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Trump struggling to find someone to sing at his inauguration…thundersnow forecast and not just the Daily Express…NHS ordering extra corridor trolleys… Graham Taylor passes away…what happened to the blizzards int north…

The passing of Graham Taylor maybe took us all by surprise. He was one of football’s good guys and what he did for, and at Watford, was a true football fairytale. He was a gentleman, honest and dignified and on the same day that he died there was the incredibly talented Dimitri Payet refusing to play for West Ham again, driving away in his Ferrari and demonstrating all that is appalling about the game today. Payet’s rise to stardom too was a bit of a fairytale but whilst his name is now tarnished and deserving of contempt, Taylor’s name is celebrated and revered at Watford. He found his role as England manager a cruel place but his place in club football’s history is assured.

Matt Rowson a Watford supporter and writer in his tribute maintained that everyone he met had a good story to tell about him. Roy Oldfield has one of the time Graham Taylor’s team was at Burnley and Roy was out there pre-match working like a navvy to make the pitch better with his fork and sand and filler after bad weather that morning. Graham Taylor, he remembers, saw Roy and took his coat off and went out and worked with him for 30 minutes helping to sort out the pitch. No other visiting manager then or since has ever done that with just half an hour to kick-off.

A bit of faith in modern-day footie was restored the day after the Cup game at Sunderland. It was an away game for Joe at Crofton and Crofton was a proper away game, not just at the next club just down the road from Farsley but a real journey, an hour away, a few miles south of Wakefield where every village was once a pit village but now there’s not a sign of them as the old tunnels and shafts lie buried beneath land that is either green farmland or new housing estates, and not a scrap remains of anything above ground.

‘Pop Pop (preferable to Grandpapa),’ he said. ‘It’s just like being a proper footballer.’

It meant loading up with sandwiches for us, and a picnic of pork pies and Oreos (though I don’t suppose that’s what proper footballers eat) and cheddars for Joe and it was a throwback to the mudbaths of the 50s and 60s. And we enjoyed every minute of it. These ten-year olds ran, chased, passed and played neat football as best they could. It was pretty much Farsley versus the Crofton goalkeeper, a little scrap of a lad that gave the performance of a lifetime, diving, tipping, catching, leaping, scrambling and pouncing on everything that came his way.

Farsley won by just the one goal but without that little goalie it might have been ten. On another day three of them would have been slotted home by Joe but on this day this tiny goalkeeper was everywhere. All of us wide-eyed and open-mouthed were spellbound by his dives at feet and plunges in the mud. All of them came off that mudbath black from head to toe like little Brian O’ Neils.

We grumble a lot about football these days: overpaid players, surly, scowling faces buried beneath headphones, high prices, technicolour boots, the dictators at SKY, there’s a long list we could cobble together. But the other day I came across a little book, only pocket sized, only 145 pages put together by Daniel Gray. In Saturday, 3pm, he identifies 50 things that still make football attractive and magical, and we’re not talking about great games of the past or old legends like Jimmy Mac or Bobby Charlton, or how it was once affordable and the ‘working man’s’ game; we are just talking about the little things that still give us a buzz and a sense of enjoyment, that still make the game so special.

In a previous book, Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters, Gray wrote about his journey re-discovering English football, an odyssey during which he chanced upon Burnley and a game against Bolton Wanderers. He once worked in a psychiatric hospital, surely a job that helps if you’re writing about football.

In Saturday, 3pm, he finds a host of things that symbolise the appeal of football. If some are a bit tenuous, others are easily identifiable like seeing a football ground as you pass by on the train. Your head turns immediately. For others of us it’s more likely to be seeing a stadium as we speed by on a motorway, Walsall, Bolton Wanderers or Leeds United.

The way the away end erupts when their team scores: Years ago when Burnley beat Chelsea away in the League Cup and 6,000 fans filled the away end, it was a stunning sight to watch that crowd erupt like a volcano when Akinbiyi equalised. We were sat in the Chelsea seats with a friend who had got the tickets and spent as much time watching the Burnley end as we did the game. When that goal went in, the sight of that crowd exploding, with raw, raucous, tribal noise, has stayed to this day.

