A bit strange, today. On the surface, a normal
home matchday – rush out of the house obscenely early, rush up the motorway, arrive
in Burnley, find parking space, rush into the pub for a quick drink and the usual banter,
rush off to the Turf. Yet, despite all the frantic activity, I felt slightly subdued. I
was looking forward to the game, but finding it difficult to get particularly excited
about it. The answer lay in the previous week's defeat at Sheffield United, which of
course ended any lingering play-off hopes. Having fully expected before the season began
that we would reside in the bottom third of the table all term, I was now unreasonably
depressed that we had "failed". Completely irrational, but seemingly impossible
to snap out of.
Arriving at the ground my spirits rose a little when I saw that Watford
had brought an excellent following – the away end was at least half full. Of course,
the Watford faithful (many of them clad in specially printed T-shirts) were there to pay
homage to Graham Taylor, retiring from football management after over 1,000 league games.
Just before kick-off, Stan made a presentation to Graham in honour of his achievements and
his contribution to the game. This was enthusiastically applauded by all present. To
entertain the younger fans (it being one of those "Kid a Quid" games), we were
also "treated" to the sight of two giant inflatable men fighting each other in
the centre circle!
The slightly smaller non-inflatable men lined up as follows:
Burnley – Michopoulos, Thomas, Davis, Armstrong, Briscoe, Little,
Weller, Ball, Cook, Taylor, Moore. Subs: Crichton, West, Cox, Payton, Mullin.
Watford – Chamberlain, Cox, Ward, Panayi, Robinson, Helguson,
Vernazza, Nielsen, Cook, Smith, Johnson. Subs: Palmer, Forde, Hyde, Page, Day.
Watford kicked off and there was plenty of early action at both ends of
the pitch; Watford's Cook catching the eye with a couple of good runs and a shot just
wide, and then Glen Little showing off his skills with a good cross unfortunately a
fraction too high for Gareth Taylor's head. Taylor was unlucky when he won what looked
like a certain corner by chasing down a backpass, only for the referee to give a goal
kick. Watford had a couple of free kicks, well dealt with by Thomas and Cook respectively,
followed immediately by a good shot from Taylor that went just wide of the far post.
Moore's running was keeping Darren Ward on his toes, and Paul Weller's pace and movement
looked threatening.
The half continued in the same vein, attack and counter-attack with good
build up play but for both teams, no end product. Burnley earned a couple of corners,
which came to nothing, and Thomas had to be alert to thwart the lively Tommy Smith. A foul
by Armstrong on Helguson produced a useful effort from Cox, which fortunately ended up
safely in Michopoulos's arms. Nice play from Little and Thomas resulted in a good cross
from Weller that Taylor could only head out for a goal kick. At the other end of the
pitch, Lee Cook's excellent snap shot found only Michopoulos, who then made an excellent
goal-line stop from a Cox corner. Nik then did very well to prevent a misdirected
Armstrong back-header giving away a cheap corner.
Our best chance of the half came perhaps around halfway through, when
Taylor shot from a deflected Little cross, producing a top-drawer save from Chamberlain.
The rest of the half saw plenty of Burnley pressure, but again with no end product. In
particular, excellent balls in from Weller and Little (the latter on more than one
occasion) found no-one ready or able to finish. We didn't have it all our own way, though,
but Watford similarly seemed to lack the finishing touch despite keeping our defence and
keeper busy. A couple of defensive mix-ups involving Michopoulos and Armstrong served only
to highlight that Davis was having another excellent game. The half ended with an injury
to Nielsen, followed by an injury to Mitchell Thomas's pride as he contrived to shoot wide
from close range.
Despite my initial lack of enthusiasm, I realised that I was actually
quite enjoying the game. I even managed to enjoy the half time break – more sumo
wrestling plus a presentation to the retiring (in the football sense) Ronnie Jepson. Good
luck to you (and your tight shorts), Ronnie.
Burnley kicked off for the second half, and after an early scare
(Vernazza, beautifully played in by Tommy Smith, blazing over the bar) we gradually
stepped up a gear. Direction was supplied by Weller and Little, who began to visibly
dominate proceedings. The defence looked solid, and Ball and Cook had control of the
midfield. Up front, Moore and Taylor still looked lively although both spurned good
opportunities to put us into the lead – Taylor shooting straight at Chamberlain and
Moore only finding the side netting with an attempt of his own. Davis was everywhere,
attending to his defensive duties when required but popping up in the box when we attacked
and even putting a superb ball across goal (of course, there was no-one on the end of it).
With 16 minutes of the half gone, Payton was brought on for Little.
Little's departure seemed to spur Watford on momentarily, as they managed a couple of
attacks of their own. Thomas went into the book for a foul on Robinson; fortunately the
resulting free kick (taken by the ever-dangerous Cox) was safely gathered by Michopoulos.
Then, Moore was caught out in customary grass-chewing pose when he should have been
supporting Payton, who had made an excellent run and shot. Ternent promptly took him off
and brought on Mullin. Soon after, Watford made a substitution of their own, bringing on
Steve Palmer after Ball ended Johnson's enjoyment of the afternoon. Temporarily we lost
concentration, but somehow managed to survive after good pressure from Robinson and Lee
Cook. Surely we weren't about to throw it all away? Of course not – not with the
Padiham Predator on the pitch! Shortly before the half-hour mark, Mullin followed a good
run with a lovely ball to Weller, who duly obliged with a perfect cross onto Payton's
head. 1-0!
The rest of the game sped by. Watford turned up the heat again –
Davis made a superb tackle to deny Tommy Smith, and then Armstrong ran back to somehow
scoop a Helguson effort off the goal-line. Ternent took off Paul Cook and brought on Ian
Cox. The atmosphere was then dampened somewhat with a nasty injury to Lee Cook – I
didn't see what happened, but he was clearly in some pain and the Club doctor had to
attend before he was stretchered off. Not good to see. Watford substituted him, and
Helguson, bringing on Hyde and Forde.
As full time approached, we became aware of seemingly hundreds of children
straining to get onto the pitch from the Harry Potts Longside Lower Tier beneath us. Some
of them succeeded, accompanied by much booing from those of us who preferred to see the
game rather than observe the "antics" of other people's darling brats. Within a
few seconds, I looked up to see Michopoulos make a truly fantastic save from Panayi.
Heart-in-mouth time. However, there was no need to worry. Another of our supersubs –
John Mullin – ended the game with an excellent run and a great shot that completely
beat Chamberlain. 2-0! The referee, sensing the forthcoming pitch invasion, wisely decided
to forgo the 4 minutes of stoppage time and ushered the players off.
As we walked back to the pub, it dawned on me that I had actually really
enjoyed the game. The rest of the day was enjoyable, too, culminating in a friend's 80th
birthday party – I'm not sure that any of us will easily forget Cozzo's pogo dancing,
though!
But the day belonged to Stan, Sam and the lads (and not forgetting Barry
Kilby, either). Beating Watford had seen us finish the season in seventh place, our best
finish for 25 years. Thanks for a great season, guys – we can hardly wait for August.
See
where it took us