Burnley were never particularly convincing in this game, and sometimes we made it look like hard work, but we were always the better side, and the only one that deserved to win.
And Wimbledon? Well, they'll have been delighted with their performance away from home. They beat Frimley Green 5-0 in the Combined Counties League. Watching them were supporters who, if football was better run and people weren't so greedy, would have been at Turf Moor.
Yet again Turf Moor was quiet and the atmosphere minimal. As I've said before, you can't generate atmosphere when there's no opposition. And there wasn't any opposition, either in the Cricket Field Stand or on the pitch. It was strange to look at that stand and see row upon row of empty wooden seats. From my perch in the far corner (note to club: you say you're desperate to encourage 'walk-on' supporters, but whenever I obey the call I am always sold a seat in one extreme corner or another) I couldn't count the huddled few, but the away support certainly didn't make it into three figures. There was something strange about them, too. Normally away ends are seas of team colours, with most supporters sporting the shirt. Here, only two or three Franchise fans wore their adopted colours of blue and yellow. There seemed to be more shirts and ties in evidence than anything else. Possibly the Franchise fans were embarrassed to admit their allegiance - and who can blame them? - or perhaps they were up on a day trip from Milton Keynes. Whatever, welcome to Turf Moor, and this is what a real football club looks like, by the way.
All wins are good, but it was particularly enjoyable to take three points off a joke McFootball team with no right to be in this League. By rights, Burnley FC should not have been playing Franchise on Saturday - a Milton Keynes side should have been attempting to win the first of a series of promotions from the depths of the non league - but the spinelessness of those who run the game meant that we were required to play them. Given that, the best thing you can do is beat them. In doing so, we performed a small service in the battle for the soul of football. I can only hope that at the end of the season Franchise are relegated, and that we will have played our part in that relegation.
As for the second time we will be required to play them, let's just say for now that the lunchtime session in the Garden Bar generated any number of wheezes for things to do on the 4th of May. The London Clarets will be throwing a party, and you're all invited.
Back to Saturday. Following the disgraceful loss of two points at Bradford, Stan had tinkered with the team once more, dropping one of that game's better players, Paul Cook, in favour of Alan Moore on the left, and Lee Briscoe in the middle. In defence, the London Clarets' Arthur Gnohere shuffled left to replace McGregor, making way for Steve Davis. Up front, my preferred partnership finally got a start, with Blake taking the place of Papa alongside Taylor. No goalie on the bench, with NTG surprisingly gone to polish his saving-it-with-his-feet technique at Crystal Paralysis.
And it all more or less worked! We played much better than at any time at Bradford. No one had a stinker in particular, and Blake and Taylor combined well. Blake and Blakey obviously enjoyed playing together too. The expensive one hasn't quite gone so far as justifying the cost yet, but he's on his way there.
In defence it was interesting to note that every time Steve Davis got the ball he immediately lashed it out of play. Not going to make that mistake again in a hurry. Bless. Cox was excellent as ever - don't take this bloke for granted - and the weak link, if any, was our own TLC Arthur, who betrayed a lack of concentration at times.
Taylor had the pick of the early chances, in a half where Burnley dominated possession but didn't manage to turn half-chances into clear opportunities. He had a couple of shots - with his feet. The front two could have used more service from out wide, but Little and Alan Moore both dabbled rather. Little clearly fancied it and he had some space to play in, but he was somewhat hit and miss, particularly when in sight of goal, while Moore showed glimpses of the talent he undoubtedly has, but unfortunately displayed plenty of the failings that stop him from being an effective player too - chiefly a lack of vision and of bottle.
The only worry as the half wore on was that we were doing our usual thing of failing to kill a bad side off. The Burnley of 2001 would have put this rubbish to the sword. Franchise really were a very poor team indeed, notable for playing with a complete lack of passion, spirit and commitment. Understandable, I suppose. We know they're only in it for the money, but it must be soul-destroying to play in front of no support on a weekly basis. Hey, but we're not about to start feeling sorry for footballers, are we?
Okay, I could spare a bit of sympathy for Gareth Taylor. Here's a startling statistic: Gareth Taylor will shortly serve a one match suspension for picking up five yellow cards. Question: what for? All changes in the laws of football and their interpretation in recent years have had the stated intention of rewarding attacking play, yet have you noticed it's often the forward players who get the suspensions? Once again, after winning countless tussles in the air against a defender who gave as good as he got, Taylor was booked simply for winning the ball. Nothing surprising about this, as our Gareth is one of the most persecuted players in the land. There are some real thugs of defenders out there who will not serve suspensions ahead of this unassuming attacker.
