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Minor round-up
George Bray
It's all gone very quiet
We want our silver salver back!
Click here for February 2002 comment entries
26 February - A bit of a minor round-up
Regular readers of this site (I must meet you both for a drink sometime) may have been curious about the absence of updates in the news section recently. As you may be aware, we customarily try to offer the useful service of briefly mentioning in a snide way news that has already been reported everywhere else. As it happens, the Web Tsar has been off on his travels again, but as luck would have it, nothing much happened anyway.
The main thing that happened was, in further contradiction to the famed promise of Clive Holt, that yet again a match was called off at Turf Moor because of the weather. At the time he said it, Clive’s words struck me as rather a hostage to fortune, and I hope he’s had cause to reflect on, and regret, his rather bullish (or something like that) words. Due to the rain, last Tuesday’s match against Bradford was called off at short notice, and not for the first time. To postpone the match once looks like misfortune, twice like carelessness? One can’t help wondering what purpose our, at the time much vaunted, invested in the ‘Matchsaver’ (sic) covers has served. So far, have they actually saved a match? Indeed, due to their incorrect application on New Year’s Day, they may have cost us one. Call me picky, but a net total of minus one saved match is an unimpressive return on our investment. As usual, the game was called off late, when Burnley supporters from afar had already travelled to the town, and as usual, there seem to be some areas of factual divergence between the club’s version of events and that of independent eyewitnesses. The truth may well be out there somewhere, but if it is, it’ll have got awfully wet. The third postponement is now scheduled for Wednesday 20 March. Unusual for Burnley to play a home match on a Wednesday (not that we think it will happen – we predict it will rain frogs just before 7.45) but of course tv has already shifted our match against David Moyes’ middling Preston to the Sunday. Some of our lot have already had two wasted journeys for this fixture, so we’d better bloody win it if it is ever played.
Click here for more comment on the postponement.
Meanwhile, our final (?) match of the season, at home to Coventry, will now kick off at 2 o’clock on Sunday 21 April – although if Coventry need a result their supporters will probably manage to do what they always did on the last match of the season when they needed to stop up, and somehow contrive to make the game kick off late.
In the absence of a proper match last week we had one of Stan’s ‘behind closed doors’ matches against Bolton, which we lost 2-0.
Elsewhere, we must congratulate our neighbours on their lucky victory in the final of the joke cup competition that no one takes seriously any more. We hope they represent the Nationwide League well in Europe next season, although it has to be said their track record isn’t promising. Expect more of them getting beat by Scandinavian part timers in half empty grounds. As for the cup they won, we superbly demonstrated our own contempt for the contest by removing ourselves from it as quickly as possible this season. Since it clearly cannot be taken seriously anymore, I call on Burnley to do the decent thing and refuse to enter next season.
In connection with this, Jack Straw earned the wrath of the usual bunch of rentaquote spokesmen for making some rather ill-judged comments about Burnley on the radio the other day. We’re not going to fume and bluster, because we don’t think the bloke’s worth it. We shall merely treat them as the lame attempts at street-cred humour from an arriviste fan without a football bone in his body that they undoubtedly were. And we can take a bit of banter, surely. Besides, we could never take Straw seriously when he was busy abolishing trial by jury, so why start now? Since Tony Blair has taken over as Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister, Straw’s clearly got a lot of time on his hands to do this sort of interview. I mean, it’s not as though there’s anything important going on in the world that he ought to be worrying about, is it? He only deserves our pity. The one thing worse than being a Blackburn fan is pretending to be a Blackburn fan.
Finally, it’s being reported that Marlon will stay on another month’s loan. His current deal was due to expire after the Norwich match. This is jolly good news. NTG may well be returning to fitness, but Marlon has been steady in goal, and as the incumbent, deserves to hang on to the shirt until he drops a clanger or two. I wonder if we’re thinking about making the arrangement permanent? Ever since the Admirable upped sticks to join Delia’s darlings we’ve needed another keeper, and if we can get him for nothing, Marlon would fit the bill.
15 February - George Bray
We'd like to record the sadness of all who contribute to this site about the recent death of George Bray at the age of 83. The phrase 'great club servant' is an over used one, but if anyone ever deserved it, it was George Bray. He joined Burnley as an 18 year-old from Great Harwood town, and from then on maintained a life long relationship with the Clarets. He played both sides of the War, including in the 1946/47 side that won promotion to the first division and got to the final of the FA Cup. He was a true one club man, and following his retirement in 1952, after playing 259 games, he joined the backroom staff. He was 'A' team trainer, reserve team trainer and first team trainer until he retired in 1974. Even then, it wasn't over, and he later came back as kit manager, before finally retiring in 1992.
At a time when we have had some inappropriate minute's silences, Saturday's before our game against Forest is entirely justified. Our thoughts are with his family.
13 February - And suddenly... nothing happened
We're committed to trying to keep reasonably abreast of the news and keep it all in an archive. But unfortunately, nothing has happened recently! Hence, no updates.
Okay, in the last week, two things spring to mind. Firstly, the club announced that we will once again be participating in the ' Isle of Man Steam Packet International Football Festival' this summer. Yippee.
Click here for a personal opinion.
Secondly, Gareth Taylor was put on stand by for the squad for Wales' friendly against Argentina, but despite Wales having five injuries, he wasn't called up.
Oh well, that's it for now. Wake us up when there's something to report, will you?
5 February - What retirement?
Surprising news of the day is that
Graham Taylor is returning to football management at Aston Villa. Burnley supporters may be suffering from a collective hallucination that Taylor had 'retired' from management, and that his final game was Watford's defeat at Turf Moor on the closing day of last season. Clearly not. Hang on, didn't Burnley present him with some trinket in recognition of his 'retirement'? Am I the only one who thinks we should now ask for our gift to be returned? It was given to him in good faith, but that now turns out to have been misjudged. We should ask for whatever we gave him back. Who knows, we're always banging on about how hard up we are, so if it's worth something we might even flog it and give Stan the cash.
One good thing to come out of this is that perhaps, finally, Watford fans will stop bleating about how Burnley's traditional end of season pitch invasion spoiled Taylor's 'retirement' party. We were accused of a lack of respect. I'd suggest that having a retirement party and then getting another job somewhat more takes the piss. I wonder how the Watford fans who made the unaccustomed trip to Turf Moor, travelling for once in their thousands to see Taylor's alleged 'retirement', feel now. They could have stopped at home like they normally do. It's possible to conclude that Taylor's feelings for the club weren't as strong as they supposed. In the end, it turned out he hadn't retired from football at all. He'd just retired from Watford. And who can argue with that?
February 2002 comment entries
Another postponement at Turf Moor
Let's do something about the atmosphere at Turf Moor
Why do we keep playing boring friendlies?
More Watford-related fun
February diary
March 2002 news and comment archive
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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.
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