Burnley and
race in the media
Arise Sir Jimmy?
Post Millwall round-up
Welcome back to the South West Clarets
Season starts
Some triallists join
Click here for August 2001 comment entries
Anyone who's interested in Burnley FC's
race problem should read the excellent article that appeared in today's Independent.
The article can be viewed online at http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=91539. [31/8]
Another minor news round up here.
You may recall a bit back, shortly after the Harry Potts Way triumph, Central Lancashire
Clarets launching a campaign to get Jimmy
McIlroy a knighthood. The official Burnley
website now seems to have taken this up and has launched a petition, which you can sign by
e-mail. Click
here to take you there. Naturally, and notwithstanding some principled reservations
about the honours system, this is the sort of thing that this website will always support,
and it's nice to see the official site getting involved. We urge you to sign it.
Meanwhile, Marlon 'ooh ahh' Beresford returned
to Turf Moor, to play for Wolves' reserves. He deserves better. As it is he went away
beaten, with Dimitri Papadopoulos scoring
the only goal. Our scout at the game comments, "Apart from Arthur, every other first
teamer's place should be safe." No need to go on, as there's a good report on the Clarets
Mad website, which is as usual worth a visit.
Today's news is that yet another overseas triallist has fetched up at Turf Moor. This
time it's David Paas, a Belgian striker from
Racing Genk. Another Gnohere or another De Conde? We'll see.
[30/8]
Not much seems to have happened off the pitch lately, hence the
absence of the usual news round up: there hasn't been anything to round up. On the pitch,
of course, it's been a pretty good season. The Rushden and Diamonds
defeat was disappointing, but I still think Stan did the right thing in trying to play his
squad, and we're not much of a cup team these days. It's almost as if that run to the
fourth round and unforgettable defeat of Derby a couple of years ago used up all our cup
potential for the next few seasons. Incidentally, a book has recently been published about
the FA Cup in that season, and it has quite a bit of coverage of Burnley in it. Called Grass
Roots to New Suits, it's excellent, even though we're biased, having provided some of
the background for the Burnley bits. Meanwhile, in the league, I'm writing before the Man
City game, and even if we get beat tonight and go down to Bradford on Sunday (Monday night
and Sunday afternoon football being almost normal these days), it's still been a good
start to the season, particularly from the point of view of achieving our first objective
- of avoiding relegation. If that seems unambitious, remember a year ago most people
couldn't see us doing that.
Apart from the game, some of our members didn't have a particularly fun time at the New
Den. Click here to read more.
We wish
Marlon 'ooh ahh'
Beresford well with his loan move to Wolves
from the club formerly known as Bryan Robson's Middlesbrough. He hasn't got further than
Wolves' bench yet, but I hope he gets a lucky break somewhere along the line. Although he had his faults, he played a
lot of good games for us during some difficult times, and showed loyalty to the club that
wasn't always matched by others, including some of the managers he played under. On a
similar note, Andy Cooke seems to have started scoring for Stokey again. Will he finally
become a consistent scorer? The Cooke debate ran and ran, particularly towards the end of
his time, but we could never fault his commitment and attitude. We would, therefore, wish
him well, but we don't particularly want to see Stokey go up.
Off the pitch, the club has introduced goal celebration music to Turf
Moor. I think my own views on that are pretty clear, but I would be interested to hear
from anyone who thinks it's a good idea, as according to the club, most people do. Our survey - don't forget to vote if you haven't already - seems to be
telling a somewhat different story.
F
inally, nothing to do with
Burnley, as given the above, we're unlikely to get that far, but the quarter finals of the
FA Cup are the latest part of football to fall victim to tv. All four
matches will now be played on a Sunday. The FA has said that in the past, all the games
were played on the same day. Indeed they were. They were all played at three o'clock on a
Saturday. The FA has also said that this change will make the games more accessible. Just
how accessible will the people who actually want to go to the games find 11.30 and 7.00
Sunday kick offs? Do they still wonder why the FA Cup has lost its magic? The answer lies
no further than Soho Square itself. [27/8]
Welcome back to our
friends and fellow exiles the South West Clarets,
whose new website is at www.southwestclarets.co.uk.
