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Games number ten and eleven moved
Game moved shocker
Money, movies, Michopoulos and a moron
Tippy's storm in a teacup
Grant arrives and hats off to Bazza
Mullin gone
Watford game off
Click here for October 2001 comment entries
Not much has happened since the Web Tsar's latest, and (for a while)
final, recent absence, except the rescheduling of a couple more games. Ho hum, this hardly
counts as news any more, does it? Those good people at ITV Sport - the channel you can
safely ignore - have obligingly made another game harder to get to for our exiled members.
Much to no one's surprise, our post Christmas trip to Man City will now
be televised for the entertainment of the watching hundreds. The date remains unchanged -
December 29 - but the game will now kick off at the hard to get to time of 12 o'clock,
instead of the accessible hour of three. Let's hope the several people who tune in to
ITV's games are happy at least. Secondly, Watford have done a Wolves, in
moving our away game against them because they're on the telly and they don't want to play
two games in three days, the soft southern jessies. Instead of playing them on Tuesday 29
January, we now play them one day sooner, on Monday 28, at 7.45. Not much skin of our
noses down here, but one can hardly say a cold winter Monday night in Watford is anyone's
idea of fun.
That makes it eleven games moved this season, including the Birmingham away and Watford
home games, which have been moved twice. Once again we're just expected to fall in and put
up with it, for the sake of a flawed and failing tv deal. Ah well, for Christmas I'll be
hoping Santa brings a larger 2002 diary to accommodate all the crossings out. [25/10]
For a many-times revised tentative list of dates on which games might be played, click here.
The Watford home match, postponed from 5 October due to the
opposition possessing an unlikely number of internationals, has been re-arranged. It now
takes place on Tuesday 13 November at 7.45. That makes four home games and only one away
game that month. A chance to get some points on the board, perhaps? But it's a sign of
what times we live in that, four home games though they may be, only one is on a Saturday
- and Barry had to put his foot down to make sure that one wasn't moved too. Hmm, wonder
how many people will be able to afford all four? At least it's no longer a 'Category A'
game. [18/10]
Honestly. If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Still
struggling to re-establish even a tenuous grip on reality after recent disruptions, the
Web Tsar now finds that his efforts to maintain the website have been hampered by some
serious computer problems. We won’t bore you with the details, but if one day
there’s a black hole where this site used to be, you’ll know why. Anyway,
here’s what’s more or less happened while we’ve been busy hamfistedly
fighting technology.
The club’s annual
accounts have been announced. No point going
in to detail when you can read them, and Chairman Barry Kilby’s report, on the
official Burnley website, by clicking here
and here
respectively. These also set out the club’s plans for the future. The headline
figures are that the club made a loss of £2.1m for the financial year ending in May 2001,
compared to a loss of £1.6m the year before – not quite the break even they’ve
been looking for. That said, turnover has increased from £5.6m to £7.2m – it’s
just that costs have gone up too, with staff costs up from £4.2m to £6.1m. This meant
that wages amounted to 85% of turnover compared to 75% the season before. The club makes
the point that this is due to recruitment of new players and improved contracts for
current players, with the aim of maintaining our first division status.
They’re right, of course – if we don’t stay in the first division,
nothing else matters, and the best laid plans mean nothing. Small, careful and long-term
investments – such as the £1m signing of Ian Moore – are justified in the light
of this aim.
It’s odd, though, to think that not so many years back Burnley was one of the few
football clubs that made a profit. That said, we weren’t in the first division then,
and this was before we rebuilt half the ground. I think what the accounts underline is
that the team – still third in the division at the time of writing – continues
to outperform the club’s financial status. The club wouldn’t come third in a
league table of budgets. Or, to put in another way, a £2m loss isn’t bad for what
we’ve achieved on the field.
The hope for the future will be that the club catches up to the level that the team is
at now, and our success becomes sustainable. Wages accounting for 85% of turnover
aren’t something you want to see in the long term. More money needs to come from
somewhere, even while we keep beating the odds. With that in mind, I’m a little
concerned, for example, at the small contribution made by the much-touted financial
services, which brought in only £32k. Still, we have to keep faith in Barry and his crew,
who have brought us this far.
