Crossing the Rubicon
Fulham 4 Burnley 0, 12th December
1998
Firmo
At
half past four as I crossed Putney Bridge with the rain lashing down, I stopped, turned
and looked back at the distant glow of floodlights in the sky. Over there, Burnley were
still going through the tokenistic motions of another wretched display. Over there, Fulham
were now slacking off, not leaving themselves open to the risk of a needless injury or
booking now the win was secured. And over there, many Burnley supporters, who had again
turned out in numbers, despite the recent indignities of Preston and Bournemouth, had not
yet walked out of the ground in disgust, and were still standing on the open away end,
waiting perhaps for just one moment that might make the journey slightly less than futile.
God knows why they were still waiting. God knows
how long they’ll have to wait yet.
I took a final look, wiped the rain from my
glasses, and went to the pub. For the third away game running, I had left long before the
final whistle. 4-1. 5-0. 4-0. The scores speak for themselves, don’t they? Now,
Burnley have had some bad times while I’ve been supporting - in fact, we’ve
hardly had anything else. I’ve seen some bad players and bad teams, more bad than
good. I’ve seen some bad managers (indeed, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a
good one). But I’ve never seen Burnley play as consistently badly than this. Although
I’ve seen worse games, I’ve never seen this level of ineptness sustained game
after game. I have never felt inclined to walk out on three successive away games.
We'd watched the game from the miserable and
roofless away end. Sections of terracing were closed. Toilets were portaloos. Food was
desperate. The arriviste Fulham supporters, life-long fans of one years’ standing,
attempted to take the piss out of our team, while we attempted to communicate to them the
meaning of the offside rule and the differences between football and rugby. Craven Cottage
is not a ground obviously owned by a very rich man, and is not friendly as it once may
have been. Still, any attempted assertion of our moral superiority (including the eternal
fun to be had from their nickname, the Cottagers) was merely clutching at straws. They
were streets ahead of us. (Not that this is an excuse for our - er - craven performance;
Bournemouth were streets ahead of us, for God’s sake.) Fulham seem to have decided to
get the team right and worry about the ground later. You have to say, as we sit watching
shit in the shiny soulless new Turf Moor, it’s an approach which holds some appeal.
Is there any point in actually talking about the
game? Would it be easier to refer you to the reports from Preston and Bournemouth? This
was the same. We came and tried to contain, which didn’t work, as they eventually
scored, at which point we crumbled. But then, we all knew before the game that this was
what would happen. With Glen Little out, we would have to field a team without a single
player of creative influence. Against a side which has invested heavily in attack, we
would put up our usual chaotic attempt at defence. One goal would start the inevitable
landslide. The team would have no contingency plan to handle this, so would be unable to
produce any kind of response. A game that last season we might have lost by a couple would
now be lost by a shedload. Before the game, in the pub packed with a splendid London
Clarets turnout, we reckoned we were going to get beat 4-0. When they scored the first, we
looked at each other and said, this is going to be 4-0. At half time, 2-0 down, we
considered what would be the response in the second half. Would we come out, try to grab a
goal and then at 2-1, who knew what might happen? No, of course not (people around us
laughed at the very thought). It would be more of the same, and we would lose 4-0.
It gave no-one any pleasure to be right. We were
not exactly basking in the accuracy of our prediction. In any case, guessing correctly is
not particularly difficult at the moment. We can all see it. Indeed, it’s astonishing
just how much we can all see. We can all see that we can’t defend, even (or because)
we’re playing six at the back (yes, six at the back - four of them apparently in the
centre of defence). We can all see that Brass cannot play in midfield, Robertson cannot
play at right back, and, in general, none of our players can play as well out of position
as they can in position (that's probably why they specialise in those positions in the
first place). We can see that we have no midfield that deserves the name, the attack gets
no service and Andy Payton is wasted chasing high balls he will never reach. We can all
see that John O’Kane and Matt Hewlett are useless, are wasters of space, are
puffed-up egomaniacal little bastards who plainly can’t be arsed to play for us, so
shouldn’t. We can all see all that. What’s staggering is that that shared
perception seems to stop on the terraces: the club can’t see it. The board can’t
see it. And, oh yeah, the manager can’t see it.
It is to be hoped that the manager is aware of
how quickly he is tearing through the vast reservoirs of goodwill he has enjoyed. He keeps
taking from it, but it’s been a long time since he put anything in. What is amazing
is that there is still so much left. Although most of us can see the manifest faults
outlined above, not many seem to think our manager has much to do with it. I can think of
no Burnley manager in my history who would have been given such an easy ride over so
unacceptable a string of performances.
Our manager, naturally, laid into the team after
the game, branding them pathetic. Of course, we all knew that would happen too. It’s
still a bit of a crowd pleaser, although less so than it was in August. Yet in his refusal
to concede that this shoddy excuse of a team has much to with him, Ternent leans towards
the waddlesque. Berating the players after every non-performance is a way of distancing
himself from the ignominy of continual defeat. This is a risky attitude to take, as it
naturally begs the question, if the team’s got nothing to do with you, how come
you’re happy to keep getting paid to manage it? If Ternent really has as little
influence over the team’s performance as he claims, isn’t it sensible to
contemplate getting shot of him and bringing in someone who believes he can make a
difference? I am not, of course, advocating dispensing with our manager, at least not yet.
