Turkey and stuffing
Bury 4 Burnley 2, 26 December 1999
Firmo
Some years, Burnley don't play on Boxing Day.
Matches are postponed through frost, ice and snow. Those are the good years. The rest of
the time, our Boxing Day game goes ahead, and mostly we get beat. This was the latest
addition to a substantial collection of festive disasters for the Clarets.
It must have been a close call that the game
went ahead. Rain was heavy and persistent and turned sometimes to sleet, sometimes to
hail. Apparently at two o'clock the referee inspected the pitch and passed it fit. It
wouldn't be the only strange decision that the ref, S W Mathieson of the ever neutral town
of Stockport, made that day. But I wanted the match to go ahead. Our carfull of assorted
Birmingham, London, French and - there's always one who has to be different - Burnley
Clarets looked anxiously to the heavens. This was a tick.
Four swift pints of excellent Holt's mild,
followed by a pint of something after a soaking walk to a pub stripped almost completely
of beer by thirsty Clarets closer to the ground, at least provided some anaesthesia for
the defeat to come. I should hasten to add that at times like these I hide behind my
inability to drive. Indeed, I know nothing of cars. That said, I spied a flashy number
outside the away end. Registration number was K1LBY. Hmm, very unostentatious.
Burnley took the field, sending up spumes of
water from the sodden pitch, particularly the flooded goalmouth nearest us. Roars went up
from Clarets gathered in most parts of the ground. One thing that contributed to the
atmosphere of unreality in this game was that the Burnley supporters occupied both ends of
the grounds. Some of the sides too. You kept hearing snatches of Burnley chants caught in
the wind; one side would try to join in with the other but it would be out of sync, like
an echo. Gigg Lane is a weird ground too. It looks like something non league from the
outside - we nearly drove past it - but inside it's a depressing place, small stands with
seats and a lot of posts. There was always a post in the way. It's perplexing having to
come to places like this and sit down. Surely this kind of homely, perennially lower
division place should be terraced? One unforeseen consequence of the eternally flawed
Taylor Report was to make grounds like this not make sense.
The other Burnley away end behind the far
goalmouth wasn't finished. It stopped perhaps three quarters of the way, giving way to
nothing. Perhaps they ran out of money. If anyone wonders how Bury could afford to go all
seater, by the way, Private Eye makes illuminating reading.
Of course, the Clarets fans sat behind that goal
got to see all six goals scored in front of them. Typical. If we have a choice of an end,
we will always pick the wrong one.
But nothing looked odder than the Burnley team.
We were fairy horrified when we realised there was no Mitchell Thomas. We knew Cook would
be out suspended, replaced as expected by Johnrose, but there was no Payton either. He was
benched. We later found out that the team had been hit by a flu bug. It happens. But if
Payton wasn't fit to start, why keep him hanging around on the bench for ninety minutes?
What good can that do him?
So, the big question was, could we cope with
three important players missing? Resoundingly no! Before we had worked out what was
happening we were two goals and one man down. Bury simply adapted to the wet conditions
better than us and played a rapid counter-attacking game, breaking quickly, getting the
ball across and up the pitch smartly and getting numbers up in support of attacks.
Their first came from a diagonal ball that no
one cut out, leaving an easy finish for their unmarked man in the absence of anything
resembling a defence. Their second was a penalty. Again, our defence was largely
theoretical, and as the ball sped towards an empty net, Davis stuck out an arm to clear it
from the line. Stupid and reckless probably, but I defy anyone to better their instincts
when confronted with a certain goal in this manner. If we had saved the penalty, it would
have been the right thing to do, as one goal down with ten men is better than two goals
down with eleven, but Crichton doesn't save penalties, so we were left with the worst of
both worlds: the goal scored anyway, a straight red for Davis, and our best hope of
getting anything from game now resting on freak meteorological conditions.
Bury scored two more that I can't adequately
describe, as by then my attention was elsewhere and there was always a post in the way.
The pattern of play for the first half was for Burnley to try to mount an attack only to
be caught on the counter by Bury, and that was where the next two goals came from. We had
no choice but to go forward, of course, but every time they broke, Bury laid bare
deficiencies of a Thomasless defence that was suddenly very Old Burnley. It was horribly
reminiscent of some of the shocking collapses of last season.
Not that I was watching much of it. I chose to
answer a call of nature mid way through the first half and I had never seen a gents so
busy during the game. There was a queue! Trade at the pie hut was brisk, too. Anything was
better than watching this.
Perhaps if we'd had something more by way of
entertainment we wouldn't have got stuck into the referee the way we did. After all, he
wasn't the reason we lost this. We lost it because we were no good. That said, it needs to
be recorded that the referee was a cheat. He was biased. He was a crook. Decision after
decision went to Bury. They got away with it. We got booked. They got free kicks and
corners. We got wound up. Probably a next door neighbour of Andy Preece.
As well as being quick and smarter than us at
adapting to the conditions, Bury were a big dirty side. If in doubt, kick it. The referee
obliged them with a blind eye. It seems that along with the biggest day of the year for
fox hunting, Boxing Day also marks the resumption of open season on Andy Cooke. It's
pretty hard to do anything constructive when folks keep kicking you.
The referee lost control of the game before half
time when Little, a bright spark amidst the gloom, was professionally fouled but no action
was taken. This led to a series of retaliations and counter retaliations. Players started
getting personal. Occasionally, he would book someone. Usually a Burnley player. There
were a string of petty fouls, but what action was taken usually depended on what colour
shirt a player was wearing.