Getting the new fixture list: how we look forward to it, the day before; and when it comes we study it avidly, we look for the ‘big’ games, the Christmas games, we look who we play first, will it be home or away, we look at who we play last, we look at the games we think might be good for a weekend away with the Supporters Club, and we look at the Easter games and if we have an Easter holiday or an August or a September holiday and then we see how many games we will miss. And how many of us tick off the games we think we can win? The new fixture list: it ranks with the first sighting of the Christmas Radio Times.

Spotting a fellow supporter when we’re miles from home on holiday; you can only do this of course if they’re in a Burnley shirt. There is a definite effect. You don’t know them from Adam but there’s an instinctive urge to go and say hello and have a chat. It might be in a motorway service station. It’s happened a few times but the one time it stuck in the mind was in Kalkan; it was in the weekly market when an acre of stalls was filled with tourists and locals. But some distance from me was a bloke in a Burnley shirt, gone by the time we reached the spot where he’d been standing. “Damn,” I thought and looked out for him all the rest of the week.

The ball smacks the crossbar. It always seems so much more spectacular than a shot hitting the post. It seems to have more of an impact. There’s a groan and a grimace, it’s just as much a miss as a shot going wide but somehow we don’t see it that way and sometimes it’s even more spectacular than a goal if it’s a thunderous free kick from 35 yards that clatters that narrow bar. Maybe that’s why they have these ‘hit the crossbar’ competitions in training or at half-time. And it’s inspirational, don’t we roar them on even more in the minutes after.

If we’ve won, isn’t a treat to listen to the other results on Sports Report as we drive home. It’s kind of comforting. It’s almost a ritual. We wait for the round-the-ground reporters to describe the Burnley game. We revel in the praise and the description of how well we’ve played. And many a motorway journey has passed by almost without us noticing as we listen to the game on the radio. We lost but what a game it was in the FA Cup at Southampton when Burnley lost 4-3. Another was a 2-1 win away at Stoke and we’d gone 2-0 up and then endured a Stoke aerial battering for the rest of the game.

We make a point of a wander round the shop at an away game. The glossiest was at Arsenal. The one that was filled with every language and nationality and where you had to push and shove and barge just to move just a couple of inches was Old Trafford. Southampton is the only shop where we found every book on the shelves had been signed by a player. (Memo to Burnley Club Shop, it sells more copies). But the best ever shop was at lowly Yeovil on a day that Burnley won 2-1 and one goal was an Ings screamer. It was no bigger than a shoebox but somehow they’d shoehorned miles of shelving and there was more stock and variety in there per square foot than any other shop we’ve been in. This was a treasure trove of a shop.

Is there anything better than settling down with the Sunday papers after a win? I must have more money than sense because if it’s a win, especially against a top team, I’ll buy an armful. And then on Monday I’ll buy more. Then the page is cut out for the scrapbooks. For some reason it’s all the more pleasurable if it’s pouring down outside and you’ve got the Sunday SKY game on as well. You read with one eye and watch the footie with the other. And then Mrs T says “dinner’s ready,” maybe roast beef and Yorkshire pud, loads of veg and gallons of gravy…some Sundays are made in heaven.

That’s just a small selection; Gray has 50 including the first day of the season, sliding tackles, diving headers, floodlights, getting soaked, standing terraces and collecting programmes. So there we have it: reasons to still love football. And that’s before you experience the special thrill of seeing the team bus.

This is especially magical when you find yourself behind it on the motorway and overtake it. You peer upwards and see who you can see. Here’s me and Mrs T in our 70s and we stood at Glasgow Rangers to watch the team get off the bus like schoolkids. Ayr United was another years ago. We had an excuse then, we were only 65. And better yet: staying in the same hotel as the team. Twice this has happened, once for a game against Plymouth and the second against Cardiff. Not many people can say not only did they have breakfast with the team, but actually showed two of them how to use the toasting machine. Does life get any better? Well, only, maybe, if Joe Barton scores the winning goal in a 1-0 win after he’s only been on the pitch 5 minutes in his ‘first’ game back at Turf Moor.

