It doesn’t get any easier.
Getting to games doesn’t get any easier. While marking time at work I was alerted by my Brummie based brother to the closure of New Street station. A suspect package, apparently. Now, not to sound blasé, but in London, we’re used to this. You hear Oxford Circus is shut. You know in half an hour things will be running again. But in Birmingham this is evidently big news. Some absent-minded sap leaves a carrier bag on a train and the whole transport network shuts down. We'd hoped we'd missed the worst, but the casual announcement half an hour from Birmingham that our train would not be stopping there brought another new and exciting transport challenge. Fortunately, we are nothing if not resourceful. After running up a few mobile phone bills, we had a solution: taxi from Sandwell and Dudley! First time for everything, I suppose. As it happens, we weren't much later than we'd expected to be anyway, we managed to meet our disparate crew from different corners - what on earth did we do when everyone didn't have phones? - and there was even time for a decent drink, although it should be said, Walsall town centre isn't exactly the place to be on a Tuesday night.
Getting excited about games doesn't get any easier, either. In the six hours between first rendezvous and kick off, there was a notable lack of chat about the game. Perhaps at most someone would say 'we have to win this' - as before every game now - and then someone else would say they had a bad feeling about tonight. The optimism of our last midweek trip to the West Midlands - when we beat Birmingham in a thrilling match - had long gone.
And it doesn't get any easier out on the pitch either. Something strange and sad has happened to this team. As supporters, we might not think they can do it any more, but it's clear that now, neither do they. Self-belief has drained from this side. They play like they'd be happy if the season ended tomorrow - and having seen the last couple of games, I wouldn't argue either.
Stan didn't make many changes to the side that was lucky to get a point at home to Norwich. Well, who else have we got? With Little out, Armstrong was in - not strictly a straight swap - while it was Blake's turn to sit on the bench and Ian Moore's to start. A couple of other interesting benchwarmers were Ian Cox - now slightly less dropped - and the returning NTG, proving that Stan does still believe in sub goalies, providing they're not called Luigi. There was a good following from Burnley, to the extent that all the decent seats (those not behind pillars) in the middle had been snapped up and we were forced to skulk in a corner. Balti pies proved elusive.
And then the match started, and we settled down to a game with had neither aesthetic value nor entertainment. If football is a branch of the entertainment business, this game breached the trade descriptions act. Oh sure, we tried hard - harder than Saturday. There was more effort. But it was all terribly laboured. Perhaps the players are tired, with this two game a week business, but again, who else can we pick?
It would be nice - comforting even - to report that Walsall raised their game, as sides fighting for their lives sometimes do, or even played tough and made things hard for us. The reality was that they were no good. It was easy to see why they are where they are. A decent side will beat them. Decent sides have been doing.
All our huff and puff didn't produce shots on goal. Once again, this was a match where the opposition goalkeeper could spend a bit of time thinking about his holidays. Taylor tried hard - some of us think you don't have to run about with as much purpose as a blue arsed fly to try hard - but the many headers he won were in vain. Flick ons are good, if there's anyone to flick on to, but Ian Moore was showing his customary vision and anticipation while Alan Moore was poncing about as usual. No point mentioning the midfield, as Weller wasn't in the game, Armstrong continued to make us wonder why he'd been picked and, with the best will in the world, do you want Ball trying to get into the attacking action?
Still at least he tried, and occasionally got forward with little purpose. If you count a mishit Taylor shot as a chance, we had one chance, but I don't. For them, Marcelo was looking half-decent, and therefore good in the context of their team.
Still, about thirty minutes in, our patience was rewarded. At last! Now we had something to write home about. More balti pies had arrived. It was hot, it was spicy, it was yummy - and it took our minds off the game. Bearing that in mind, why don't we have these at Turf Moor yet? Whatever happened to that pre-season promise? How hard is it? You can put a man on the moon, you can map the human genome, but you can't get a balti pie at Turf Moor.
End of half. Stan, we even applauded them off at half time. You can't blame us for this one.
The interval brought a series of mind-numbing announcements punctuating dreadful music. Apparently it's too late to buy tickets for the Billy Fury night - several years too late, I'd have thought - but you can still catch the Searchers and Tory sleazeballs Neil and Christine Hamilton at the Bescot. Not on the same bill, obviously. Meanwhile a queue of mammoth proportions built up for the two-woman food hut, smartly positioned at a tight angle in a narrow corner of the stand where the toilets are too. You couldn't build a ground like this these days.
The sight of Paul Cook waiting on the touchline at the start of the half was accompanied by the announcement that the linesman was being substituted. All at once we saw Stan as the tactical genius he is and took off our metaphoric hats. Alas it wasn't to be, and we had to take a player off too. Armstrong made way.
The thing is, we started the half quite well. We got a bit up and at 'em, and played faster. We had quite a few corners at this point - for all of which the players were urged on by the supporters, Stan note. We didn't particularly make them count, but we allowed our hopes to rise.
Then disaster struck. Following some Claret pressure, Walsall hoofed an aimless ball forward. It sliced off one of our players for a corner. Pretty unlucky. They scored from it. Without wanting to take solace in the ways of Wenger, I really couldn't see the goal, as it was down the other end and our seats were low. What I could see was that there was a scramble, no one cleared it, and just when you thought we might get away with it, it was in. Couldn't see whether Marlon should have claimed it or someone else should have cleared it, but Marcelo got the final touch Stan later claimed a foul, but that's what I'd say if I was manager of a side that had just conceded yet another soft, avoidable goal while in the ascendancy.
