Isn’t it always a joy to see and hear supporters’ reactions to a bit of success?
I, too, am a Claret of 40 years’ standing, having seen my first match at Blackpool as an eight year old in 1962. In all that time, Burnley FC has won the square root of nothing.
OK, we’ve had a few promotions, a League Cup semi-final against the giants of Swindon, which we couldn’t win over three games, and on one heady afternoon in 1974 we were 90 minutes’ worth of Malcolm MacDonald away from an FA Cup final. I was there. OK, I’ll even go so far as to include a shared Charity Shield (because somebody else couldn’t be bothered to take part) and was it an Anglo-Scottish or Watney Cup? But we’ve actually won, er… nothing.
Now, this doesn’t actually worry me too much. Such is a supporter’s lot. It’s rather like a lot of things in life – the anticipation is actually better than the main event. So I’ve had half a lifetime of hoping, wanting and praying that Burnley FC would actually DO something, and, save for the odd one off here and there, for the most part been unfulfilled.
There is nothing unique in this; the vast majority of football clubs and supporters experience the same. I take pride that, in supporting my club, most football connoisseurs (and I’ve lived in Birmingham for 30 years) think benevolently of a famous club from a small town somewhere ‘up North’ and will reminisce happily of times when their clubs have crossed paths with the famous Claret and Blue.
It’s a proper football club from a proper football town, and (generally) people think well of us. However, the minute the maximum wage was scrapped (1961-ish?), the writing was on the wall for small clubs like Burnley, and swimming against the economic tide was always going to be damned hard work.
We managed to keep paddling for much of the 60s due to loyal playing staff and a youth production line that was punching above its weight. But thereafter, a combination of bigger clubs luring away our home grown talent (or getting their hands on youngsters before us) and a failure to move with the times meant the fare on offer for the paying spectator was indeed hard to watch.
In fact, in my 40 years of Claret-watching, we’ve only ever had two or three sides worth paying to see for the style of football played. Not counting Burnley sides on the wane, the sides of ‘65-‘66-‘67 (Irvine, Coates, O’Neil, Morgan et al) and ‘73-‘74 (Dobson, Casper, Collins, Nulty) were probably the only teams that I expected to beat the opposition come 3.00pm on a Saturday. I suspect even this season, all through the heady days of the autumn just gone, not many fans expected us to win come kick-off time.
Do I want Premiership football next year? Well, yes and no. Do I expect it? No. Did I ever entertain thoughts of it three years ago? No, no, no!
That is why it’s so important to keep all this in perspective. We actually have a VERY average team in terms of ability. If you don’t believe me, how many of our team would get into KKMC’s team? Or DJWW’s team? Or even, come to that, GMWBA? The answer is probably (a fit Glen Little apart) none. The strength of the current side is its work ethos and good fortune. Of the games played this season, we have only comprehensively outplayed… err, one team – Coventry. All the rest have been edge of seat jobs or hanging on – even when we got five goals against Walsall. We could, very easily, be 20 points worse off.
Super Glen apart, how many of the current side will go on to greater things? They won’t. For them, Burnley FC is the end of the line. Now Stan has not done this on his own; it’s only headteachers who can single-handedly "turn things round." Everyone else needs a team effort, and the commitment of everyone from Chairman of the Board to turnstile operator pulling in the same direction to start going places. Everyone at BFC deserves credit for metamorphosing the end of the waddle era into what we have today.
Yes I know expectations have risen; mine have too. However, let’s have a think. It’s one thing to buy £1m pound players – "beer money" according to some – and another thing to pay their outrageous wage demands. Does anyone outside the boardroom know what Kuqi wanted paying? Or Robbie Blake? Or even Super GL when he got his contract extension?
Burnley FC IS a small club. If you can’t get your head around that, you’ve got a problem. Yes it would be nice to go (again) to Man U, Liverpool et al. Would you still like it if you were getting thrashed each week and seeing the club implode? Because that’s what would happen. To buy survival in the Premiership would probably cost about £60m in fees and contracts, or to do an Ipswich you need a flourishing youth system producing top quality youngsters who haven’t already been lured away to a ‘bigger’ club. On either count, as things stand, we would fail miserably.
If this all sounds unduly pessimistic, it isn’t! It’s just that I don’t believe the Premiership to be the Holy Grail most folks seem to think it is. I’d rather stabilise, even if that takes five years or more, and watch others slide down the slippery pole of too many prima donnas feeding at a trough simply unsustainable on gates of 25,000.
Don’t forget Nottingham Forest were domestic and European champions in my Claret–watching time, and they are a midge’s wotsit away from oblivion, along with Sheff Wed, Coventry and soon to be joined by Middlesbrough, Leicester, Derby and our dear friends at B*st*rd Rovers. Did you never hear the bible story about the house built on sand…?
Eddie Lea
Birmingham
January 2002
The ambition debate - views from Lincoln Allison,
David Thomas and Firmo
As
with all articles on the site, the views expressed in
the comments section are those of the individual
contributor, and do not necessarily reflect the view
of the Burnley FC London Supporters Club