I won’t go on, as I’m a financially illiterate, as my bank manager would
doubtless confirm. If someone out there with a sharp eye for these things wants to take a
look at the accounts and report back to us, please do. If you want to see how these
compare to last year’s figures, click here.
As for the future, the club aims for turnover this season of £10m, combined with
investment in infrastructure. The club’s AGM will take place on Thursday 8th
November.
The club also announced that a new Clarets
video will hit the shops soon. Called When
We Were Kings, this follow up to the brilliant Rhapsody in Claret and Blue (no
home should be without one) looks at Burnley’s two European campaigns of the 1960s.
This was a time when we were demonstrably one of the greatest teams in the land, and able
ambassadors for the country abroad. It sounds great, particularly as it’s made by
Stewart Binns, award winning film-maker and the man behind the Rhapsody video.
It’s due out in December, but you can order your copy now from the online club shop
by clicking here,
or read more about it by clicking here.
It certainly sounds an essential purchase, and we’ll be doing a review of it on the
site once our copy arrives. I suspect quite a few Christmas present problems have just
been solved for our members.
To read our own tales of our two great European adventures, click here.
Also new on the official site, while we’re seemingly doing advertising for them
(cheque in the post, is it?) is the online
box office. You can now buy tickets for
Burnley home matches on the internet – which may be of interest to Burnley exiles.
Click here
to do so.
What else? We must add hats off to Nik
Michopoulos on winning the ‘save of the
month’ competition for the second time. Quite how these things are decided we
don’t know, but we can’t imagine anyone made a better save than Niko’s
fantastic reaction stop against Mark Robins at home to Rotherham. Although we won 3-0, at
the time of the save it was 0-0, so who knows what might have happened if, as seemed
inevitable, Robins had scored? A worthy winner, then. To read more about it, view our
match report by clicking here.
NTG had previously won for his save in the 0-0 draw at Gillingham. Recall that game by
clicking here.
Ah, and Trevor Francis lost his job. He won’t be too happy about
that…
Finally, for now, it isn’t like us to resist the temptation to have a good old
laugh at Glenn Roeder-to-Ruin’s expense. Except, of course, that
last weekend’s 7-1 drubbing for the somewhat less than happy Hammers was at the hands
of the Wrong Side. There is no such thing as a good result for Them, regardless of the
opposition. We had, therefore, resolved to stay silent. But really, this man’s
after-match comments, as reported in Monday’s Guardian, defy belief. According to
them, the Evil One said:
"Look at Burnley and Stan Ternent. They lost 6-0 at home to Manchester City a
couple of years ago and there was a massive question mark over his future. He survived and
now he’s doing a great job. I’m still confident that, given time, I can cope if
other people can."
With characteristic but still stunning short-sightedness, the Prince of Darkness misses
one or two quite fundamental differences between his own situation and Uncle Stan’s:
- Stan Ternent is a proven and successful football manager with a strong track record.
Glen Roeder isn’t.
- Stan Ternent struggled because he inherited a football club that was a shambles, with
players that were ill-disciplined, un-motivated and not up to playing in the second
division. Precious transfer funds had been frittered away in getting the club into such a
state. One of the two men responsible for leaving the club like this was, of course, Glen
Roeder, who was lucky enough not to walk into anything like such a mess at West Ham. But
he’s still making a predictable pig’s ear of it.
And yes, we take great pleasure in being right.
But the sheer cheek of the man! You could almost admire it. How out of touch with
reality can he be?
Still, if he admires Stan so
much, he will at least have the pleasure of paying his respects in person in the First
Division next season. Oh, but he’ll be gone by then. Shame. [17/10]
We’re still catching up here on minor events during
our recent absences. Not that, we assume, anyone visits this site to stay up to date with
the latest news. No, we do what we can to offer opinion, comment, perhaps an argument, but
for comprehensive provision of everything that’s happened, you need to go to our good
friends, the Clarets Mad website. Incidentally,
if you haven’t already seen it, click here to read their
reprint of Uncle Stan’s fascinating Sunday Express interview.
