Our visit to the Valley was not a good night
out. Everything went wrong. It wasn’t just the result, undoubtedly poor though that
was. We played badly, that couldn’t be gainsaid, but I wasn’t about to get too
downhearted about losing away against a side from a higher division in a competition we
were never going to win. Maybe it was our manager who was getting me down? As all five
defenders looked at each other and Hoyland flailed around like, well, like he always does,
I couldn’t help but think that only the day before our manager, in his wisdom, had
transfer listed proper defender Peter Swan for turning his nose up at the insults of
Hereford or Hartlepool on loan. I couldn’t get annoyed about that, however, for
I’d set myself a pre-season promise to keep off Heath’s back until the new year
at least.
Those of you who attempted to catch the 18.57 from Charing Cross might think you know
the real reason for my frustration. Whatever the ex-British Rail company is called this
week contrived to make us miss a 7.45 kick off at one of the nearest grounds of the
season. A perfect example of the butterfly effect - whereby said insect flaps its wings in
China and causes an earthquake on the other side of the world - had us held up and halted
in the Charing Cross-London Bridge bottleneck when some train nowhere near Charlton jumped
the tracks. Of course this was irritating, and my mood was not lightened once at the
ground by the farce of having to queue at a window to buy a ticket, then queue again at a
turnstile to give it up. Note the use of the singular indefinite article for 'turnstile'
and 'window'. There was one of each, regardless of how long the blameless queue got, or
how many stewards stood the other side of the turnstiles waiting to search us, but not
prepared to expedite that process by actually letting us in. When I asked who the letter
of complaint should be sent to, a steward replied 'British Rail'. Hmm, it was their fault
there was only one turnstile open then. He threatened to throw me out.
Oh, I’d forgotten what the seats were like. To sit in the away end at the Valley
is to realise how good the seats at Turf Moor are. I hate this place. Surrounded by vast
expanses of tiny taped off 'fun size’ seats a select gathering of Clarets was
squeezed into a small middle section. Charlton had made the usual mistake of failing to
anticipate a substantial Clarets following from the south east. We were struggling to find
three seats together. This was an absurd situation. Why couldn’t we use these seats?
It transpired that the club did not have a safety certificate for the other bits of the
stand because there weren’t enough stewards about. This was hilarious news, and we
looked upon the stewards convention gathered around the away end comparing orange vests en
masse in a new light.
Yes, I was pretty cross about all that, but if one will go to Charlton, one must expect
these things. All this was merely an hors d’oeuvre to the main problem of the night.
One thing really got me fuming. It was the supporters; no, not theirs, ours: the
Burnley supporters.
As I said, there weren’t many seats left by the time we got in, but we spied three
together, in a good position, that had mysteriously been left alone. We soon found out
why. We thought we had sat in the Charlton away end, but quickly discovered that we were
in a much stranger place: the Bob Lord Stand. Yes, in spirit if not in structure we were
transported there and reminded why we had all sworn blind never to use the Bob Lord again.
Sat behind us was a group of people for whom this game was pure joy. It was great, you
see, Burnley kept doing things wrong. Excellent! This was a heaven sent opportunity
to give vent to a full range of invective and witticisms. Our boys did not fail to take
their chance, unlike our strikers, who of course should have scored every time they got
near goal. Each pass was a perfect present, a chance to alternately (and seemingly
randomly) remark "no-one wants it" or "who was that to?" Oh, when
Marlon let in that soft shot to make it 2-1 rapture was truly theirs. At last a chance to
berate as useless one of the few players who kept us up last season. Put thoughts of his
injury from your minds - it is not often one gets such an opportunity to scorn one of our
most consistent players.
As I listened, a theory grew on me and took hold, try though I might to resist its odd
conclusions: these men were waiting for things to go wrong. They had their little
'jokes’ (loosely defined) pre-rehearsed and ready to be shared with their involuntary
audience. If things had gone well would they have been silent? I couldn’t help but
feel that at every pass we made, every ball they played forward, every free kick we took
and every corner they won, our friends were sizing up the potential for disaster and
predicting it with relish. That can’t be true though, can it, because there’s no
point going to games if you think that way? All predictions that came true were succeeded
with a valedictory 'told you so.’ Forecasts that fell on stoney ground had them
strangely silent, though sadly never for long.
The third goal - sloppiest defending of the first order from their 45th minute corner -
was truly the icing on the cake. I thought they were going to explode with happiness. How
vindicated they felt! What a glorious feeling it must be to approach the game from the
starting point that Burnley are rubbish and be proven right! At half time I suggested we
move. No, more than that, I said we had to move, for I could not hold my tongue for 45
minutes more. We found ourselves behind the goal, amidst kids with southern accents,
doubtless being given a rare if puzzling treat by their determined parents. The air was
soon heavy with irony when the woman behind us started to exercise her vocal
cords with irritating regularity. Resolved not to cause another scene, I managed not to
rise to her bait. The bait was continual abuse of players, which reached its nadir when
Nogan was substituted. The night had not been his, that couldn’t be denied, but he
had done nothing to deserve the abuse that now greeted our ears, viz, "get off Nogan,
you’re bloody rubbish. You’re not fit to wear a Burnley shirt." No amount
of self restraint could stop us reacting to this. Who could blame us? The woman was quite
obviously insane. We turned round and enquired whether she taken leave of her senses. A
brief and futile discussion ensued. There was no way of talking to her, no possibility of
cracking the thick shell of prejudice through which she dimly viewed the game. She quickly
detected southern tinged accents and seized upon them as a weapon. "You should go to
all the games," she told one of our most regular travellers. "I do," he
responded, but it didn’t get through. Her companion - presumably her husband, god
help the both of them - chimed in, saying that "with a bit of luck Heath’ll drop
Nogan at Chesterfield on Saturday." "Good," she replied, "I hope he
does. He bloody deserves it, the lazy bastard." Yes, in case you were wondering, we
were talking about the same player here, Burnley’s top scorer (and at the time, the
division’s). Presumably she wanted him to tackle back a bit more.
