Bye bye Delilah
Stoke 1 Burnley 4, 24th April 1999
Firmo
I know nothing about football. To all
and sundry before the game I had told my gameplan which would surely bring a win here:
defend as though our lives depend on it for the first half hour, allow their fans to grow
frustrated and turn on their team, then open up and go for the win.
What do I know? Eleven minutes gone and we were
2-0 up. Yeah, I reckon that would have frustrated them alright.
The first came from nowhere, before we’d
had time to work out what kind of game it was going to be. I needed tv evidence to provide
a description. It’s not that I wasn’t watching. I was. An irritatingly prompt
cab driven by a Port Vale fan (who "charges Stoke fans double") had deposited us
at the ground more than thirty minutes before kick off, so we had no excuse not to catch
the kick off. The Britannia Stadium, by the way, is a smart ground set amidst splendid
wasteland, and is not exactly surrounded by pubs. So, I saw it, but I hadn’t got into
match watching mode by then. This being a new ground (having missed the waddle horrowshow
of the league cup farewell), I was looking around from my high and superb vantage point
sat right behind the Viscount Central coach drivers, taking in the rare enough novelty of
a ground tick. All I expected was the early pointless exchanges. So, although I was
watching, it didn’t quite register as someone’s rebounded free kick sped towards
Pickering, stood some miles from goal, who instantly volleyed it without a thought and
sent it dipping and unstoppable into the roof of net.
So they count after five minutes, do they?
Apparently so. Pickering embarked on a mad run which it seemed would never end. Before
kick off their lot had been taunting him as a ‘Stokie reject’. (Sounds like an
honour to me.) So this Roy of the Rovers stuff does actually happen sometimes, then? Of
course at the club that released you and to the jeers of their fans you score a twenty
five yard volleyed goal to prove your point. Oddly, this replaced our other
fullback’s goal against Macclesfield as goal of the season. Poignantly, Pickering
later dedicated the goal to his Dad, who had died days before. It was a nice touch.
Could we hold it? We did the best thing you can
do when defending a 1-0 lead: score another. We had Cowan to thank for this one. Seizing
on some sloppy defending, he got the ball by the scruff of the neck and waved off all
takers. He pointed Payton towards the middle. Payton duly made the run. Cowan provided the
pin point pass. Payton took one touch, waited for the goalkeeper to commit, then finished
with almost casual grace.
The excellent away following went fairly wild. I
hugged several coach drivers and found myself halfway down the steps of the stand. A quick
check of the scoreboard revealed eleven minutes had passed.
Only then did I realise that Payton had gone
off, replaced by Branch. Soberer men than I later said the board was up even before he
scored. Having passed the late fitness test, he’d clearly hurt himself the first time
he’d tried. Still he signed off characteristically; his job done, yet another good
goal scored, he departed.
It was fair to say that we had control of the
game at this stage. The one niggling ever so Burnley worry in the back of my mind was that
we had scored too soon and couldn’t defend a two goal lead for eighty minutes. My
doubts, however, were assuaged by the current awfulness of Stoke. In front of silent fans
in a half empty ground, they couldn’t get together any kind of move which might
threaten our goal.
This was the referee’s cue to intervene.
Cowan, enjoying yet another game to make Huddersfield look like suckers, produced a
perfectly executed tackle to take the ball away from an advancing Stoke player. The ref
was perhaps the only man in the ground who disagreed, and awarded a free kick. It led to a
fluke goal. A crap shot bounced off someone and fell to a man called Crowe stood in front
of goal, with Crichton on the floor for the first shot. Even then, they were lucky. Brass
on the line nearly cleared it, but the damage was done.
Stoke took heart from their unexpected bounty.
Their supporters even made a small amount of noise for the only time. Suddenly, we looked
vulnerable to their attacks. It became a question of hanging on until half time.
Thankfully, through a combination of poor finishing and some desperate defending, we did
just that. Although our midfield, rightly selected with attack in mind and short of
defensive players, was overrun, Stoke’s lack of decent wide players (as evidenced by
the parts our fullbacks played in our attacks) hindered them. Their strikers, short of
confidence, couldn’t get on target, and when they did, Crichton proved equal to the
task. This may have been his best game. Our defending was at times heart stopping and last
ditch, but then, Brass is an excellent last ditch defender, and Davis’ superb reading
of the game served to frustrate them.
I spent a lot of time looking at the scoreboard,
which told of elapsed minutes with irritating accuracy. I bloody hate those things. It
served only to convince me that we would never make half time with a lead.
But they were guilty of some shocking lapses in
finishing. At one point Peter Thorne, who can normally be relied on to notch against us,
blazed wildly over. We took the opportunity to remind him exactly whose reject he was.
That said, for us Branch was proving again that, if inconsistency bedevils him as a wide
player, he is entirely consistent when played out of position up front. He failed to make
any impression on the game.
The half time prognosis was fairly gloomy. On tv
just days before, a 2-0 early Juventus lead had been overturned by Man Utd. Many pundits,
including I (you’d think I’d have learned) predicted a similar scenario.
This isn’t to say it was all doleful
conversation. After all, we were winning, and as for our friends from Ewood Park? Well,
let’s just say that Liverpool had the lion’s share of three goals. For the mass
huddled under the stand, no other reason was needed to run through out entire
anti-Bastards repertoire. The buzz was extraordinary. It was great to be part of it.
Lenny Johnrose ran out for the second half, and
we attempted to count numbers on shirt backs to see who he’d replaced. After several
confused minutes when it seemed everyone was on, it occurred to us that Branch had been
dispensed with. It’s possible to present this as a bold admission of a failed gamble,
although of course you have to question how Ternent ever thought it might work in the
first place. Little went up front to join Cooke, while Johnrose disappeared into midfield
for another ineffectual game.
