A day in Bad Wimsbach

James O'Connor - scored the last gasp equaliser

It seems to have been cut off from the world of public transport but that didn’t stop the Burnley fans getting there with the first of them arriving some twenty-four hours before kick off.

The town hall was advertising the game whilst the staff at the one bar worth visiting on the main street were suddenly finding themselves rushed off their feet with food and drink orders. And it was all quiet until the arrival of the club’s official coach trip and in particular one gentleman who left the coach bellowing “Who are ya?” along with his new addition of Rocky style yodelling.

Eventually it was off to the ground for the game and just to make us feel at home the clouds appeared and the temperatures dropped to what would be considered a warm day. It was a relief after spending days in temperatures over forty.

The players were quickly out warming up with the news that we only had twelve players available for the game with Danny Karbassiyoon and Michael Duff out injured, Micah Hyde not ready to play more than thirty minutes and Kyle Lafferty off to play for the Northern Ireland Under-19s in the Milk Cup.

And of the twelve there were two keepers with Danny Coyne set to play in this one.

It all started well for the Clarets and we were quickly on top with the aggressive style of our two front runners causing the German defence some problems. They got out of those problems by conning the referee with one player demanding what appeared to be about five minutes of treatment for a head injury after he had clashed with Ade Akinbiyi, this despite no contact between the players.

We created some opportunities but the closest we came was twice hitting the woodwork through central defenders Wayne Thomas and John McGreal. We were getting the ball wide and getting good crosses in, Gifton Noel-Williams was causing them untold problems particularly in the air, and youngster Chris McCann was having a very assured first start for the Clarets.

With around six minutes of the first half left Wade Elliott was forced off with an injury and we played out the rest of the half with ten men.

Worryingly ten did not become eleven after the restart, Elliott was not able to resume and we had no one immediately to replace him with until Micah was able to come on for the last thirty minutes. That is a very poor reflection of us and the simple fact is we should have enough players available and we should not be finding ourselves in this sort of position.

The game changed and it allowed the German’s to get the upper hand although it was just after Micah came on that they grabbed the lead through Robert Paul.

There looked to be no way back for the Clarets and we were thankful to Coyne for keeping it down to one, with one save down to his right out of the top bracket.

Help was at hand though and in the very last minute we pulled it level with a goal from James O’Connor. He collected the ball from Gifton, and hit a shot into the bottom corner to earn us a draw, this becoming the fourth 1-1 draw in our two pre-season visits to Austria.

A decent day all round then, but one with a warning that extra players are needed. We were all made welcome by the locals who seemed to enjoy our company, even the noisy ones, as we all made our way back to the bar.

That’s pre-season over with though, and now it starts to count, starting this weekend.

The teams were,

Burnley: Danny Coyne, Frank Sinclair, Wayne Thomas, John McGreal, Graham Branch, Wade Elliott (off 39 mins replaced by Micah Hyde 60 mins), James O’Connor, Chris McCann, Garreth O’Connor, Gifton Noel-Williams, Ade Akinbiyi.

SV Wacker Burghausen: Uwe Gospodarek, Nico Herzig, Ronald Schmidt, Björn Hertl, Hrvoje Vucovic, Raffael Kacior, Oliver Fink, Martin Forkel, Martin Oslislo, Michael Wiesinger, Senad Tiganj. Subs: Thorsten Burkhardt, Marek Krejcj, Roland Bonimeier, Marek, Kostolani, Kay Wehner, Robert Paul, Thomas Drescher, Sebastian Kneissl.