Time Out - what's the score?
Millwall 1 Burnley 2, 23rd January
1999
Firmo
The last time we played in London, we got
hammered 4-1 at Fulham. I fell out with my fellow Clarets, left long before the end and
got a soaking. But this game couldn’t have been more different.
This time, a magnificent Clarets following was
rewarded with a hard won but well deserved second successive away victory. The supporters
played their part, with a superb show of sustained chanting in the second half, and
fortunately, we had the team to match it.
The game didn’t start that promisingly,
however. The choice of fullbacks was a little worrying, and Armstrong took the field
wearing a large white head bandage to cover stitches in a head wound. Branch, still
feeling the effects of a chest infection, was dropped to sub, giving Mark Ford a chance to
do his talking on the pitch, as opposed to throwing an immature sulk after being dropped.
Ford played in the middle alongside Mellon, with Armstrong wide, and everyone else where
you'd expect them to be. Early on, Millwall had more of the ball. Fortunately, they never
seriously threatened our goal, and we scored from our first attack. It was thanks to Glen
Little, not yet restored to full fitness but still a frightening enough sight. His cross
from the right was deflected, then bounced off a Millwall head, and with their goalkeeper,
the experienced (old) Spink, failing to reach it, Cooke, stood unmarked almost on the goal
line, nodded home. It was similar to Davis’ goal at Bristol, in that it looked easy,
but the scorer still had to be in the right place. Perhaps it was a slightly fortunate
goal, but it proved that if you don't take chances, you don't score - something Millwall
never learned.
The away end erupted. We always turn up in
numbers and make a racket at Millwall. We are healthy non-respecters of all reputations.
We always have a point to prove. The atmosphere was given an edge by the usual aggressive
stewarding and lousy policing. When we got there, four out of six turnstiles were closed;
I was asked why; I was told, they always are. Inside, at quarter to three, there was
nowhere to sit. There were, of course, plenty of seats unfilled in the large away end, but
they were cordoned off. The yobbish stewards, all short haired and ugly men, instructed us
to find a seat or else. We scattered to claim the few remaining places. From our lofty
perch, we could see ever more Clarets entering the ground, failing to find seats and
arguing with the stewards. As the game kicked off, the stewards resorted to the sadly less
than unusual tactic of hauling out fans apparently at random. To ‘encourage the
others’, we assume. When a bloke behind us got dragged out, we attempted to ask the
line of police what he had done. Sit down, watch the game, don’t get involved, we
were told.
I wonder if any other branch of the leisure
industry treats its customers like this?
Eventually, of course, they made more seats
available, which were instantly filled. We always knew they would have to. It just seems
that we always need to have a confrontation first.
Still, it was a huge own goal on their part.
Their harassment and our sense of grievance served to put the travelling support on its
attritional best. We are always show our strongest support when we feel our backs against
the wall.
On the pitch, the team had their backs to the
wall too. Millwall certainly had the bulk of the attacking play. However, they simply
couldn’t hurt us, and although they could get to the edge of our area with little
opposition (there wasn’t a great deal of midfield in this game), once there, they
found the Davis led defence unbeatable. As a bonus, Crichton held what crosses they put
over, but unfortunately couldn’t keep his kicks from going astray. Perhaps it was the
turbulence caused by the wind whistling through the empty stands on the other three sides
of the ground.
This is not to suggest that traffic was entirely
one way. While Crichton earned his pay, Spink at the other end was lucky when caught off
his line while a lovely Glen Little chip went only narrowly over. It was yet another
moment of Little magic. He doesn’t just want to win games, he wants to entertain.
Thank god all that youthful exuberance hasn’t been hammered out of him, and thank
heavens he withstood waddle’s mistreatment. Although he tired towards the end, he
caused Millwall no amount of problems. Defenders hate playing against him, while the first
thing any of our players do when they get the ball is look up and see where Glen is.
He’s essential.
He wasn’t man of the match, though. Have a
guess who was. Sat high directly above the goal we were defending in the second half, we
had a perfect view. Davis was masterful, calm and impossible to ruffle. Wave after wave of
attack broke down on the edge of our area under his control. Watching Davis when he
didn’t have the ball was a lesson in the art of defending: a quick look around, a
careful assessment of the situation, and then a rapid move into the optimum position to
break up the attack. There was no mad rushing towards the man with the ball here. Davis
held the line brilliantly. He ran the game from the back. His reading of the game is
extraordinary, such that when he is called on to make a tackle, he makes it look easy. He
has, as they say, management potential. He is also in danger of winning our player of the
season trophy (again), on the basis of less than half a season's games. We vote for the
best two players after every game, and already it's becoming a case of Davis and who else?
