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It all started so well with a wonderful send off for Andy Payton and Paul Cook. The reception they received from the Burnley crowd was superb and so richly deserved. It just made you wonder where we might have been had Payts played in this last two years and we all know our record is not quite so good when Cooky doesn’t play.
They are both retiring from league football at the end of the season but there were others on there this afternoon that should have been playing their last games at the Turf. Gordon Armstrong is also retiring and surely he will be joined by Steve Davis and the two goalkeepers through the ‘Out’ door in the next week or so.
Davis is a shadow of the player who was such a crowd favourite at Turf Moor. Injuries and time have taken their toll and his lack of mobility now is the sure sign that it is too much of a struggle at this level.
Will we see either of the two goalkeepers again? Surely that has to be unlikely after yet another afternoon of gifting goals. The first was worse than the one at Forest but after conceding the first three Michopoulos gave way to Beresford who went on to concede four more.
How serious Michopoulos’ injury is we don’t know but Stan must wonder just who to play in goal at Franchise next week. Both are out of contract and Beresford has had an offer on the table for the next two seasons for some time now. He should be finding that it has been now withdrawn as Stan looks elsewhere for a goalkeeper to take us into the new season.
It really was awful stuff and having coped so well with David Johnson and Marlon Harewood at Forest on Monday today we saw Graham Branch and Arthur Gnohere unable to cope at all with the most inept of front two Shefki Kuqi and Grant Holt. Neither of the Sheffield forwards actually found the net this afternoon.
We were two down within five minutes and Stan made an immediate change bringing on Matt O’Neill for Mark McGregor and switching formation. Poor McGregor doesn’t have many bad games but always seems to be the one who pays the price. Having said that it must have been far better to be off the pitch this afternoon than on it.
Ian Moore certainly thought that was a good idea and became our seventh red card of the season for aiming a kick at a Wednesday player. Referee Clattenburg, as bad as any referee you are ever likely to see, had no option and sent Moore from the field.
Goals galore at Turf Moor are nothing new now but just to turn today’s game into a complete farce we had both goalkeepers substituted in the first half. Wednesday’s Kevin Pressman was replaced by Chris Stringer and ten minutes later Michopoulos was stretchered off with Beresford coming on.
Pressman was probably the only keeper not to have a nightmare this afternoon as the goals flew in. It was 3-0 by the time we changed our keeper but then we pulled one back from a very dubious looking penalty decision. After an age to get the ball to remain on the penalty spot Robbie Blake scored with ease and we started to claw our way back into it.
The first half had been nothing but a catalogue of errors and nothing was to change in the second half. It was 4-1 almost immediately when Beresford flapped at a cross-cum-shot from the left but then Stringer got in on the act and palmed a Blake effort in for 4-2.
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It is almost 115 years since the Football League was formed and in the first season we conceded seven at home to Blackburn Rovers. That was mainly due to the fact that the goalkeeper Robert Kay emigrated to Australia in the week leading up to the game and centre-forward Poland was forced to play in goal.
This lot, with a goalkeeper or two, have managed to rewrite the record books by conceding seven twice within a month.
My sympathies are with Richard Chaplow and Matt O’Neill, two youngsters finding their way in first team football. They need help from the senior professionals around them and are not getting it. They both did OK this afternoon but both can do better and have done as we all saw at Forest. They were left to their own devices this afternoon and Chaplow in particular received no support in midfield.
The club is in a mess. Some of it they have brought on themselves with the constant bleating about ITV Digital. Some clubs have accepted it and got on with life without the money as best they can but we take every opportunity to use it.
The whole club has been flattened and it is sad to hear some of the comments of other supporters. I spoke to two such supporters after the game, both in their sixties and both season ticket holders of many years. "That’s it for us," one of them said to me. "This season is our last, we are not spending our money on this any longer."
I couldn’t blame them or all the others who have just about had enough. Some will tell you that it hasn’t been such a bad season with the cup runs. Some will say that dropping down the table was inevitable with the loss of the television money. The truth is that every other club in our division lost the same amount of money so we are all the same together.
I don’t envy Stan’s task now, he currently has a side that has been nothing better than a relegation side for the last half of the season. It will need a lot of work to sort it out. There can be no room for loyalty the surgery required is drastic. The supporters you so often praise Stan will accept no less.
It is difficult to take being humiliated so often at home and once again made even worse with that complete idiot on the public address system who chooses to play that grotesque piece of music when we score a goal. Take a look at the stands, even when the goal has been an important one, most people are sitting down now sick of it.
I usually dread the close season and count down the days to the new one. This one cannot come soon enough. It was my last match today, there is no way I will give Charles Koppel money next week and it has come as a relief.
The teams today were,
Burnley: Nik Michopoulos (Marlon Beresford 37), Mark McGregor (Matt O’Neill 8), Graham Branch, Steve Davis, Arthur Gnohere, Brad Maylett (Gordon Armstrong 56), Tony Grant, Richard Chaplow, Robbie Blake, Ian Moore, Gareth Taylor. Subs not used: Andrew Waine, Mark Rasmussen.
Sheffield Wednesday: Kevin Pressman (Chris Stringer 27), Steven Haslam, Ashley Westwood, Leigh Bromby, Brian Barry-Murphy, Paul McLaren, Grant Holt (Lloyd Owusu 78), Alan Quinn, Dean Smith (Richard Evans 45), Shefki Kuqi, Richard Wood. Subs not used: Phil O’Donnell, Joe Shaw.
Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Co. Durham).