I don’t know. I think it’s fair to
say that no one would have put a bet on this scoreline before the game. It might have been
the kind of hammering we’d feared when the warm glow of promotion began to fade
sometime in the summer, but since then we’ve been slowly forcing ourselves to accept
what seems to be the new reality, i.e., that Burnley are actually quite good. Anyone who
ever says that football is a funny old game deserves a sound kicking, but just at the
moment when we might have started to believe that there have never been such times, we
were offered up a reminder of how Burnley can blow it.
But oddly, although the scoreline doesn’t bear it out, we competed
quite well for much of the game, particularly the first half. Instant deflation had come
in the form of Bart-William’s opening goal, which happened before we were able to get
any sense of how the game might go. In fact, if I’m being honest, I missed it.
Although I’d just made the kick off – we’d arrived in Nottingham shortly
after one, it has to be said – I was looking somewhere else when it happened. Sorry.
It was down the other end and it was a free kick that they scored directly from. It’s
quite hard to score direct from a free kick unless you’re very good or the other side
get their defending wrong, and I suspect it was the latter here.
By the way, I think I can remember now what I was looking at when I
wasn’t looking at their goal. I was looking at our strip, and wondering why the hell
a Burnley team was playing in yellow and black (or was it dark blue? – hard to tell
under the lights). We looked all the world like Oxford, begging the question of why we saw
the need to emulate a side stuck at the bottom of the division we departed. When this
training kit without a hint of Burnley about it had been introduced, we were told that it
would double up as a third choice strip only when our away colours, in the traditional
Burnley hues of Blue and Claret, clashed with the home kits. Nottingham Forest were
wearing their customary colours of red shirts and white shorts. So what the hell was a
Burnley team doing stepping out in this travesty? Answers on a postcard to the commercial
department, please. It seems these bogus new shirts aren’t selling well, and they
were trying to give them something of a push. I hope no one buys them (and anyone who does
is a fool). I hope this shoddy attempt at using an important league match for the purposes
of marketing unpopular stock backfires, and the colours come only to be associated with
defeat. As they’re now officially unlucky, what better reason need we have never to
wear them again?
Back to the game, and this was now a test. Although there was still plenty
of time to come back, Burnley had only once fallen behind to an early goal this season.
So, we told ourselves, now the pressure was on, what would we do? Oh, in the final
analysis, dear, because if it was a test, we failed, but I felt for a while we came back
reasonably brightly. In my view we had the better of the first half play. What we lacked
was any finish. We passed it around quite nicely up front, but Forest are a defensively
competent side, and we were too easily inclined to pass the buck. We needed a player to
storm in and take responsibility, but what we got was a series of ‘after you’
passes. We might expect Payton to be the one to take the chances, but he isn’t having
an easy time of it at the moment, and looked off form again here. What this meant is that,
although we got forward well, we didn’t make their goalkeeper work. If you’re
making them make saves, you’re doing something right, and you’ve always got the
chance of a mistake. Given that their keeper was Dave Beasant, we really should have had a
go.
Our best chance came what we thought was right next to half time, when
Branch flashed a shot narrowly wide. Ah well, we thought, that was a good chance, and
after a bad start we’re going in one behind with every hope of getting something. We
complacently reckoned without the diving antics of Forest’s Jack Lester, or the by
now customary anti Burnley bias of Stockport’s shortest referee, S W Mathieson. His
name on the programme is always a portent of misery. And, after the jocular jockey who
hopelessly presided over Saturday’s game at QPR, we are forced to ask, what is it
about shortarse referees? Mathieson gave a free kick for absolutely nothing, from which
they crossed and scored. It was a hard goal to believe. Our defending was lousy.
Forest’s Johnson was untroubled by any marker as he nodded in his free post header
and Michopoulos didn’t see the need to move. Half time followed immediately. The wind
had gone from our sails.
Ternent did his best, bringing on Mullin for Cook in the hope that he
might turn saviour two games running, but the problem with going two down when we did was
always going to be that we would have to chase the game and leave gaps, and that’s
what happened. As it was, we never chased well, and the gaps started to become yawning,
the open spaces too inviting for Forest’s speedy attack.
It was hard in the second half not to make a comparison between this
Burnley and the eleven we’d seen at Loftus Road. There, what had impressed had been
the rigidity of our central defence, the determination of our midfield to make the ball
theirs and the all round attitude of the team. All evaporated into the night air. The
defence crumbled, the midfield disappeared and heads dropped. The penalty saw to that. If
the second goal had been a sickener, the third was a brutal final blow. Once again it was
referee assisted. Why should I have been surprised when our diminutive friend decided that
Lester’s loss of ball followed by a tumble should be worth a penalty? It was duly
despatched by Bart-Williams. Game over, and everyone knew it.