The whole defence deserves credit for this game.
Reid gave Davis ample support, and they seemed closer in understanding than at Bristol.
Even the two fullbacks played well. Morgan enjoyed easily his best game in a Burnley
shirt, and while this may not seem to be saying a great deal, he made several crucial
interceptions in the second half, winning the ball bravely and cleanly. Sure, his passing
was appalling and it was plain scary when he tried to dribble his way to safety, but
let’s give credit where it’s due. The main part of the job is stopping them
playing, and he did it. On the other side, even Neil Moore, oddly preferred to Chris Brass
in place of the absent Pickering and not necessarily my favourite player, coped well.
Meanwhile, Mellon was characteristically busy in midfield, but was given precious little
support from Ford alongside him. You’d have thought Ford, noisy after being dropped,
would have played as though he had a point to make, but if he did, it was an obscure one,
and was lost on us. The only point he succeeded in clarifying is that, yes, we do need to
buy another midfielder. Apparently we tried to do just that the day before.
However, we didn't get him, so a patched up
Armstrong had to play. There were two schools of thought about Armstrong's game. One was
that he was tremendously brave, playing through an injury because no-one else was
available, and throwing himself around to win the ball. The other, which I leaned towards,
was that he was unable to pass to a Burnley player. A number of our attacks foundered
because Armstrong couldn’t release the ball with speed or accuracy. I accept he was
carrying an injury and was playing out of position, but I was surprised he wasn’t
substituted. That said, it was impressive to see him going in for headers, and the bandage
made him easy to spot, which always seems to lead to polarised opinions among the
following.
Still, it wasn’t the kind of game to
intellectualise about. You could either sit there and discuss the finer points of play, or
go with it and join in the roar as the Clarets willed their team on. The noise was
deafening. Even as Andy Cooke contrived to miss two perfectly serviceable chances, we kept
the volume up. He's started scoring again, which is great news of course, but he still
lacks much sharpness and his reactions are slow. Some promising moves broke down when
Cooke played a ponderous ball. Once he was sent through by Davis' perceptive pass, rounded
the goalie but shot wide, while the second time he picked the ball up, ran at them, but
from a good position skimmed his shot so wide it almost went out for the proverbial thrown
in. To cap his embarrassment, this happened while we were knee deep in a chorus of
"Andy Cooke, Andy Cooke… when he gets the ball he scores a goal."
We had moved on by then from a long, loud, mad
and ultimately unsustainable chant of 'Stan Ternent’s Claret and Blue Army', which
gradually scrambled into 'staternesclarabluarmy'. It was wonderful. We kept it going even
while they attacked and Crichton plucked the ball from the air, drowning out their muted
cheers. They frankly stared at us, trying to work out what all this uncool singing and
handclapping was in aid off. It collapsed under its own wait in the end, so we went on to
run through pretty much the whole repertoire, including some long neglected tunes. This
was one of those days when it felt right to be a Claret. I couldn't help but wonder how
many of those lustily singing along had the extra incentive of having read Time Out’s
trashing of our good name?
For those who missed this story, Time Out is an
overrated London listings magazine, which, amongst other things, previews all the games
taking place in the capital. Of this game they said, "Burnley need to be despatched
with minimum fuss, thus sending their notoriously fickle fans into paroxysms of
gloom." I would have thought you could call Burnley supporters many things, but one
thing you could never call us is 'notoriously fickle'. We've watched season after season
of crap football, but we keep turning up home and away. Our support is more dedicated than
most. The club matters more to our supporters than other clubs matter to other supporters.
Our support can be counted on, home and away. It takes very little - a couple of results,
the return of Steve Davis - to send expectations soaring skywards. Most clubs in this
division will envy our support. Millwall will. They only ever bring a smattering to Turf
Moor, even when successful. Their home gates are dismal, their folly of a ground deserted,
their supporters sullen and silent. In contrast, at this game, we were so fickle, they
couldn't fit us all in the allocated seats and you couldn't hear anything but our singing.