Nevertheless, to maintain our archives, here we go with another round
up...
Doubtless you’re aware that Phil “Typhoo” Gray got sent off playing for Boston this week. Yes, that’s Boston, not Bolton,
and yes, it’s the one in Lincolnshire, not America. The ever ambitious former Claret
has signed for the Conference side on a month’s loan. We would say how are the mighty
fallen, except that in Gray’s case, he never was particularly mighty. But to think
that this time last year he was still on the books of a first division club! Sadly for
“Tetley”, his Burnley debut was as good as it got. He scored, you will recall,
our first goal back in the first division and secured us at Bolton. Unfortunately his
first goal turned out to be his only goal. He also had the honour of becoming
Burnley’s first international in 16 years when he was called up for Northern Ireland.
However, he was soon injured, and was said to have grown disgruntled at having to justify
a first team place, and worried about his so-called “international career”,
although it should be said this generally consisted of late substitute appearances. Uncle
Stan doesn’t mess around, and he didn’t waste any time shipping
“Lipton” out to Oxford, for whom he scored a few goals in what could never
accurately be called their fight against relegation. Now, obviously, Oxford’s new
managerial team of Mark Wright and our own Tin Man have seen through him, and it’s
off to the usual last resting place of ex-Clarets. The question must be, how many
Conference sides don’t have a former Burnley player? Anyway, that’s quite enough
about a minor former Burnley player. Let his fate simply serve as a lesson for those who
question the Way of Stan.
Ah well. Meanwhile, latest dubious foreign triallist to come to the club
is Thomas Sobotzik, a 26 year old German midfielder, lately of Eintracht Frankfurt.
Unfortunately he didn’t get his clearance to play in the reserves’ 5-0
demolition of Oldham, but his chance should come soon. We predict he’ll turn out to
be “good, but no better than what we already have.” I think that's us done for
now. [12/10]
Uncle Stan has reacted to our recent form stutter by
signing midfielder Tony Grant from Kevin Keegan's Man City, for a fee reported to be anywhere
between £250,000 and £400,000. His contract runs until the end of 2004/05. Grant was one
of various KK Man City players rumoured to be signing for us on an occasional basis. Hang
on, according to rumour, shouldn't Glen Little have gone the other way? Grant is 26 and
started off at Everton before moving to Man City, both times under the managership of Joe
Royle. He also played for Swindon, Tranmere and West Brom on loan. Opinion on
"Rodney's" talents - apparently there is a resemblance to a well-known sit com
character - has been mixed. West Brom supporters really rated him, while Man City fans
seem pleased to see the back of him. That said, this is not an uncommon reaction when we
sign a player. I treasure a mail from a Sheffield Wednesday fan thanking us profusely for
signing Briscoe... and look where we are now compared to them. And to be honest, Man City
fans as a rule know nowt about football, or they wouldn't keep saying they were "too
good for this division" that they keep getting relegated to, so we never pay their
views much heed. As a small budget club in a big budget league, we are required to hunt
for bargains, pick up players other clubs don't want and see the talent that others
haven't. And we're not bad at this. Stan seems to bring out strengths in players that
other, more high profile managers, can't. Let's hope Grant is another of Stan's bargains,
then. We'll continue to work on the reliable assumption that the manager knows what he's
doing. Grant's main strength seems to be his passing, he plays in a position where the
squad is thin and he's 26. He looks, therefore, like the sort of player we need. Welcome.
Meanwhile, hats off to Chairman Barry Kilby, who has
made that most unusual announcement in modern football - that a game will go ahead at the
scheduled time. The match in question is our home game against Portsmouth on Saturday 10
November. As we have by now become accustomed to, the FA, those alleged guardians of the
whole of English football, from its national pinnacle to the grassroots, has plonked an
international match slap bang in the middle of Saturday afternoon. England will play
Sweden in a friendly at a time when a full Football League programme has been scheduled.