Half time seemed to sap Stoke’s momentum.
While they continued to get forward, we looked harder to beat than before. We started
getting attacks together on the break. There was still a sense that the next goal would
settle it. I felt that if Stoke equalised they might go on to win. We’ll never know.
Crichton pulled off a fine reaction save to a sharp shot.
Then Glen Little got the reward he deserved for
a great game. Playing like he had something to prove, he’d grown steadily more
involved since being pushed up front. It was significant that his goal stemmed from an
attempt to win the ball, which led to a piece of luck, which allowed him to put to use his
skill. I hope to see more of that aggression, which will make him a complete player. The
ball was played down the touchline, and Glen fought for possession with their fullback. I
was on the far side, but I’m told by enough of those near it to believe them that at
this moment the ball went some inches out of play. I guess the linesman couldn’t see
it, because he didn’t raise his flag. Their lad stopped playing. Glen decided to
carry on. Off he set. If you watch this on tv, you can see the ref, whistle in mouth,
looking towards the linesman for a flag, and then turning round as Little runs past him
and deciding to play on. It was one of those slow motion goals. Little ran from the
touchline to the heart of the goal. As he approached the goalkeeper, he tried a shot, but
it bounced off the keeper’s legs straight back to him. He exercised instant control.
Demonstrating that Hamiltonian ability to seemingly take the ball through people, he ran
on. The goalkeeper was beaten. He took several more touches. Should he score now? Too
easy. He ran on, beat someone else. In the end, after twenty or so touches, and with no
one in the ground left to beat, and with the goal right before him, he thought he may as
well score.
It was a mad and brilliant goal, and that is the
nature of genius. The proverbial bloke behind me, who’d castigated our still young
prospect, was forced to eat his words. It amazes me that people can still see Little as a
luxury player. Remember excitement? Remember the thrill of seeing someone do something
most people can’t? Remember why you thought football was a great game in the first
place? That is what Little delivers. And this was the very opposite of pointless frills.
This was the deciding goal. The game was won.
It could be described as a controversial goal,
starting as it did with a ref's lapse. But all instantly recalled their fluke goal from a
non free kick, and dismissed the argument forthwith. If you like, it was really 3-0, which
I'll settle for. But what kind of pedant would wish to be deprived of Glen's goal?
Unsurprisingly, Stoke fans started to leave.
Soon there was an expanse of bright red seats before us. On the pitch, Stoke looked
ragged, understandably deadbeat, playing out their game and season, with, in the division
they once dominated, only mathematical comfort to cling to. We concentrated on making the
most of the novelty of our jubilation. It’s always a particular pleasure to play a
side in bigger disarray than ourselves. It’s about as rare as an away win. We have a
nose for a club on the skids, and it seems to make us feel better about ourselves. Here
was a broke club with a deeply unpopular board, stymied by redevelopment costs, supporters
up in arms, and a manger unable to buy players. It felt good.
It’s a sign of how Stoke have lost their
way that a place which we normally expect to be intimidating turned out to be so tame. The
ground utterly lacked atmosphere, and even the normally inhospitable streets seemed
welcoming enough. Perhaps the most damning fact is that they never once sang Delilah
We did. We sang Bye Bye Delilah to the backs of
the disappearing Stoke fans. Occasionally one turned round to v sign us, which of course
added to our enjoyment. We also compared the fact that we were staying up to the fact that
the Bastards were going down. I remember towards the end cheering every Burnley touch.
It's years since I've done that. I suppose for supporters of successful clubs this is
nothing remarkable, but for Burnley supporters to be in a position to taunt the opposition
with 'can we play you every week' is rare and wonderful.
We could even afford for Andy Cooke, looking
slow and out of the game, to blast a one in one from a tame backpass straight at their
keeper when it seemed easy enough to score. In the end King Glen wrapped it up with the
ninety minutes gone, just as I was taking a photo of the 3-1 scoreboard which now seemed
such a friendly object. Ronnie Jepson, on for five minutes in place of Cook (I wanted
Johnrose to go off because I thought the brackets would look attractive), played a long
ball down to Little, who ran into the space left open by their dejected defenders. With
Cooke running screaming into the middle for the pass, Little coolly steadied himself and
shot home. He ran to the crowd, hand cupped round his ear, encouraging us to sing some
more. We responded, spontaneously, with a chant of 'easy, easy, easy', and followed with
'we want five'.
It wasn't easy, and we didn't get five. Four
made it look more one sided than it was, but overall we were the better of the two sides
and if any team deserves to add cosmetic late goals against a beleaguered opposition, then
it is surely us.
The best thing of all was that when the game
finished the players looked as happy as us. Scenes of cup final celebration ensued. All
joined in. All the players stood together and looked like a team. Again, perhaps for any
other club, this would be unremarkable.
Dazed, dizzy but above all joyful, we took the
long way out. A slither down a grassy bank to the canal towpath walk into town almost
spelt this season's second mud bath for me, but I surprised myself with my ability to
maintain a balance. Others were not so lucky. It was an early train back to London, but
for some reason I didn't get home 'til one in the morning. Much of what happened in
between has only come back in fragments. I shall spare you the shards of the evening.
Oh, and the Bastards narrowly won the second
half, but not the match. It doesn’t get much better than this. And we are safe now,
aren’t we?
Team: Crichton,
Pickering, Cowan, Mellon, Davis, Brass, King Glen, Cook (Jepson 85), Cooke, Andy Payton
OBE (Branch 11) (Johnrose 46).
Tim Quelch's report
