Burnley FC - 25 Years of The London Clarets - the Modern Pentathlon

Date: 15-16 April 2001
Event 4: Weekend in Norwich (cross country)
Number of athletes: 13-ish

Superb performances all round from the athletes who made trip to Norwich, where the significant action took place on the afternoon and evening of Sunday, the day before the game. Even the fact that, this being a Sunday, half the journey had to be made by a dreaded ‘replacement bus service’ didn’t faze them. But blimey, it’s flat round there. A special mention must be made of the efforts of those who had gone to the home match the day before, particularly Messrs Corrigan and Wood, who could have barely made it home and got their heads down before it was time to wake up, assemble an overnight bag and march full steam ahead to the rendezvous, which was, of course, a pub on Liverpool Street Station. Pints were most definitely being nursed that Sunday morning. I should also mention Paul Burrows, not that I can remember anything in particular, but because I have been chastised for apparently utterly failing to write about his efforts to date. Sorry.

Can remember little about Sunday evening itself, and less and less the later it gets. As I recall we started at a genteel pace in a pub which was far too warm, but at some point we clearly accelerated. The first two houses were quite close to what we might as well, for the sake of convenience, call the ‘hotel’, but clearly this was never going to be sufficiently hard work, and the inevitable time came to trek out across the length and breadth of the city to somewhere quite a long way away indeed. It was during this grand tour of Norfolk that we passed several of the team, out for a gentle stroll about town before a doubtless restful early night. The men feigned suitable gruff nonchalance, but for Pauline this was the happiest moment of the weekend, perhaps season. We were still trying to calm her down the following Saturday.

At some point it became time to bow to the inevitable, and go to the Fat Cat. For the non cognoscenti, the Fat Cat is reputed to be one of the best pubs in the country, being a recent winner of precisely that CAMRA award. We agreed with the verdict. The judges were dumbstruck by a surfeit of choice when perusing the blackboard run down of ales on offer. Then they realised there was another blackboard with the other half of the beers on… Well done to one and all for actually making it out of there, eventually. Should we call in again next season there’s a danger that we won’t make Carrow Road.

It’s all very blurry from that point, somehow. We went to some middle of nowhere locals’ pub which was in the throes of an incredibly serious quiz night. Our gang made ourselves very unpopular to all by knowing more of the answers than any of the teams, particularly Patrick, who couldn’t resist answering in a loud and clear voice. It was a toss up between leaving anyway and being asked to. We almost lost an increasingly incoherent Phil at this point, but by pure one in four chance he took the right road to the next stop. On the periphery of memory is an image of walking by the side of a park where a fairground was taking place. The last (?) two pubs were at least across the road from each other. This I know for a fact, as Patrick failed to finish his beer in one and so the other participants, not wishing him to lose points, thoughtfully carried to across to the other. This may also have been the pub in which the ever downwardly spiralling Benny dropped his pint, thereby losing yet more points. Then we learned that they had an extension to normal Sunday closing hours. Oh. Dear.

Once chucking out time was reached, all that was left was to go for the inevitable curry. This was easier said than done, as we had lost the curry house. Woody performed a slow and extended circle around the city centre, and eventually, in accordance with the monkeys and typewriters principle, we fetched up at the curry house. When we returned to the ‘hotel’, Paul Mac was asleep on the sofa in the entrance.

The next day, that of the match itself, represented a challenge for our contestants. Commendably, most made breakfast, with the exception of Pat and Paul Mac, Nic and, inevitably, John and Joanne. Have the last two ever tasted breakfast anywhere, we wonder. The early part of the day was taken up with a futile morning visit to a deserted Carrow Road because Benny, tragically, wanted to get a programme - for which more points off - and a failed attempt at a riverside walk. Our party then spent some time in the cool and soothing surroundings of Norwich cathedral. Amazing how many Clarets there were in there. For some reason, our party speeded up its tour and the cathedral began to empty as the clock neared eleven. The first pint was a test, but a very mellow pre-match session ensued. Of course, as we have seen so often, an exciting match can have a sobering effect, and so it must have proved for Cozzo and Firmo, judging by the zeal with which they attacked post match pints. The curry on returning to London was, however, a foolish undertaking.

For sheer persistence and endurance, the judges have decreed that this event was won by Cozzo.

With one event remaining, Norwich performances left the top 20 scores as follows:

Position	Athlete	Points
1	Cozzo	4,011
2	Woody	4,009
3	Firmo	3,765
4	Paddy	2,994
5	Benny	2,486
6	John Pepper	1,912
7	Hego	1,643
8	Phil Whalley	1,530
9	Parko	1,382
10	Joe Lote	1,239
11	Jeff Bottwood	1,226
12	Heads	1,194
13	Nic	847
14	Bob Blow	817
15	Joanne P	721
16	Buzzo	712
17	John Webster	666
18	Dave Mac	647
19	Pat Mac	585
20	Pauline	570

The first big shock for the judges was that one of the hitherto ever-presents utterly failed to show for this event. Whether Benny, with his ever declining form, stood a chance of winning is a moot point, but clearly, he wasn't going to pick up any points by not being there. Benny later tried to advance the lame excuse that, because of foot problems, he would not have been up the fierce challenge Edinburgh offers pedestrians, but that won't wash, as we know for a fact that at the time of this event, the portly one was hobbling about Yorkshire in the company of Parko. So, not only does Benny fail to pick up any points, but for this lamentable case of trying to pull the wool over the judges' eyes, we feel he must be punished with no less than a substantial points deduction. It is with a heavy heart that we do this, but we do it nonetheless.

