Goodbye to the Isle of Man
A Claret to play at Deadwood?
Give us a 'P'
Tony Ellis... the new Ian Wright?
Living by numbers
We go away for the weekend and they move another game
Blimey - two new signings
Second tranche of moved matches
First tranche of moved matches
Click here for July 2001 comment entries
Well, it was never going to happen, was it? A shame
for all those who rushed over to see the Final, as by all accounts we didn't play
particularly well in that match although the earlier performances had been better. A late
winner consigned us to a 1-0 defeat but never mind – for several obvious reasons we
tend to like Wrexham, so all credit to them on winning the thing. Oh, and congratulations
to Ian Cox, who was voted Player Of The
Tournament. Coxy was our Player Of The Season for 2000-2001, so it's nice to know he's
maintaining his form!
As far as possible signings are concerned, there's no word yet on
whether we'll be pursuing our interest in either Paul Hughes or Alan Moore. However, one
trialist who won't be enjoying a Turf Moor future is Belgian midfielder Dimitri De Conde,
Stan dismissing him as "no better than what we already have". What does this
imply about Tony Ellis? Hmmmm.
Well, next up are Everton tomorrow night, followed by Chelsea on
Saturday. Not a bad intro to the season proper. As we know from last year, these
pre-season games are not necessarily an accurate guide for the following season, but good
performances against Premiership opposition can only help confidence.
One result which didn't go unnoticed in the Claret side of East
Lancashire was B@stards' defeat at Conference side Morecambe. It's just a shame Phil
Eastwood didn't score the winner.
At the behest of ITV Digital, there are a couple more fixture
changes to add to the seemingly endless list. The mouth-watering home game against Grimsby
Town, originally scheduled for 3pm on Saturday 24th November, has been brought forward to
7.45pm on Friday 23rd. Similarly, the away game against Slugger Moyes' PNE, originally
scheduled for 3pm on Saturday 8th December, has been put back to Sunday 9th December.
Kick-off yet to be determined. [30/7]
No one seems to know much about our latest signing, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, except that he's a Greece
Under 21 international who recently scored against England. He must, therefore, be in with
a chance of making the squad again. Perhaps he'll be called up for the return game against
England on Friday 5 October, which takes place at... Deadwood Park. All sorts of
possibilities arise. Picture the scene. Could Claret clad hordes descend on the home of
our deadly rivals to cheer on England's opposition? Perhaps far-fetched, but it's a
marvellous image.
Meanwhile, this site has adopted a policy of pretty much ignoring the Isle of Man so called 'international' tournament.
This is partly because we don't like the island, and partly down to the fact that we think
we're too big a club to play in this competition, and should be touring Sweden or
somewhere. Nevertheless, we should note that, after two wins and a draw - including a tiny
act of revenge against the Isle of Man XI - we've made the final, to take place in Douglas
on Saturday 28. Jolly good. Now let's hope we win it - and then decide to go somewhere
better next year. [26/7]
Welcome to our latest signing, Dimitrios
Papadopoulos, the Greek Under 21 striker who has signed from Akratitos for
£500,000. Yay! Who needs 36 year old Tony Ellis? Dimitrios brings the Greek contingent at
the club to sort-of-three, alongside Nik 'The Greek' Michopoulos and Luigi 'German born
Greece based Italian' Cennamo. I like this
While I'm on, the official club website
[www.burnleyfootballclub.com, as if you
didn't know] has had a thorough makeover. It's now based on the NTL template, in common
with a number of other club sites. On first glance it seems a better and more coherent
design - I never did like the look or layout of the site before - with more material. The
challenge now will be to keep it up to date and improve the quality of the writing. I make
it that this is the fifth version of the official site, by the way. So go there and have a
look. [24/7]
We appear to have signed 36 year old Tony Ellis on a short term contract. Err, right.