We shouldn't be surprised, as the referee was S W Mathieson of Stockport, an official who over the years in Burnley matches has patrolled that grey area between incompetence and bias.
Best chances came shortly before half time. Franchise keeper Davis - who had a dodgy game for Wimbledon as well last season - fluffed a cross, but two Clarets players seemed to get in each other's way. Still, the half time chat was mellow, and unencumbered by the now unavailable potato pies. (They'd "run out" of chicken balti pies before kick off, which takes some doing.) Consensus was that we just needed to get the thing in the net and we'd win this. Meanwhile, Wimbledon were enjoying themselves, being 3-0 up at the break.
Thankfully the second half wasn't too old when we got the winner. The Dons would have been 4-0 up by then. I wonder if Frimley Green fans had applied the Three Goal Rule? It was fitting that, of all the players on the pitch, it should be a Wimbledon boy to score it. Little ran through the centre, Briscoe's pass from his left was accurate and he placed his shot. Cue lots of pointing at someone or other on the Bob Lord side of the ground. Don't know who.
Wimbledon celebrated by getting their fifth and final goal of the day at around this point.
We should have gone on from there to finish it off, but this is Stan's team, so we didn't. Once or twice there even looked to be a danger that we would slip into Bradford-style tippy-tappy complacency. Oh, I know we shouldn't complain too much and it's nice to see us play the thing on the ground, but we didn't force the goals we deserved. Mathieson did his bit to disrupt our flow, generally giving Franchise free kicks seconds after alleged offences had taken place. I particularly enjoyed a collapse by journeyman Shipperley, when he dived in slow motion. On a replay it would have been entirely static. He then trundled very slowly off the pitch, discarding his captain's armband on the turf, where it lay until one of the others ambled over to picked it up. Who'd want to skipper this shower? Interestingly, we watched the Franchise 'fans' at this point. Most of them didn't even applaud the substitution, which is not the normal behaviour of an away crowd. Had these people been to a game before? Were they on the payroll?
By this point West had gone off injured, to be replaced by McGregor, getting to play in his natural right-back position for once. The always disappointing Moore (Alan) was replaced by the often disappointing Moore (Ian) soon after that, the fourth official's board of four eights helpfully informing us that 16 was replacing, err, 16. While waiting for a pub to open in Leeds earlier that day we'd seen a 'Claret Line' no. 16 bus, but it wasn't to be an omen.
We tried to make life more interesting for ourselves by failing to clear our lines. I've just about forgotten what the word 'midfield' means these days. The fact that we don't have one means that we're easy to counter-attack against. As soon as one of our attackers lost the ball - and they did it enough - it became a problem for our defenders. The defenders were generally good - although TLC King Arthur gave his man too much space and time at this point - but no sooner had they cleared then it was back at them. I would worry that a better side than Franchise would have got back into it at this point, but fortunately they were useless, Marlon was competent and Steve Davis got himself into the right places. They had one shot from medium range that looked like it might creep in, but went wide.
Things got a bit more interesting for the referee when Papa the Cheat came on, disappointingly for Blake. Alright, that's harsh. Papa is quick and a handful, and he does get fouled a lot, but now he's got himself a reputation for diving, which means that now there are times when he dives and gets the benefit of the doubt, and there are times when he's fouled and gets nothing. We saw both here. When snatching the ball off the defence he was brought down turning towards goal. Presumably having read reports from last Saturday and the unprofessional comments of Bradford's Nicky Law, the ref decided nothing was amiss. But when later on Papa went down on the floor clutching his head, the reaction of those around me was to mutter 'get up, for Christ's sake'. He needs to learn, but who's teaching him? Franchise, meanwhile, concentrated on battering TLC Arthur - shame on them.
Thankfully we weathered what passed as the storm - more dark cloud and drizzle, really - and coasted towards the end, with Franchise not putting up any real threat. The only other thing of note was a shouting and finger pointing match between Glen and Stan. Hmm, you do wonder.
In summary, not a great match, and not one we will remember long, but we looked like we could play a bit, the three points were deserved and we didn't chuck them away this time. We've kept an unbeaten run going, and the result thankfully pushed us a few places up the table, at the same time putting Franchise below us, where they belong.
Out and to the long journey home where, for the first time in memory when playing a Southern side, we didn't encounter a single supporter of the away team on either train. Final thought: I wonder how many pies they had available on the Franchise end?
Subs not used: Cook and Payton.
Scorer: Blakey (51).
Attendance: 12,259 (in excess of 12,159 of them Clarets).
Referee: S W Mathieson of Stockport County.
Firmo's man of the match: the faultless Ian Cox.
Balti pie-ometer: 0/10. Must do better!
Football was the winner