Far more enterprising were Patrick and Pauline, who for reasons too dull to explore saw fit to go to some yawnsome Scottish cup match at Hampden Park. Why we will never know, but the clever bit is that the only tickets they could get hold off offered some kind of hospitality package that included access to a free bar! Or at least, that was Patrick's story and he's sticking to it. Now, naturally it was all this smooth nonsense, but it remains a fact that, in our rules, free drinks count. And we understand that driving duties twixt Glasgow and Edinburgh were not shared.

Turning to Edinburgh itself, the judges must confess that they found this event particularly hard to score. One of their problems was that the days were not spent in an entirely drink-oriented manner. For the sake of the health of the competitors, we would not wish it any other way, but it does make it harder to award the points on the usual rational and scientific basis. Firmo, Nic, Phil and Karen for example, seemed to spend far more time than necessary mooching about in gloomy art galleries, while Joanne confused us still further by devoting a sizeable chunk of the event to visiting a library. A library, for heaven's sake! Whatever next. Cozzo showed a worrying tendency to walk up things - although not half as much as Munro Climbing Pete, who showed up half way through - while Buzzo still has to explain what is entailed by going for a walk by bus. Woody, meanwhile, was happy to use the city's notoriously steep streets to conduct speed trials with a view to shaving half a second off his Manchester Road PB next season.

With most of the daytime being devoted to various forms of sightseeing - although we’re not sure watching the first division play-off final on the telly really counts - it was truly in the evening that our competitors showed their class. And, taking advantage of liberal - or should that be sensible? - licensing laws, we did our best. By the way, wasn't the government supposed to be changing them or something? But we digress.

You could tell that this was the final event and positions were at stake because nobody was going to crack. All wanted to keep going. From the first pub close to what we might as well, for the sake of sarcasm, call the 'hotel' to until the small hours, it was neck and neck and we dashed from pub to pub, trying desperately to stay one step ahead of the disappointed hordes of Hibs supporters. For part of the evening we were joined by John Webster, not part of the official team, but so desperate to finish in the top twenty that he came to Edinburgh especially. Such dedication is commendable. Naturally, one of the pubs we found sold Moorhouses' Black Cat Mild. The party finally fragmented, and it should be recorded that Buzzo, Cozzo and Woody were the last men left standing.

The next day was a Sunday, as it tends to be, so the group resolved to have a quieter time of it. Sure. That pub on the Royal Mile looked innocent enough. But it, too, sold Black Cat. And it showed no signs of being in a hurry to close. Ah well. Particularly impressive here were the performances of John, Patrick and, drinking well into his birthday, Firmo. First to fall away this time was Buzzo. Fair enough. Paul was never going to win, due to his distressing tendency to swill Beck's instead of proper beer. Still, full marks for trying. Also noteworthy was Paul and Woody's walk to Leith earlier in the day, during which they may have taken in the odd pub.

One consequence of the unexpectedly long night that Sunday became was that Monday night was uncharacteristically low key. The contestants tried their best, but for all the world it felt like one of those 800 meter events where Daley Thompson only needed to finish 18^th. Firmo, Nic and, again, Buzzo, crashed out of this one before midnight, but Woody, triumphally, kept going long after the landlord himself was all for packing in.

With the Edinburgh scores added in, we can now reveal that the final leader board is as follows:

Position	Athlete	Points
1	Woody	6,427
2	Firmo	6,112
3	Cozzo	6,095
4	Paddy	5,488
5	John Pepper	3,951
6	Phil Whalley	2,770
7	Hego	1,643
8	Nic	1,546
9	Parko	1,382
10	Buzzo	1,319
11	Joanne P	1,276
12	Joe Lote	1,239
13	Jeff Bottwood	1,226
14	Heads	1,194
15	John Webster	1,084
16	Bob Blow	817
17	Pauline	773
18	FWP	771
19	Dave Mac	647
20	Benny	646*

Congratulations to Woody on his well-deserved win. He was consistency personified, and ultimately, it is consistency that wins events such as this. Hats off too for our three other ever presents, and it can be no surprise that they make up the rest of the top four. Thanks are due to all the competitors, which extend beyond the twenty featured on the final leader board here, who made such sacrifices to take place in this competition. Remember the true spirit of the Olympian - it's not the winning, it's the drinking that counts.

Join us next time for news from our exciting follow up competition - the Summer Triathlon (Lewes, Farnham, and the AGM). It's already shaping up to be an exciting event.