on this cup run. I’m the lone Burnley fan in this part of the world, but there have been a few people who have been taken aback by the way we have acquitted ourselves this season. National newspapers have acclaimed our performances against the supposedly superior teams who we have outplayed. Off the pitch, the size and passion of our away following on the long trips to Watford and Fulham have attracted people’s attention. The atmosphere for those cup-ties at Turf Moor which have made the TV has genuinely impressed people.

Although the game at Watford did not go according to plan, I can look back a couple of days later at a pretty good day out. I traveled up to Watford on the tube, had a couple of conversations with Watford fans about the game, our clubs and the other quarter finals on the way, and at the end we wished each other good luck. In the town centre, Burnley fans wandered about, drinking in pubs, taking in the atmosphere and exchanging good-natured songs and banter with the home fans. Inside the ground, there was a great atmosphere; passionate, fiery and loud. But, after the game, on the way back to the station, a couple of Watford fans came up to me, congratulated me on our fans and talked sensibly about the game.

Too often on away days, you arrive an hour before the match, grab a drink in the only pub prepared to admit visiting fans (often one avoided by home fans anyway), watch the game and then leave again. Too often the atmosphere around the ground is a bit tense. I gather that there were a couple of small incidents after the game on Sunday, but for the vast majority of the time, the two sets of supporters mixed happily.

It would be nice to think that all away games could be like that. Of course the result is important – the desperate desire to win is what draws us to the games in the first place. But there ought to be more to it than that. Meeting different supporters, getting different perspectives on the game, can make watching Burnley all the more enjoyable. Going to the pub before the match and exchanging a few stories and jokes with opposition supporters is one of the better ways to fill up an hour or two.

Now, though, it’s back to the league for the clarets. The play-off race is hotting up, and deadline day is approaching. Will we bring anyone in to bolster the squad for the final push? Me, I doubt it. I suspect we will stick with what we’ve got until the summer. I suspect, too, that we will still be in the first division at that time. Then, I expect to see two or three of the higher earners whose contracts are up shipped out, and I expect to see two or three younger players replace them. On free transfers, of course: this cup run hasn’t generated enough cash for us to start going out and paying transfer fees again.