He's joined by three traillists, midfielders Dmitri de Conde and Paul Hughes and winger
Alan Moore, recently at Charleroi, Southampton and Middlesbrough respectively. All are in
the squad for the Isle of Man jaunt. [20/7]
Comment
Is the announcement of new squad
numbers a news story? I don't know, but I'm going to put them up here on
the basis that if I ever need to find them, at least I'll know where to look. So: 1 Nikolaos Michopoulos, 2 Dean West, 3 Mitchell Thomas, 4 Kevin Ball, 5 Steve
Davis, 6 Gordon Armstrong, 7 Glen Little, 8 Paul Cook, 9 Gareth Taylor, 10 Andy Payton, 11
Lenny Johnrose, 12 John Mullin, 14 Ian Cox, 15 Graham Branch, 16 Ian Moore, 17 Anthony
Shandran, 18 Paul Weller, 19 Lee Briscoe, 20 Bradley Maylett, 21 Mark Rasmussen, 22 John
Williamson, 23 Mark McGregor, 24 Luigi Cennamo. Stan doesn't mess about with squad numbers
too much - I suspect he doesn't like them - and shirts only tend to change hands when
players leave. Here, he's taken advantage of a number of departures - Crichton, Mellon,
Cooke, Jepson, Brass and the youngsters - to shuffle some of the senior players up. Hence
our first choice goalkeeper gets to wear 1, and Ball gets Mellon's 4. This means that, in
one respect at least, we don't have any players in the 30s. And Luigi Cennamo must be
superstitious. Of course, we live in the hope that one day this ridiculous
innovation will cease. [18/7]
Look what happens when we go away for the
weekend... they move another game. This one's a beauty though. Our away game at Wolves, originally scheduled for Saturday 27
October, has been put back a day to the Sunday... not because it's on tv, but because
Wolves are on the box (some boxes, anyway) on the Thursday night, yes Thursday night,
before, and need a breather before they play us. I must say, this secondary consequence of
tv rescheduling hadn't occurred to me, but this could happen again, couldn't it? If sides
play on Thursday nights, they won't be playing us on Saturdays. Thursday night football
stinks too. Before the fixtures came out I was contemplating five visits to the West
Midlands, which is easy to get to, contains some real football clubs and sells good beer.
It wasn't great that two of these games were scheduled for midweek. Now we're down to two
West Midlands Saturdays... at the moment. [16/7]
Re-re-revised 'fixture' list
We'd like to welcome not one but two new signings
to Burnley. Makes a change from having to report on games being moved.
The first is Mark McGregor,
who joins us from Wrexham. Mark hails from Chester, and came through the Wrexham youth
team, before going on to play 'about' 250 games. He's 24, and plays principally at right
back, although he's also played in central defence. He has joined on a free transfer,
having come to the end of his contract at Wrexham, and he's signed a three year contract
at Burnley, where he'll wear the famous number 23 shirt. He was also Wrexham's player of
the year last season. This strikes me as exactly the sort of signing we should be looking
for. As not the richest club in the world, it makes sense to target young players who have
proved themselves a division or two lower and look ready for the step up - particularly if
you can get them for nothing. He's already in our good books anyway, as it's been recalled
that he scored the winning goal against Gillingham at the same time we were beating
Scunthorpe to win automatic promotion - in fact, we have a report
from that game.
The second signing is a little more exotic, possibly esoteric. The
capture of a reserve goalkeeper would not normally merit much comment. But an Italian from
a Greek club? Luigi Cennamo joins us from
Olympiakos on a free transfer, as a replacement for Paul Crichton. Luigi is 21 years old,
and was Olympiakos' reserve keeper until recently. It's curious that, with an almost
entirely English outfield squad, in the nets we have a choice between a Greek and an
Italian with Greek connections. With Nik the Greek already at the club, he shouldn't have
any trouble fitting in, although time will tell whether he's another NTG or another Frank
Petter Kval.
While we're updating the site, we might as well chuck in a couple
of other bits and pieces. It's been confirmed that the moved Sheffield
Utd home match will be shown on 'terrestrial' ITV rather than their
mysterious 'On' Digital service - in the Lancashire and Yorkshire regions only! Can't see
any problems with that, then... Secondly, new pie supplier Holland's
are reported to be developing a balti pie, which, once
available, will go on sale at Turf Moor. Hats off!
Finally, returning to our pet subject of changed games, check out
the Bob Lord's Sausage website for the '6.15 stinks' campaign - a statement we heartily
endorse. [11/7]
Yet more games have been
moved. First, the Sheffield United home
game will now not be played on Saturday 3 November. It's been moved to the far less
accessible slot of Sunday 4 November, with a 2.15 kick off. Yep, that season ticket you
bought really is looking good value now, eh?
Then, just to add a touch of farce to the proceedings, the Birmingham City Away match, originally scheduled
for Tuesday 18 September, which was moved to Wednesday 19 September last week, has been
moved again... to Tuesday 18 September. For now. I do wish Birmingham would make their
minds up. If you plan to go to this match, it may well be best to check with St Andrew's
first. I'm off out now to buy a new diary now.
Re-revised 'fixture' list and comment
Other developments today involved minor fixtures. We've added another pre-season
friendly, although curiously, it will take place after our season has started. That's at
home against a Manu XI on Tuesday 14 August
at 7.45, and if that 'XI' isn't enough of a clue, it has been stated that the team will
contain no players involved in international games - and neither will Manu's! Click here for a list of friendlies as they currently
stand. Secondly, the reserve league fixtures
are out. We don't propose to repeat them here, particularly as it's a devalued competition
with all the changes in recent years, and they're available on the official Burnley FC
website at www.burnleyfootballclub.com/avon.htm.