Even trying to explain her behaviour in a rational way may be to give her more credit
than she deserves, for then the strangest of things started to happen. Previously heard
only whinging, she now started to cheer on the team. It was clear she was trying to put
some distance between her and us, to highlight herself as a 'true supporter’ who had
come all this way in contrast to us southern part-timers. It became apparent that her
support had a particular focus: she was cheering Andy Cooke. "Get stuck in Cooke lad,
not like that lazy..." (I think you can guess the rest.) She was an Andy Cooke
supporter, only now cheering on the team because of his presence on the pitch. This was a
classic example of the kind of polarised thinking us clarets have slipped into, a legacy
of the 'Mullen stay or go era’ and the continuing debate about the board. We argue
and we get forced into extreme positions: Mullen should stay or go, the board are good or
bad, and so on. Such a binary form of argument is a natural response to the trauma of the
last few seasons. To this woman’s muddled way of thinking - again, I may be
dignifying the tawdry reality of her mind - there is a choice of Nogan or Cooke for one
position, so if you like Cooke, you have to hate Nogan. It’s as simple as that. You
can’t think they’re both good players. Overload! Overload! The brain cells just
can’t take it.
I like Cooke. I think he’s a reasonably good player who applies himself with a
great deal of commitment. He hasn’t always been given a fair crack of the whip. Not
only that, but he’s a nice lad who came to the APFSCIL do and had to put up with us
lot, for which he deserves obvious sympathy. It was an irony I didn’t consider
sharing on the night that those whom the Cooke fan chose to berate had talked with the
player himself about his limited chances at the club. I like Cooke, then. I happen to
think Nogan’s a better player, and I think most people who don’t wear blinkers
would agree with me. Given that Barnes and Nogan are first choice strikers, I’d
always like to see Cooke given a place on the bench. It’s good to think there’s
three strikers chasing two positions, and Cooke gives us an option of using another
striker if the game requires. It’s true that when he came on at Charlton we looked
slightly more like we were in the same game. I couldn’t disentangle this from the
fact that Charlton had removed Leaburn at around the same time, but Cooke caused a couple
of problems for their defenders, just as he’d done at Millwall, when he of course
came on alongside Nogan, rather than instead of. They’re not mutually
exclusive; you can have both.
I wasn’t about to waste breath by trying to explain this on the night, mind. I
could see that there was no way of reaching this woman. She was too far gone. We merely
had to sit quietly, regretting that we had once again got involved, but still incredulous.
Did we really hear her say that? It simply couldn’t be true. When one thinks of some
of the abject tossers who have worn the Burnley shirt over the years.
I make light of it all, but I left feeling down. As well as the Nogan thing, we had
heard the people in the first half tell Barnes to "sod off back to Birmingham,"
while someone else had heard a Burnley fan opine that "David Eyres has never been any
good since we signed him." See, I do not argue against people’s right to
criticise poor performances; we all have that right, indeed, it is almost a duty when
things are going wrong. I am not about to adopt the Holt / Teasdale turnstile fodder
philosophy. What seems wrong to me is when people look for things with which to find
fault, seek out fuel for vicious humour and revel in disaster. There’s a certain
section of the Burnley support who are comfortable in failure, who are more at ease with
the opportunities for sarcasm, gloomy humour and 'told you so’ predictions it affords
than with success. I find it impossible to excuse such attitudes. There’s nothing
wrong with expressing opinions, but if we do it loud enough for those around us to hear
then we can’t be surprised if they respond. If those opinions are plain barmy - we
return to the sad figure of the woman at Charlton - then public ridicule is a reasonable
reaction.
I suppose these people might say they were entitled to criticise, given a journey
involving considerable time and expense for such a poor performance. Well, we should know.
Charlton was an all too rare role reversal. There was definitely something in the mad
woman’s attitude that she was a true fan and we were part timers she was putting
straight on a few things. I guess a lot of people up in Burnley think we only turn up for
southern games, and do not realise the sheer and routine effort many of us put in just to
get to games. That’s a PR problem for us. A 500 mile round trip may be an occasional
licence to moan for some; for us it’s a matter of fact occurrence unworthy of
comment. If a London-Burnley journey gives you the right to say daft things, why not try
this when you next visit Turf Moor and see if it cuts any ice? Sure, a long journey to
watch a bad game is depressing, but I am concerned with those whose jokes seem well
rehearsed. Think about how much more interesting it could be if, when making a long and
expensive journey, you set out with the intention of having a thoroughly good time.
I, like many other people, remember that time at Derby and how brilliant our fans were.
Sometimes I have to try very hard to remind myself of that day, that’s all.