But I can’t help wishing that Ternent would stop moaning about his team and get stuck
into some work. He talks a good game, but I wish it was backed up by something more
substantial. It’s also questionable whether telling your players they’re useless
after every game is the best way of motivating them (particularly when you're forcing them
to adopt a defensive system they plainly don't like).
That said, it’s perfectly acceptable for me
to slag the players off, as I am a paying customer. Pretty much everyone was hopeless.
Perhaps Matt Hewlett was the worst, as we only noticed his near-invisible presence twice
during the 45 minutes of our time he was allowed to waste: firstly when we won a corner
(yes - a corner), which he promptly curled back over the touchline, and secondly, when he
was taken off. The corner was really as good as it got. Apparently we had a genuine shot
on goal in the 94th minute, from Henderson, who had replaced the out of sorts Cooke (but
who can criticise any striker who has to play in a team like that?), but by then I was
long gone, having applied the ever-infallible three goals rule the moment their third had
hit the back of the net. Things were so bad I remember cheering a throw in at the start of
the second half. Yes! A throw in! To us! Use it wisely now! Don’t waste it! Oh...
You can’t fool people, though. We all know
we’re crap. In the bit of the second half I tolerated, their striker Barry Hayles,
who was fast and not much else (and thereby head and shoulders above most of our team)
broke through. The defence was nowhere (so what was new?) and Crichton went too soon. The
goal was, as they say, at his mercy. Whoosh! Ball was hoofed miles over the top of the
bar. Before you could say Brendan O’Connell’s Miss At York, and without prior
consultation, the away end erupted into a mass chant of "sign him on, sign him
on." What we were saying, in effect, was that that he looked so bad at that moment,
he could play for us.
At half time I felt like rounding up eleven
supporters and getting out there on the pitch to represent the name of Burnley with at
least a little pride. I’m sure we couldn’t have done any worse. We’d
probably have looked more co-ordinated. We’d have played John O’Kane off the
park. We’d certainly have tried harder. It seemed we put more effort into our
arguments than the team put into their play. It’s always a sure sign that the club is
on the rocks when supporters start rowing with each other; it's a profoundly depressing
spectacle, but I do it too. For example, I started off trying to say something about the
game and realised half way through that I was trying to say that maybe I thought our
manager wasn’t as good as everyone thought, so I said it. This met with the
predictable response that he had no money to spend. That is, of course, indisputable. He
has been required to make bricks without straw, or whatever the expression is. However, he
has been able to bring in a number of players on loans and free transfers. These signings
have, in the main, been poor (one good loan signing in Ward, and possibly one good free
signing in Reid, although I have my doubts there), and Ternent’s persistence with
them mystifying. Are we to accept that you can only get bad players on free transfers or
loan? John O’Kane is one of the worst loan signings ever, and we would all be
mightily relieved if he pissed off back to Everton, and yet, after we’d all seen how
bad he is, we took him on a second month’s loan. I alluded to this, and received the
response, who would I rather have - Morgan? And who bloody signed him, I may have shouted.
We cannot escape the fact that we were always
likely to lose this game because we didn’t have the means to get the ball to our
strikers. Aware of this, we adopted an unsuccessful defensive line-up. Yet Little’s
absence was foreseen. He needed an operation. We had two weeks to do something about it.
Why not send O’Kane back and look to bring in a wide player on loan (Mullin from
Sunderland, for example)? But what did our manager do? He spent the whole time getting
bogged down in ludicrous speculation over Vinnie Jones. What a waste of valuable time.
There were further chants towards the end,
I’m told, like the old favourite "we are sick of watching shit," and a new
number, "cheer up Franky Teasdale" - something about a "four million
overdraft and a shit football team," I believe, which sounds like someone didn’t
entirely waste their journey on the coach down to London. There was also much airing of
that popular classic, "Teasdale out," although of course we didn't know at the
time that this would be the last game we could sing it except in the past tense.
Not that I heard much of the above. I was long
gone by then, back to the pub, and the next thing I knew it was eleven o’clock.
I’m aware this report is a little short on actual observation about on-pitch events,
but Tim Quelch’s parallel report should sort you out with
that.
Oh well, I may be risking trial for heresy now.
I know any manager needs support from the board. I sincerely hope he is given the
opportunity to compete in the transfer market, as every manager deserves that chance.
Subsequent events make this look a more likely scenario than it seemed on the damp and
gloomy Fulham terraces on Saturday. I just have my doubts. I doubt that our manager is a
good judge of a player. I also doubt whether his motivational skills are at their peak. He
has had no money to spend, but guts, hard work, discipline and organisation cost nothing.
We should be able to take them for granted. They represent the bare minimum we have a
right to expect. They are the means by which you might overcome opponents better blessed
with skill. They were all completely absent at Fulham. And there is no guarantee that any
amount of money will endow any team with these essential qualities. We shall see.
At half past four as I crossed Putney Bridge
with the rain lashing down, I stopped, and looked down at the dark and filthy waters of
the Thames. Maybe it was the weather, but in that light it looked a bit like the Rubicon.
Team: Crichton,
Robertson, O’Kane, Ford, Heywood, Reid, Armstrong, Hewlett (Maylett 46), Cooke
(Henderson 73), Payton, Brass. SNU: Eastwood.
Tim Quelch's report
and the triumphant home game
