It's four in the morning
Burnley 0 Man City 6, 9th March 1999
Rob Slade
I'm always surprised when I meet
Burnley FC fans who are not interested in the town or its people. They never drink in a
Burnley pub, shop in a Burnley shop or eat Burnley food etc. They just drive into town,
watch the match and go home, perhaps stopping at some grotty pub in Preston or some
pretend village pub somewhere. Burnley is a bit of shithole, some of them say, but
generally they are just indifferent to the place.
I suppose they would support Burnley FC if it
changed its colours and played in Dublin under the name of Wobbletown Rovers. What makes
Wobbletown Rovers so great, they would say, is that Leighton James and Martin Dobson
played for them (list the players of your choice). Like what makes a Church a special
place is that thousands of people have prayed there, married there, died there (well, you
know).
Well there were a few players who died out there
tonight, I can tell you, but not from exhaustion.
When a man or woman is having a bad bad time in
life, unhappy with your job, your relationships, your going nowhereness, what do you do
but examine your navel? Who am I, why am I a failure (etc)?
So as I sat there in my Bob Lord Claret Quiz
winning seat, pretty good view - S37, I think - I was thinking about all these things,
watching like a Zombie all these players playing like Zombies. 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, 0-4...
typing these scores is harder than it was for the Man City players scoring the goals.
I wasn't sure (I never am) whether to watch the
players’ faces or the players’ feet, or the back of Stan's head. He’s got a
really positive stance hasn't he? You think, I could trust a man with a stance like that
and, this might be hard to believe, but I still do sort of trust the guy. I think events
on the field are some sort of collective despair and depression which can't be reversed.
But the players? Does anyone really want to know
or care?
I arrived late for the match and asked the guys
to the right if they'd just tick the players on my programme. Bit tricky this, they said,
and wrote all these wrong names over the players on the programme and then overwrote
these, all the time asking incredulously, who's that guy playing at right back, Neil
Moore? And is that Mark Ford in midfield? Etc. Sorry, they kept saying, we couldn't hear
the PA system for the noise of the Man City fans.
Anyway this is the way I think it was...
Crichton
Moore Davis Reid Morgan
Little Armstrong Mellon Ford Branch
Payton
Does this make sense?
In fact Branch was playing a striker role some
of the time and actually performed quite well. I'd say points score of Little 9, Davis 9,
Branch 6, Crichton 4, Reid 2 and the rest 0.
Actually, has everyone forgotten that bearing in
mind injuries this was just about the only team Stan could have fielded?
Oh yes. We missed Lenny Johnrose. We would have
won with him, I really believe this.
Moore and Morgan were unbelievably bad. Morgan
did get in a few challenges but neither really marked, tackled or once made a decent pass.
They would have a go with one pass to a marked player (e.g. Branch or Little) so then of
course the ball was returned directly and immediately and then their next ball was the
WHOOSH upfield, never, ever to a Burnley head (did anyone see anyone win the ball in the
air all night?). (Swanny, Jepson, you could have made all the difference. We could have
won this game with you playing.)
I quite often (well about three times a week)
watch junior football coaching by good coaches. Football, they say all the time. Never
stand still, pass and move, pass and move.
Well it was worse than just not passing and
moving. It wasn't even passing and standing still. When a BFC player got the ball, it was
bouncing of his legs and feet, just anywhere. Brad Maylett is normally good at running
with the ball and going past players (so I've heard - I haven't seen him much). Well he
couldn't do this tonight and he couldn't even control the ball when it was passed to his
feet It just kept bouncing off him. Unbelievable.
Everything was terrible. The crosses were awful,
the corners were awful, the free kicks were awful, shall I carry on
You could see at least one unmarked Man City
player (perhaps as many as three, with perhaps just Brian Reid defending) always in a
position to score. And you could see all the goals coming, i.e. we, the spectators, knew
which Man City player was going to score about a minute before they did. It was like a bad
dream where someone is about to shoot or stab you and you are trying to run but your legs
won't move. Well that's what must have been happening in the minds of the Burnley players.
They knew which Man City player was going to score but for some reason they couldn't do
anything about it, their feet / legs wouldn't move.
It goes without saying that Davis and Little
played out of their skins, but for some reason Little didn't get as much of the ball as
usual. Woody, London Claret (see below) reckons that Little is being socially ostracised.
Good things: Well it’s amazing how patient
the crowd where, and how Stan managed to keep his very commanding and self assured posture
unruffled for the whole ninety minutes and also how the players didn't bicker / argue /
apportion blame, or in fact how they stayed on the pitch and sort of kept trying to move
their legs in this bad dream where their legs where actually sort of glued to the field
most of the time.
Interesting crowd things: 1) One guy stood up
near me and said in a very very loud Mr Noisy voice (so that the whole of Wobbletown
wobbled), "I'VE BEEN WATCHING BURNLEY FOR TWENTY YEARS AND I'VE SEEN TWENTY YEARS OF
CRAP." and, "WHERE ARE ALL THE YOUNGSTERS, THEY WERE BETTER THAN THIS PILE OF
CRAP YOU'VE BOUGHT." 2) Man City Fans: "We want seven." Burnley Fans:
"We want one."
The two guys who scribbled a load of wrong names
in the wrong places in my programme and talked a bit weird to me throughout the first half
went home at half time, along with a lot of others: a departure rate of about a thousand a
goal. What are they doing, I thought, they are missing a mega dramatic piece of Burnley
history. How often can you say that you saw your team lost two consecutive home matches
6-0 and 5-0? And that you were there.