Game over. One difference between Burnley now and Burnley a few months back is that after such a setback we'd have rolled our sleeves up and worked to get level. Not so now. As against Norwich after their goal, we went backwards, while Walsall set about protecting their good fortune. A few minutes later, while we were still wandering around in a daze, they actually had another shot. Marlon reacted well to push away the snap shot, but with the goal gaping their player panicked and blasted the follow up well high and wide. It should have been two.
That would only have been a let off if we'd done something. But after that chance Walsall concentrated on pulling men back and wasting time - aided by Paul Allcock, the world's laziest referee - and we didn't have the wit and belief to break them down. At least when Maylett came on for dreadful-on-the-night Weller he looked keen, but if no one makes runs there's not a lot of point going forward.
The pitch was fine, by the way. That's another excuse gone, Stan.
Okay, we had two chances. Don't read too much into this. One of the symptoms of our decline is that we don't take shots any more. To me, one of the signs of a side with self-belief is that people will shoot whenever they can. At Burnley in recent months, no one wants to. It's fallacious to think that because we had a couple of chances we ought to have got something from a game. If you have five chances, you might score from one - so take five shots. Or at the moment, a couple each half would be nice. For the record, from a West cross after a good Maylett run Taylor's header hit the post. Then later, Alan Moore produced a shot which didn't go that far over the bar.
Of all our players at the moment, Alan Moore is the one I find most frustrating. He has skill, but possibly not as much as he thinks. He seems happy not to be involved in a game, an attitude which any supporter will find hard to understand; if you got the opportunity to be a professional footballer, wouldn't you give it everything, every time? He looks to do spectacular stuff, wants to score from long range, but it doesn't come off that often, and in between, he doesn't do simple stuff right. A couple of times here he bollocksed up easy passes. Plus he generally starts brightly and fades, suggesting he doesn't have the stamina to be a ninety-minute footballer.
Not that I want to single out any one player. As time ran slow towards the end, no one was any good. Stan's last tactical shuffle spoke of desperation. Defender made way for defender, as Cox replaced West. So your million pound Blake might as well have stayed at home. (What do you mean, might as well have stayed at Bradford?) Pundits hoped for a Davis push forward, but it was nothing as interesting as that. Briscoe, having another bad game, moved up to make a five-man midfield. Big deal. Then Walsall underlined the scarcity of their resources by bringing on Don bloody Goodman, who must be about fifty years old.
The only other thing of interest in the half was that my brother got told off for swearing! Apparently it's bad manners. It's come to something when the police think it is their public duty to give etiquette lessons, but now we know what that fat yellow line of the law was for: they're the politeness police! If I was a criminal, I'd sleep easy.
End of match brought the night's first boos. Oh no, I thought; now Stan can blame us again. We exited quickly towards Bescot station and a Birmingham beer, to a pub where we were mistaken for a theatrical cast (could you imagine the play?). But that is another story.
This is one of those matches best forgotten, if you can. But it's another one in a lengthening series. It's March, and we've still won two since December. We're in 'we have to win the next game' mode now, but we have been for a while, and we're running out of matches. Quite how we still manage to be in a play-off position is a mystery - can everyone else keep losing too? - but our hold is looking tenuous and, frankly, we no longer deserve to be there.
Even when we were well placed people worried about the thinness of our squad, and unfortunately they were right to do. We're carrying players with no form and players who need a rest, and we have to keep picking them because we have no one else. Stan can shuffle the pack as much as he wants, but it's a pack of dog-eared and worn out cards. We weren't ambitious enough when we were poised, and we haven't got away with it. Remember this next season.
Picking a man of the match doesn't get any easier, but for what little it's worth, I went for Gareth Taylor for his patient, resigned, Sisyphus-like display of rise, head, knock down, repeat...
Our crumb of comfort was that at least the trains were running on the way back. That 11.15 from New Street, arriving in London after the tubes have gone to bed, is a journey with little to recommend it. It was a wearisome business. Oddly enough I'd already made this journey once this season, and then it was an absolute breeze, but that was after the Birmingham 3-2, which might have made a difference.
When I was walking home from the bus station at quarter past two in the morning, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that there was never been an hour in the 24 when I have not been involved in actively supporting Burnley. Whether it be getting home at this sort of time, still being stuck in a car on the way back from Oldham, or walking out before the birds on the start a journey to Cheltenham, there is not a point on the clock when I haven't been doing something connected with being a Claret. It's tempting to present this as some kind of noble sacrifice, but of course the reason I do it, like everyone else, is because I enjoy it.
There are times, like now, when you have to remind yourself of this. Sometimes, like earlier in the season, we're playing well, and it's all about the football. Other times, like now, other things become more important, like the friendships it brings, the sense of humour that we have, and, if I'm being honest, the drinking. At the moment, that's what we have. So I think my lesson from this night is something like this:
The season's over. Let's get pissed.
Goodnight.
Scorer: Marcelo (53).
Crowd: 5,611.
Referee: Paul bloody Alcock again.
Firmo's Man of the Match: Gareth Taylor.
We've lost our way