So, the referee-bating proved good knockabout
stuff and kept our interest in a dead game alive. But let's not blame him for the result.
The real culprits were several Burnley players who simply weren't up to scratch. I suppose
what was really frustrating about this game is that, when you've had a settled side, you
look for squad players coming in to seize their opportunity and compete for the shirt. It
just didn't happen. Brass was hopeless in the centre of defence. It underlined how
important the, at the time much maligned, signing of Thomas has been to the club, and of
course we were disadvantaged by Davis' sending off, but I expected better from Brass. He
looked lost. Gordon Armstrong, as alleged captain, should have rolled his sleeves up and,
with Thomas out and Davis off, relished in the responsibility of holding the defence
together. But he was lame and purposeless. When he got the ball, he looked panicky and
indecisive. Crichton too, must have realised that this was a test of his mettle. It was a
time to stand up and be counted, make his presence felt and anchor the remnants of the
defence. But he flapped and punched at everything.
Along with this, you expect players coming back
to their old club to have a point to prove, but again this didn't happen. Dean West had
his worst game for Burnley. We all know he can't pass, but here he couldn't do anything
else. He was beaten most times, and when he was subbed at half time it was a mercy. Lenny
Johnrose, given a chance to stake a claim for a place and show Bury what they were
missing, was a headless chicken. In place of the composure of Cook, we had Johnrose
running about out of control and lunging at everything. This was an opportunity left
ungrasped. The Bury fans would have had a field day.
Oddly enough though, we played quite well in the
second half. Regular readers will have remarked on my failure to apply the customary Three
Goal Rule. It is normal practice to leave any game when Burnley trail by three goals, on
the grounds that life is short and there is usually something better to do. However, much
as I might try to persuade my driver, he stood firm: we would stay until the very end.
Throughout the second half I reminded him of the merits of getting away ahead of the
traffic, but he remained unyielding. We would stay. I recalled this as we got caught in a
heavy hailstorm walking to the car after the game. I could have left alone, but although I
could retrace my steps to the pub, I wasn't confident of my ability to find the car,
particularly after two or three more pints worth of amnesia.
So we stayed, and I was able to witness a
display of quite nice passing by Burnley. With Jepson and Cowan on for West and Mellon -
and not before time - we moved the ball about and concentrated on reminding ourselves that
we can still play football. Albeit this came against a Bury side whose halftime teamtalk
must have consisted of the words 'don't get injured', it was still better than the first
half. Jepson knocked the ball about fairly stylishly, and obviously has some historical
disagreement with Adrian Littlejohn - as most sensible people do - for he pursued him and
tackled him vigorously once or twice. Cowan got stuck in, as it's fairly easy to do when
you're 4-0 down, but he still looked more up for it than most.
The withdrawal of Little was the signal that we
had effectively conceded the game. Little had got too wound up after a series of fouls and
was looking for a second yellow card, so it seemed the right thing to do. In his stead we
had the welcome sight of Paul Weller taking the pitch, and another step to recovery. He
chugged about vigorously, looking keen and determined. Nice to have him back.
Before this, we got on level numerical terms,
when eventually one of their many fouling players was booked a second time for an
altercation with Branch, also inevitably booked. The game was over by then, though. Even
the referee had calmed down now, and only occasionally booked someone when he got bored.
Perhaps one of the linesmen had told him to stop making such a prat of himself.
The Clarets faithful had made a good fist of
attempting to inject some atmosphere into a funereal Gigg Lane. Certainly we made more
noise than Bury could be bothered to. I know they were probably in a minority, but a 4-0
lead calls for a party. Many of them left early! The away end started to empty, too,
towards the end.
Those of us who stayed saw two goals! Kind of.
Typically, these were at the far end, and I had just persuaded my driver to move to the
front so we would at least not linger at the final whistle, so I could see bugger all.
With no elevation, the goals might as well have been happening in another town. Ninety
minutes had gone when Jeppo apparently scored from close range. Some guy near me said,
"that goal came ten minutes too late." Oh yeah, I thought. They kicked off, we
grabbed it, Mullin scored a header from a Weller cross (I read somewhere else). Hey, maybe
that guy had a point. Sadly, after those two injury time goals, even the ref realised that
the game had got too stupid and blew for full time.
I don't know if there's any point trying to read
too much into this game, which was one of those freakish matches which happen every so
often. If they hadn't got the early goal, or if the referee had been fair, who knows what
might have happened? Actually, I suspect we still would have been beat, as in essence we
were crap. What is worrying is the question this game poses about the strength of our
squad. With three key players removed, we crumbled. Don't believe everything Ternent says.
Out squad isn't strong enough. I suspect he knows this. If we're serious about going up,
we still need to find a spare striker, a first team midfielder, a goalkeeper to compete
with Crichton and adequate defensive cover. This means finding money. And that is a worry.
Still, at least we got back to Burnley by six
and I'm reliably informed that we eventually did have enough to drink. Certainly I had a
hangover of biblical proportions the next day. It's not big and it's not clever, but I'd
hate to be a teetotal Burnley supporter.
Team: Crichton,
West (Cowan 46), Armstrong, Davis (sent off 9), Brass, Mellon (Jepson 46), Johnrose,
Little (Weller 57), Mullin, Branch, Cooke. Subs not used: Payton and Smith.
London Clarets Man
of the Match: Glen Little and Lenny Johnrose.
The home game