Little, Davis and Branch must have had a weird
time. No-one was able to pass the ball to them, and when they tried to pass the ball to
other players, the ball sort of just bounced off the feet or legs of the other players .
So they did all they could do of course, which was to run with the ball, and this was good
and entertaining and the crowd showed their appreciation of this actually really good
football (although it only ended with a few shots on goal - about three by Branch and
about one each from Little and Davis).
Davis was everywhere of course (unbelievable
stamina) and he just sort of knows where to be. He trapped one ball on the goal line and
having nowhere to pass or kick it just calmly walked it through the usual three Man City
players queuing up for a strike on goal. Steve Davis, perhaps you are a real god, after
all.
After the game quite a few players shook hands
with their opponents, and the managers shook hands. It’s only a game after all,
innit?
Not outside the ground though, where Rob Slade,
intrepid war reporter, was in the thick of the action with his notepad at the ready!
It was quite civilised at first, bit of a cold
war. The police divided Brunshaw Road down the middle with police bodies so that the
Burnley fans walked to town on the left and the Man City fans walked to Belvedere Road on
the right. Some Burnley agents provocateurs were shouting "You F****ing Mancs"
and chanting "United, United, United" (I forgot to mention the slightly
complicated chant of "Ter-nent, Ter-nent, Your Time is Up" by the Bob Lord
entrance on the way).
But the police didn't intervene until a few
Burnley fighters started to move towards the Man City fans and then various police horse
riders charged them down with the horses’ head and flanks (quite impressive this).
Then suddenly all the police riders and a few police vans galloped / charged off to the
Yorkshire Street and bus station battlegrounds, where a serious Claret army was gathering.
At the bus station the army sang a few battle hymns and then quite impressively all
charged down the slope towards Centenary way. It looked like a real military bayonet
charge. The police riders and footmen charged after them and rounded them back to the bus
shelters (definitely like herding sheep). Then they formed into a column (about seven
deep) and started marching back towards the ground (or at least in the direction of
Belvedere Road where the Man City fans were still walking to their coaches). But after
only a few hundred yards (Hall Street in fact) there was a line of police riders and
police footmen who charged at them and caused them to round back in disarray to the bus
shelters. THE END.
Another well deserved defeat for the Clarets, I
thought, and headed for the Sparrowhawk. Where I found it full of the usual relaxed and
groovy claret fans. I checked out the Juke Box for some special messages and these were:
Stand by Me - Oasis (for Stan Ternent)
Wonderwall - Oasis (for Steve Davis)
He's Electric - Oasis (for Glen Little)
Fatal Hesitation - Chris de Burgh (all the other
players)
Say Goodbye to it All - Chris de Burgh (second
Division Football)
High on Emotion - (Chris de Burgh) (all the
Claret fans)
But the really, really, really good record,
which is one of my all time favourite pieces of music and which I had to play of course
was... (drum roll...) ZOMBIE, by the Cranberries (cos that's how most of the players
played, stupid!)
And guess what! I met some London Clarets, in
particular, Woody, Paul and Lee van Kreef (honest, that's his name). (OK, it’s
Lawrence Van Kreek really.)
And I said, "Excuse me, I'm a footballer
reporter from Toytown and I'd like to get the views of some London Clarets wot have
watched every Burnley game for the last twenty years." In fact, Paul has for forty
years (did you know that Paul saw Burnley win the League Championship in 1960, when he was
only five?).
And Woody said, "OK." (And this is wot
he said:)
Crichton 5 (he made some good saves, one on one)
Moore 4 (Woody doesn't give marks less than 4)
Morgan 5 (because he made two tackles)
Davis 5 (because he gave up) (no he didn't! -
Ed)
Reid 4 (didn't mark anyone the whole game)
Little 8 (tremendous player)
Ford 4 (no involvement at all)
Payton 6 (he tried hard)
Branch 6
Armstrong 4 (a complete and utter disgrace,
worst on the pitch, ever)
And Woody continued, "I was speaking to
some Su'lan' fans a while back, and they can't believe Armstrong is still playing in
league football."
John Webster (local person, friend of London
Claret persons) said he wanted me to record his view which was, "Its not possible for
the team to recover from this result. Stan has been playing the wrong players and players
out of position all season. I left at 3-0 to go the pub."
Apparently it's a London Claret rule that they
go the pub if they are 3-0 down. And a bit of London Claret gossip. The Chairman of the
London Clarets (Barry Heagin) couldn't make it today because he fell down drunk after the
Gillingham match and injured his wrist (Woody said I could report this).
Also some refereeing points raised by the London
Clarets: 1) Why did the referee not penalise Burnley for the two or three backpasses
picked up by Crichton? (Answer - because the referee was sorry for us.) 2) Why did the
referee not send off the Man City player early on (when we were 1-0 down) for kicking the
ball into the goal, long after offside had been blown (something Payton and Heath have
been sent off for in recent years)? (Answer - because the referee is from Manchester of
course and at that time such a decision could have resulted in Burnley winning 6-1.) 3)
Why didn't the referee abandon the match when we were, say, 4-0 down? (Answer - because
it’s not allowed in the rules.)
Now I'm going to bed. Up in four hours for work.
Team: Crichton, Moore
(Maylett 44), Morgan, Mellon, Davis, Reid, Little, Armstrong, Payton, Ford, Branch. SNU:
Williamson, Vindheim
Links - Tim Quelch's and Jojo's reports plus the away game