Regular readers will be aware that a central tenet of our football
philosophy is something that goes by the name of the Three Goal Rule. This handy iron law
dictates that, in the event that Burnley ever fall three goals behind, it is not merely a
good idea to quit the game and seek refuge in a soothing glass or two, but a moral
imperative. Regular readers may therefore be shocked to note that, as the third hit the
net, I sat rooted to my seat. It just didn’t seem right to be leaving so early. It
wasn’t a penalty, and it wasn’t fair. And I’ve seen the real horrors, from
those not distant times when it was a question of when, not if, we flounced from the
ground, and this wasn’t one. We just hadn’t played badly enough to merit it, and
it didn’t seem right to call time on a game which wouldn’t make a top 40 of all
time Burnley nightmares.
Besides, I’d had ten pints before the match, so I didn’t feel
the ‘need more beer’ argument would stand up to much scrutiny.
One more and we’d be off, though. You have to have some standards.
And sadly, it only looked a matter of time. Forest were brimful of confidence and were
attacking at will. We looked like we just wanted the whistle to blow. Forest, without
being anything extraordinary, exploited a simple tactic well: they broke fast down the
wings at every opportunity. They had so much space now. Weller and Briscoe were beaten
time and again, and Davis, Thomas and Cox were turned too easily too often. Forest used
their pace to good effect, running at them from wide positions and wrongfooting them.
Twice they hit the bar when they might have scored. Resistance from Burnley was now
largely tokenistic, and Michopoulos was having a horrid time of it, getting nowhere near
anything.
By the way, what a rubbish set of home supporters Forest have. 3-0 up, and
all was quiet on the Forest front. It was only when we looked round out of curiosity that
we realised the home fans were sat above and behind us. You'd never have known. We
encouraged them to celebrate their win in the kind of way we would have done, and launched
into the usual chants of defiance.
I felt sorry for Robinson, coming on the blameless Branch on the hour.
This is not the sort of run out he’ll be hoping for as he looks to resurrect a career
which seems to have taken a wrong turn. Since he’s joined us he’s been a used
sub at best, but coming on for half an hour of a lost game isn’t much of an
opportunity to make your mark. He did little. He strikes me as someone who is comfortable
at running with the ball, but he didn’t make any shots. That said, it’s so hard
to judge the front men, because they had next to no possession in the second half.
Ternent resorted to using the rest of the game like a friendly. Davis,
with a slight injury, gave way to Lenny ‘Mad Dog’ Johnrose, who ran about
purposelessly.
The fourth came, another long shot past the apparently hypnotised
Michopoulos. All goalkeepers should always pretend they’re trying to save the shot,
even when they know they can’t. It just looks bad for the keeper to stay rooted to
the spot as the ball crashes in. It capped a miserable night for the former Greek hero.
Crichton would have been savaged for the same.
There the report ends, as we charged off to the sanctity of an ace pub
somewhere behind the cricket ground, where I successfully got the right side of a further
five pints. We were perhaps half way there when we heard a faint roar. It was too soon for
the finish, so we guessed what that might be. We knew the game must be over when the pub
starting filling to bursting with elated Forest fans expressing their surprise at not only
winning, but winning soundly.
It was a bit sad, because when we went up, this was one of those games we
were looking forward to, one of the names we were repeating to ourselves to help the magic
of our achievement sink in. So, it was a shame that one of the bigger trips turned into
such an anticlimax. Should we look for conclusions? Perhaps not. This was one of those
nights – one which Ternent described, with awe inspiring predictability, as a
‘bad night at the office’ – when simply everything that could go wrong went
wrong: the early goal, the badly-timed goal against the run of play, the dodgy penalty,
the collapse. A good parallel would be Bury away last Boxing Day, when we made a mess
early on and never recovered. Does it mean any more than that? Should we be concerned that
this is the first time we've gone an early goal down away from home, and we crumbled? Or
that for the first time in a while that we played a side that should realistically expect
to be challenging, and we came undone? I don't know. What strikes me is that after QPR,
for the first time, one of two people in the camp begun to talk about play-offs and
promotion, and such talk was consequently made to look a little unwise. Hitherto, what has
impressed has been the attitude, and determined focus on the only aim worth thinking
about: to stay, and build. If this reality check succeeds in damping down expectations and
reminding us about what matters, it won't have been a bad thing.
And anyway, the London Clarets contingent had a fine time, if Thursday
morning's hangovers were anything to go by. Admittedly, eight pints that post-match
lunchtime wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered, but one has to do something to pass the
time while waiting for what laughably passes for a rail service to serve up a train. It
takes special genius to get you home two and a half hours late on an hour and a half
journey. Oddly, for the whole trip home, no one talked about the game.
A second
class return