Back in the 1950s, when family holidays were for the rich, there was nothing to beat the day out at Blackpool. Most of the time was playing on the beach, building sand castles and the real treat coming with the donkey ride.
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| Too old for a donkey ride |
If we were good we even got a ride on a tram, although they were nothing like the ones we see today moving up and down the front from Squires Gate to Fleetwood looking very modern and very un-Blackpool like.
I'm too old for the donkey ride these days but we did get a tram ride, as far as Bispham and back, before making our way to one of English football's newest stands.
In truth it is not much better than the Gene Kelly other than the roof. You still get the feeling that it's going to collapse at any minute. The 'No bouncing' signs had gone this year, replaced by an offensive steward who was berating a disabled Burnley supporter for taking too long to get through the turnstile.
I was in one of the exec seats. It cost me £1 more for a piece of padding I never sat on and it certainly didn't afford me a better view, but from anywhere on the ground you could see exactly why the talk this season has been about the pitch.
It looks awful on television but once in the ground you could see it was even worse. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and we were very much in a glass house until three years ago when it comes to the state of a pitch, but never did ours come even close to looking like this.
It's no surprise that Michael Appleton, in his stay on his short tour of Lancashire clubs, said if he could make one signing in the transfer window it would be a new pitch.
I couldn't see how on earth we could get a good football match on this surface and I wasn't wrong. From start to finish it was a match with little to commend it other than three superb strikes from outside the box and one breakaway that saw a deflected effort hit the bar.
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| Our tram arrives |
We lined up, as expected, with Ben Mee coming back in for Joseph Mills. It was the only change to the starting line up but there was a surprise on the bench where Keith Treacy came back in with no sign of loanee Alex Kačaniklić.
We started well enough, for the first few minutes, but then Blackpool took the initiative and, for a while, the play was towards our goal. They had just one real chance. It sort of fell to Nathan Delfouneso but the bounce of the ball was ridiculous leaving him with precious little chance of getting his shot in.
Generally it was really scrappy stuff but in the latter stages of the first half it was very much us in the ascendency and we might just have got ourselves in front by half time.
Earlier in the half we were denied by the post. Junior Stanislas moved forward, to left of goal, and unleashed a shot that hammered against the front of the left hand post.
Just before half time it was Ross Wallace who was denied. From the right wing, he cut inside and hit a shot that looked destined for the top corner. From my standing position in the covered Kelly I had as good a view as possible. It looked a goal all the way and would have been but for a brilliant save from Matt Gilks who just about got to it to tip it over for a corner.
I was relatively content at half time. Overall I thought we'd edged it and might just have been in front. We just needed to maybe step it up in the second half a fraction but disappointingly that didn't happen.
Nothing much of note happened before Blackpool got themselves in front. It was another superb strike but this time there was no post to keep it out as Ludovic Sylvestre's shot flew in. We might have done better in closing him down but once he let fly there was nothing going to stop it.
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| Part of the pitch, and by no means the worst part, ahead of kick off |
We now had to get back into the game but it didn't happen. Sean Dyche replaced both Wallace and Stanislas. They'd faded from the game completely by then and we opted to go 4-3-3 in an attempt to get something.
In truth we push forward for much of the remainder of the game but Blackpool defended well and almost caught us on the break on a couple of occasions. On one of them they should have scored but Mee got back to get a touch to deflect the ball onto the bar.
By the end we'd run out of ideas and we couldn't really force Gilks into anything.
I certainly wouldn't want to be watching too much football on a pitch like that and we know we'll see nothing like it at either Elland Road or Molineux where we play our two remaining away games.
One massive disappointment for me was the attitude of the Burnley fans. More often than not away from home there is a real positivity from the fans but on Saturday there were some hell bent on abusing our players just about from kick off.
It does only seem to happen at the more local away games when the away support is bigger but some of it on Saturday was downright awful and I seriously couldn't get my head round 'You set of lazy *******, put some effort in' an one minute past three.
The old day trips to Blackpool were better than this.
The teams were;
Blackpool: Matt Gilks, Alex Baptiste, Kirk Broadfoot, Gary McKenzie, Stephen Crainey, Barry Ferguson, Ludovic Sylvestre (Craig Cathcart), Chris Basham, Matt Phillips (Neal Eardley), Nathan Delfouneso (Gary Taylor-Fletcher), Tom Ince. Subs not used: Mark Halstead, Elliott Grandin, Martinez, Matt Derbyshire.
Yellow Cards: Matt Phillips, Alex Baptiste, Barry Ferguson.
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Kevin Long, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Ross Wallace (Martin Paterson 75), Dean Marney (Danny Ings 87), Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas (David Edgar 75), Sam Vokes, Charlie Austin. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Danny Lafferty, Marvin Bartley, Keith Treacy.
Referee: Dean Whitestone (Northants).
Attendance: 14,437 (including 1,647 Clarets).