We are not bloody fickle.
I was, therefore, desperate for us to win, for
the sake of poetic justice and to restore some shine to our sullied reputations.
So it proved. On and off the pitch, this was the
best possible riposte to lazy journalism. I'd been alarmed when Stan took off both Cooke
and Payton after 77 minutes, replacing them approximately with Swan and Branch. Could we
defend a 1-0 lead that long? As it turned out, the answer was no. A few minutes later,
Glen Little set off on yet another run. He was clattered outside the penalty area. Davis
and Mellon stepped up to discuss the free kick. The crowd had no doubts. We started to
sing Davis' name. I was a little worried that the Millwall players might take this as a
hint, but if we could all see what was coming next, it seemed to elude them. The ball was
rolled, and Davis stepped up to curl it expertly around the wall to nestle sweetly in the
bottom corner of the net.
Cue some kind of pandemonium in the away end.
Davis' godlike status was confirmed. It was a goal of the highest class, and something
that would have been played back and admired at a higher level. It was also Davis' twelfth
of the season, and his second for us. An attacker scoring two in four games would have had
a good start. Davis scores them, and stops them scoring as well. What more could you want?
And what would we give for a midfielder who could get near twelve goals a season?
A clean sheet would have been nice, but let us
not be greedy. It was an irritating goal to concede. They got a header they should never
have reached, but it was soft enough to save, except that Crichton was late getting down,
and pushed it lamely into the net. He'd had a good game until then. I experienced
momentary panic, Millwall made a small amount of noise, and everyone looked at the clock.
There were four minutes yet, plus stoppages. And Paul Shaw hadn't scored. The bald Burnley
reject caused us plenty of problems, but thankfully we had Davis and Reid, and pretty much
everyone else back for the final, predictable assault. There were enough heart stopping
moments. They came very close with one shot, but it had already been given offside. As we
entered the inexplicable three minutes of stoppage time, Crichton redeemed himself by
getting down well to a hard low shot. Everybody breathed out. By this time we had no-one
upfield, so couldn't' properly clear the ball only to have Millwall come back. Davis kept
us above water, and at the death, Morgan made a superb overhead clearance from a dangerous
ball deep into the box with Shaw close by. Stan once again proved he is not averse to
substituting the substitute, especially when it wastes time, and the ref finally blew.
We were relieved but mostly proud and happy. The
players felt it too. They came over to us en masse, the three subbed players included, and
hugged as we sung. Stan stood in right midfield and looked on, no glory hogger he.
All that was left now was to get out unscathed
and back the pub. Whereas last time at Millwall we bellied up and let them win, and
consequently left to scenes of rare tranquillity, this year the air was heavy with
aggression. We'd annoyed them by not caving in. Good: let us make more enemies. The walk
up to the station was lively. For the only time that day, I took my (lucky?) claret and
blue gloves off, purely in the interests of cowardice, or discretion. Burnley walked on
one side of the road, Millwall on the other, and a thick line of police marched in
between. Both sides hurled abuse over their heads, and there were occasional stand offs
and skirmishes. It was oddly reminiscent of film of the miners' strike. This is not to
criticise Millwall; our thugs always seem to make it down for this one, and there were as
many on our side looking for a fight as theirs.
Oh well, we ducked and dived, avoided the worst
and got back to the safety of the pub to do some serious celebrating. The rest writes
itself. I'm told I was wearing a snooker table triangle on my head at one stage. I don't
know. You can usually judge the quality of an evening out by the amount of pound coins you
have in your pockets the next day. After a certain point, you start paying for everything
with notes, as it's easier. More than ten pound coins is the sign of a good night out. I
had twenty seven.
After the game, we made our plans for Lincoln
the following week. I couldn't wait. I wanted to march on Lincoln that night, hammer on
the doors of Sincil Bank and insist we played them tomorrow. I was hungry for more Burnley
entertainment. At Fulham I would have been happy for the season to end there and then. But
those days are not coming back. We won, we won with style, and surely now we have got a
taste for it, we will continue to do so.
Team: Crichton, Moore,
Morgan, Mellon, Davis, Reid, Little, Armstrong, Cooke (Branch 77) (Maylett 90), Payton
(Swan 77), Ford.
Tim Quelch's
report
