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The training ground and the youth policy go very much hand in hand with an awful amount of work and money required to bring it up anywhere near to scratch. That is not a criticism of anyone at the club now, it is just the situation they inherited when they came into Turf Moor.
With that in mind it was wonderful to see the Earby Clarets make a £3,000 donation last week and for that to be earmarked for youth development, what surely must be the future for Burnley Football Club.
So it was we settled down to watch the youths and in the old directors' box in the Cricket Field Stand, what would Bob Lord think of mere mortals sitting in his old privileged area? Not everyone was there, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, rare visitors to youth games, were afforded a seat in the current directors' box whilst the club's official web site team along with the chief executive kept their coats off and sat inside in the Harry Potts Longside Executive Suite.
Our opponents Grimsby have been struggling in this league but they didn't look like strugglers in the opening exchanges. In fact they started the brighter of the two teams and could have certainly gone in front on more than one occasion. We looked all at sea at times and were thankful to James Salisbury who made a couple of good saves and was also quick off his line to stop players through on goal. Against all recent Turf Moor tradition James was collecting the ball with his hands and not going for them with his feet.
After a shaky start we did get into the game and the architect of most of our good work was Matthew O'Neill down the left hand side whilst Damian Hindle was leading the line up front impressively.
By the time we had reached the half hour mark we had got ourselves on top and most of the play was towards the deserted Jimmy McIlroy Stand at the Bee Hole End as we finally started to put Grimsby under some pressure.
When the goal came just a couple of minutes before half time it had some good fortune about it as a Grimsby defender deflected it right into the path of O'Neill for him to hit home after a corner from Paul Barrett.
The half time interval allowed the crowd of 22 to get to know each other a little better and two Hartlepool United fans were exposed, apparently the son of one of them was in the Grimsby team.
We started the second half brightly and took the game to our opponents although a second goal didn't seem likely. Then after 62 minutes the game burst into life and there were to be three more goals in the next four minutes.
Firstly we went 2-0 up through Sean Blakey. He run on to an exquisite through ball from Barrett but then had some luck as he got his feet caught up, lost control of the ball only for him to see it run right back into his back. This time the young Geordie made no mistake as he slid the ball into the bottom corner.
Two minutes later and it was 2-1, the Clarets defence just seemed to open up and the Grimsby strike smashed the ball home giving Salisbury no hope. Less than a minute from the restart we restored the two goal advantage and again it was O'Neill. He took advantage of a mistake from the visitors' full back but then hit a superb effort from the left hand corner of the penalty box that there left the Grimsby goalkeeper helpless.
It was nearly four a couple of minutes later as Damian Hindle went down in the box. There was debate amongst the crowd but the referee failed to give the penalty. The referee was so big and unfit that he was incapable of moving too far from the centre circle, he was also the same referee that had allowed all the bad language from the Carlisle players in a recent match. I would think they should be able to find better than this to take charge of games.
We made a couple of substitutions shortly afterwards and we did seem to lose our rhythm with this allowing the Mariners back into the game. In fact with eleven minutes to play they pulled it back to 3-2 with an effort into the bottom corner.
The pushed for the equaliser and came close a couple of times with the usually reliable Earl Davis caught out, Earl wasn't at his best today. We held out though to pick up our seventh win in eight in this Merit League and almost certainly a second place finish.
A word about our visitors Grimsby Town under the direction of former player Neil Woods. They played some very good football that belied their position near the bottom of the league and played with good spirit and some style. They were a credit to their club.
As for our lads, they have been nothing but a credit to our club all season. Some of them have made fantastic progress as the season has progressed with a number of them becoming regulars in the reserve team.
It is time to offer congratulations to the coaching staff and to youth coach Terry Pashley but most of all to the players in the youth team who have provided us with some excellent and very enjoyable football this season.
We go on to non league Chester on Saturday for the last game of the season and a game that will bring the curtain down on season 2001/02 for Burnley Football Club.
The team today was: James Salisbury, Andrew Leeson, Paul Scott, Steven Richardson, Earl Davis, Ryan Townsend, Richard Chaplow (Karim Allen 72), Sean Blakey, Damian Hindle (Robert Grimes 72), Paul Barrett, Matthew O'Neill.