[17/8]
This will be a bit of a round
up of what’s happened since the end of the holidays.
Well, the season started –
eventually – and our stirring and well-deserved win was worth the wait. All you can
ask is to start the season with a win, which makes for a particularly good start if
you’re away. Rather that than get hammered 5-0 like some sides we could mention.
Start of the season comment.
Of course, one thing we didn’t like to
see was those tossers running onto the pitch after Paul Cook’s penalty. Football is
and should be a game of strong passions, but there can be no excuse for going onto the
pitch to confront players physically, and no leniency. Sheffield Wednesday at least
took speedy action against the culprits, although they shouldn’t be resting on their
laurels if they think their stewarding is up to scratch. They were lucky no one got hurt,
but it wasn’t any thanks to them. One of these days something like this could get
serious, and then where will we be?
Hats off, on the other hand, to have-a-go-hero
Stan Ternent, who hurried to intervene, arriving on the scene faster than any of
those whose job it supposedly is to deal with these things. Stan, quite rightly, figured
that he wasn’t going to sit there and watch people attack his players, and why should
he? We assume even the FA would not be sufficiently stupid to charge him for his act.
Keen students of irony that we are, we will
also note in passing that the only reason the Hillsborough tossers were so freely able to
wander onto the pitch was because of the removal of fences after the tragedy that took
place at…
We also note that ITV-on-off Digital
were quick to suggest that, if later kick offs create drunken disorder problems, games
could always be moved. Huh. Now they tell us. We don’t want to say we told you so,
but…
We told you so.
Turning to other matters, we welcome new
goalkeeping coach Alex Stepney, formerly of Manu and most recently an ousted member of the Royle
reign at Man City. Goalkeeping coach is a position we’ve had from time to time, most
recently held by Tony Parks. Chris Wood was another one under the waddle regime. We wish
him the usual well. We assume his Greek is pretty good.
Whilst on matters Hellenic, it appears that
our own Dimitri Papadopoulos (Papa the Greek) played again for the Greek Under 21s, albeit
unfortunately without scoring as they lost 2-0 to Belarus in a friendly. Hmm, wonder if
Belarus have any decent players for us.
Oh, and raised headgear to Gareth Taylor, who we now like after his excellent header at Sheffield. He is back in the
Wales’ squad after a three year sabbatical. They’re at home to Armenia on 1
September and away to Norway on 5 September. Here’s hoping he plays, although given
who (mis) manages their team, we still think he should boycott them as a matter of
principle. Hmm, just a thought, but I don’t suppose there’s any chance of the
Bradford match being off because of international call ups, is there?
Finally for now, although it’s old
news, we never said how pleased we were that the proposed friendly between a Burnley XI
and a Manu XI was postponed. This friendly should never have been scheduled for
this week; it might be pre-season for them, but our season has begun. We don’t need
to be bloody patronised. [15/8]
Burnley have made two more summer signings. We'd like to
welcome Alan Moore and Arthur
Gnohere to the fold after successful trials
with the club.
Alan Moore, 26, released by Middlesbrough after a career dogged by injuries, joined the
Clarets during the Isle of Man tournament and impressed enough to earn a three month
contract. Presumably, this will be extended once he proves his fitness.
The foreign contingent at the Turf was increased further with the signing of Arthur
Gnohere from French club Caen. Arthur, who joins on a two year contract, is a fast and
powerfully built central defender who impressed in his two appearances against Premiership
sides Everton and Chelsea.
Third trialist, Paul Hughes, has not been offered a deal.
On the fixture front, the rearranged away game at Preston on Sunday 9th December now
has a kick-off time of 1 pm. However, as this game is still four months away, it may
change 20 or 30 times before then. [8/8]
August 2001 comment entries
A visit to the New Den
Sort of the start of the season
August diary
September news and comment archive
Archive main menu
As with all articles on the site, the
views expressed in this section are those of the individual contributor, and do not
necessarily reflect the view of the Burnley FC London Supporters Club.
