Life before Davis
Burnley 1 Lincoln 1, 28th December 1998
Firmo
Up after Christmas for the two home games.
Was hoping that, for the first time, I would see two games and no postponements. After
this, I was not so sure. On this evidence, this could be another season that goes right
down to the wire. Who’s to say whether we stand to win our third relegation battle in
four years?
On paper, this should have been an easy win.
Lincoln are, it would have seemed fair to say on the evidence of results, the worst side
in the division, anchored to the bottom of the table, cash-starved and managerless. They
have faithfully lived up to their pre-season billing as whipping boys of the second
division. We are clearly no great shakes either - we have not exactly burned a glorious
trail through the mediocre ranks of this league - but should expect to be better than
them, giving that we were playing at home and the injury crisis shows signs of abating.
Our poor form in previous games had served to make this a crucial fixture. Sides who were
serious about stopping up would expect to beat Lincoln at home. Sides who didn’t get
the win could consider themselves disadvantaged in the end of season shakeout. Sides with
any semblance of self-respect would anticipate the win, would approach the game in a
businesslike manner, would expect to routinely and unspectacularly turn over the poorest
side in the division.
This being Burnley, nothing resembling that
happened, of course. On the evidence of this game, Lincoln’s status as the worst side
in division two is debatable.
If you hadn’t guessed, this was yet another
woeful Burnley performance. I suppose the only surprising thing is that I continue to be
surprised by this. At each game, I turn up hoping that surely we can’t be as bad as I
remember us being the last time, and at each game, the team contrive to astound me with
their stunning blend of laziness, stupidity and incompetence. Even as the first half
dragged on (common utterance when watching Burnley at home: "oh god, it’s only
quarter past three"), I reassured my "flu"-ridden brother that of course we
would go on to win 1-0 or 2-1, as even we couldn’t conspire to make Lincoln look
good.
We made Lincoln look good.
I suppose you could advance the excuse that
Burnley only actually have three good players, Little, Payton and Cooke, who were for this
game respectively medium term injured, short term injured and chronically short of form.
The sight of creaking old hulk Peter Swan lining up in Payton’s stead was indeed
ominous, while Cooke has clearly been involved in some kind of hideous Martian mind-swap
experiment, so pale a shadow is he of the player he once was. We can only hope that
whichever mad professor swapped his brain with that of a timid and feckless man can be
traced and persuaded to reverse the process.
So, those were some excuses. But even, with our
bog-standard players, and at home against the bottom side, we should expect to play better
than this. This has nothing to do with that patronising attitude of superiority towards
perceived lesser sides that Burnley supporters have so often affected without substance,
but with standards and expectations. The performance was of an unacceptable standard. We
ought to expect better.
Having said that, we started the game relatively
brightly, getting the ball forward well, without ever really creating the impression that
we might seriously threaten the goal. For about the first half hour, Swan fared well in
his makeshift position, winning pretty much every pointless header and knocking the ball
down; he is better adapted to a long ball approach than the more skilful but shorter
Payton. After that he faded, being short on fitness. It had seemed an odd choice to start
with him anyway, and perhaps slightly embarrassing. Isn’t playing your big centre
half up front something you do for the last fifteen minutes of a game you’re chasing,
as we did with some success at York? You don’t start the game with them, do you,
unless you’ve got no-one else? I wonder how Kevin Henderson felt, unable to get in
ahead of someone out of form and someone out of position.
Cooke was sad, all the old fire gone. Once he
played like the kind of man who starts fights in nightclubs, petulant but with the talent
to back it. Now he’s afraid to take chances and inaccurate when he does. According to
rumours, this could have been one of his last games as a Claret. It’s a sign of his
collapse in form that no-one seems to be too bothered anymore, where once there would have
been outrage. Perhaps he needs a change of scene. In mitigation, there have been stories
that he is receiving pain killing injections before each game and is also under orders to
avoid another suspension. The way he’s playing makes this believable. He missed a
couple of early chances, once when clean through, and got the ball in the back of the net
from a marginal, but correct-looking, offside, and thereafter his slender confidence
dissipated completely. Swan missed narrowly from a free header before he finally ran out
of puff, and Armstrong hit the net for a second time, although this was a more clear-cut
non-goal, the whistle having sounded seconds before and Armstrong having finished just for
something to do. Sure, the referee and linesmen could take some share of the blame - they
seemed to get worse as the game went on - but they were mere supporting actors. Taking
centre stage in this shocking performance were the usual pantomime villains of our
defence.
What a defence. Or possibly, what defence? Brass
couldn’t get near his man, while Brian Reid (the Scottish Neil Moore?) was far from
the epitome of grace under pressure his admirers would have us expect. Armstrong was, as
is becoming common, hardly involved, while Morgan was, simply, Morgan. On the rare
occasions that he actually gets the bloody ball, he is never able to clear it safely.