We might have expected, based on past experience, that our game would be moved, perhaps to
a Friday night, a Sunday afternoon, or even a time on Saturday less convenient than a
three o'clock kick off. But no, Barry has stuck to his guns and declared that the game
will not be moved. You can read his views on the official Burnley FC website by clicking here.
Regular visitors of our site will know that some of our contributors have been banging on
about this for years, and it is gratifying to see that Barry shares our views. He points
out that it would be easier to schedule England's game at a different time than force a
whole League programme to be moved. He goes on to say, "We also have to think of the
Portsmouth supporters and our long distance fans such as the London Clarets." We
couldn't agree more. So, Saturday 10 November is now a test. Is it club or country? You
must choose. You either get out there and support the Clarets in their bid to reach the
premier league, or you sit on your arse and watch a meaningless game. It isn't even a hard
decision, is it? I know where I'm going to be. See you on the Turf! [12/10]
So, what happened while the Web Tsar was absent on
antipodean adventures? Well, Dimitrios
Papadopoulos realised the ambition of all
Burnley strikers by scoring a goal at Deadwood Park. Unfortunately it was only for Greece
Under 21s, but it's a start. Perhaps we'll see him playing a League game for us at some
point.
For a view on how Papa played, click here.
Secondly, John
Mullin left Burnley for the third and -
although you never know what the future holds - presumably final time, signing for
Rotherham for £150,000. Mullin had struggled to make any one position his own, and in
recent times had come to play the part of a stop gap player, so his move would seem a
sound one for him and the club.
Whenever I think about Mullin, I think of a game in London. It wasn't a
first team game, but a Youth Cup match against Wimbledon, at Plough Lane, in early 1994.
Naturally, there was a substantial London Clarets presence at that match. We won 4-3 and
Mullin was the outstanding presence on that pitch, head and shoulders above all the other
players - and this was when Wimbledon had a great reputation for producing young players.
I thought he was bound for great things.
As we know, that promise never really matured. Mullin never really got a
chance to establish himself, and took the opportunity when out of contract to sign for
Su'lan' for a very small amount of money. It was an immensely frustrating loss, and
smacked of bad handling by the club's management. And, as we eked out an existence in the
second division, we had occasional tantalising glimpses of Mullin helping Su'lan' to the
premier league.
For a brilliant analysis of Mullin's lack of first team chances, click here to read Igor Wowk's article on the youth team from that
time.
He never really made himself a first teamer at Su'lan', although he played
more for them, at a higher level, than he had for us. When he went out on loan to Preston,
he even played against us. Then, shortly after he'd played for them on loan, he came back
to us. It was towards the end of waddle's year of mismanagement, but unfortunately it
didn't work out. He returned early after a sending off which seemed to signal, but
fortunately didn't, the doom we were heading for.
His third spell began in July 1999 when he returned on a free transfer.
Although he never became a first choice player, and never hit consistency, he certainly
had his moments. Who can forget those two goals in that pivotal match at Brentford which did so much to take us to the first division? And
what about that glorious finish to give us the 1-0 win at QPR
last season?
Mullin probably
deserves a fuller tribute, but time is tight, so for the moment, we'll just say cheers for
your contribution to the cause, John. Rotherham did rather well out of one cast off, Alan
Lee, so must be hoping that history will repeat itself. They're facing a hell of a battle
to stay, so we hope he does something for them. We would normally add the qualifier,
except when they play us, but there's apparently that clause in his contract which says
they can't pick him on Boxing Day anyway. Which is, when you think about it, kind of a
tribute itself. [9/10]
As expected, the game against Watford,
scheduled for this Friday (5th Oct), has now been postponed due to international call-ups.
Apparently, Watford have three internationals which gives them the right to call off the
game. Can anybody name them? [1/10]
October 2001 comment entries
Papa the Greek
October diary
November 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.
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