Time and again Lincoln got to the edge of our
penalty area without a hint of resistance. Ground was simply surrendered. Lincoln
didn’t have to do a thing to win it, but often seemed surprised to get so close to
goal with so little effort, which may have saved us. There was one moment when the
over-rated Reid stylishly ran alongside his man and allowed the ball to pass him. With
nothing to do but score, our shocked Red Imp blasted the ball against the bar. Even
Brass’ lunging attempt at an own goal couldn’t put the ball in the net. Their
inability to finish a chance, combined with Crichton’s scary but effective shot
stopping, kept it 0-0 at half time. The team wandered off to deserved jeers.
As we started the second half playing worse, it
crossed my mind that the unthinkable could happen and we might not win. Our defence was
growing increasingly philanthropic, while at the other end, Cooke was floundering. We
brought on Maylett and Henderson and went to 4-3-3, which looked livelier, but before this
could bear any fruit, Lincoln scored. Lincoln took a long throw, which no-one seemed
prepared for, and it fell at the feet of a Lincoln player, who looked up, realised no-one
was going to dispute possession, so set off on a run. In fact, it can only be described as
a waltz, around the statues of the alleged Burnley defence, who froze, unaware that the
music had not stopped. When the dance had finished, there was nothing left to do but lash
the ball into our net.
It took that to bring us to something
approaching life. Aware that defeat could not be countenanced, we started pushing forward.
Henderson snatched at a good chance when put through by Ford, and Maylett floated a chip
over from wide which only narrowly avoided the goal. However, at the other end, Morgan had
moved into the centre of defence, bringing habitual chaos in his wake and managing the
seemingly impossible feat of making the defence look less organised than before. He is
equally at home in either position. Cooke blew another good chance, shooting straight at
the keeper, before Henderson finally obliged with the goal. It came to him at some pace
from a long punt and he held off his man on the edge of the box, connecting well and
banging it into the net.
As Henderson wheeled away in celebration, I
urged them back to the centre circle to make it count. Coming from behind to draw level
with Lincoln would be no cause for joy, unless we could get another. I suppose I
can’t blame him for milking it, as he has had precious few chances to impress. And by
the way, hats off to Stan for a brilliant tactical intervention? Sadly, no. I was
surprised when he came on, as a few days before, I’d heard that Henderson had joined
Scunthorpe on trial, with a view to a permanent move. This had struck me as odd at the
time, to let the reserve striker drift away when one of the main strikers was struggling.
As it happened, Scunthorpe already had two players on loan (one was Winstanley), so they
couldn’t pick him, and he came back. He went from touted for sale to match saver in a
couple of days. Is it any wonder that sometimes it seems there isn’t much of a plan?
After that the game rather petered out. I
couldn’t become convinced we would force a win, and I couldn’t even call us
rubbish any more, as my teeth were chattering with the cold. There was just enough time
for Cooke to miss a chance when, with a clear sight of goal, he chose to cross to those
less well placed rather than shoot. It used to be unheard of for Cooke to pass on a
scoring chance, and this was as clear a sign as any of how low his confidence has become.
Lincoln brought on glorious lower division war horse Phil Stant. The tattooed ex-para
surprised no-one by getting booked more or less straight away. If Lincoln had brought him
on at half time, they'd probably have won it. Finally, Reid was sent off, having gathered
two yellow cards for two fouls, the second avoidable. Annoyingly, with time running out,
Reid took an age to leave the pitch. Rather unprofessional of him, I thought, remembering
his storm up the tunnel after being subbed at Preston. Clearly a bit of a temper.
This allowed those around us to blame
officialdom for the team’s shortcomings. The ref and linesman hadn’t helped
themselves by giving us offside - from a backpass! Looks like the average league official
these days knows as much about the rules as one of those Fulham fans who’ve been
supporting their team since last year. A shocking decision it was, but even with the best
ref in the world, we’d still have been dreadful.
The game ended to justified boos. This was not a
point pluckily saved, but two given away, a chance missed. Back when we were getting
hammered by Preston, Bournemouth and Fulham, optimists would say that these were the top
teams, and things would improve around Christmas, when we would play easier games against
lesser sides, such as Northampton, York and Lincoln. Opportunities don’t come any
easier than this. We put ourselves under real pressure with this result. The way
we’ve playing deserves no better. Still, why finish 1998 any better than we started?
This game was an appropriate end to a terrible year.
Ah well, we shot off to the warmth of the
Sparrow Hawk and that most delightful of rare treats, an unhurried night out in Burnley
free of the thought of trains. The five records we played on the jukebox immediately after
the game were Down Down, Tragedy, Help!, Trash and the theme from Mission Impossible. We
couldn’t find anything by Garbage.
This match report is long, haphazard and
slipshod, but it was a case of now or never, and it was mostly written in bits in a
scruffy hand in spare bedrooms in Skipton, Barnoldswick and Nelson. All that week around
those towns I met many people who wanted to talk football, but all of whom seemed more
interested in the fortunes of Man Utd or Liverpool than their hard up local club. I
normally have arguments about why they should be watching us, but this time I didn’t
bother, as none of it seemed to ring true.
Team: Crichton,
Pickering, Morgan, Ford, Brass, Reid, Robertson (Maylett 55), Armstrong, Cooke, Swan,
Eastwood (Henderson 58). SNU: Vindheim.
The away game