We wondered if the Saturday game against Southampton would go ahead. The midweek gales wreaked havoc in the north. Roads were closed in Hebden Bridge; there’s an old factory that we pass every time we drive through. It’s just before you get into the town, Maud’s Clog Soles, at least that’s what it was years ago when clogs were standard footwear for cotton town workers. Now it’s derelict and forlorn and the howling gales were whipping of the old stone roof tiles and the whole place was even more unsafe than ever. The winds died down, planes no longer had to land sideways at Leeds Airport; I managed to find the length of drainpipe that had blown away down the street , but next up were the tons of snow forecast by the usually inaccurate Daily Express, but sadly this time most other weather channels. They didn’t seem to materialise – quelle surprise.

Burnley: the tenth most profitable club in Europe, the fifth in the UK, said a EUFA report into finances across Europe. Good Lord we said, although the caveat was that this was the end of the 2015 financial year so maybe we are now not quite so flush with higher wages plus the stadium and training ground re-developments. The stadium offices may well have been upgraded and extended but that didn’t stop pantomime scenes on the day of the great gale as supporters queueing up outdoors at the windows saw their tickets and money being blown up into the skies, along with scarves, hats, caps, umbrellas and small people. I was in Burnley the next day so called to get cup replay tickets cursing and humphing as rain and sleet dribbled down the back of my neck, arriving too early to benefit from the shelter of the marquee that was erected later.

The Maud’s Clog Soles factory was still standing in Hebden Bridge, it leans a little more every time we drive by; it can soon be re-named The Leaning Tower of Hebden. Southampton had just beaten Liverpool in the EFL Cup. Burney had injury problems so that Defour was on the left and Marney was playing with a niggly niggle that has niggled him for a while. The day dull, the sky leaden, the air dank, the prospects only so so; this had all the hall marks of a tough afternoon in prospect.

The drive over from Leeds marred by an M606 accident that saw Bradford gridlocked, with us in the middle. The air was blue, tempers frayed, face grimacing as we inched forward with every possibility of missing the kick-off. 2.15: two hours after setting off and only in Halifax when normally we are parked up and reading the programme. Somehow…we made it…just…skidding on icy roads over the tops from Hebden Bridge… cursing every slow driver in front of us…no time to admire the distant snow covered views of the Dales far away… parking a mile away, the nearest we could get and me running to the ground after I’d dropped the others off as close as I could get. And well worth it; a fantastic win 1-0 and the artful dodger himself, Mr Joe Barton, who else, scoring the solitary goal from a cunningly canny free-kick.

‘It is incredible to lose this game,’ said Claude Puel afterwards clearly baffled.

Diddums, welcome to the ‘how-the-hell-did-we-lose-that’ club Claude, the club whose members have all come to Turf Moor over the last season and a half, and been sent packing by this Burnley side, from this far flung outpost in the bleak Lancashire hills, wondering just how they have lost; and all of them probably wondering now just how the hell this group of scrappers and scufflers lie tenth in the Premier Division.

Tenth, it’s worth saying again… TENTH… and the Sunday papers still to read.

SUNDERLAND 0 BURNLEY 0 FA Cup

Brian O’ Neil turned 73…Mickey Phelan sacked at Hull…Man City beat West Ham 5-0 int FA Cup at West Ham…The Queen’s cold is better…

Back to normal, back to work, back to school, down with the trimmings, the baubles, the cards, the lights and the tree. Pack them all away for the next 12 months. What do people do that haven’t got a loft? New Year’s Resolutions – I didn’t make any. Just take each day as it comes, make the best of things, maybe just calm down a bit during a game when referees drive you insane, or things get really frustrating and without realising it you’re up on your feet gestyicuklatyinmg, cursing, spittle flying and going red in the face, blood pressure rising by the second.

But so much to look forward to: what a great chance there is, we said, to survive this season and stay up. Do that and it would be as great an achievement as getting promoted in the first place, maybe even bigger in a league of such inequalities.

In the Etihad there was the perfect example. Strung along a balcony was a long, long banner: ‘Thankyou Sheik Mansour,’ it said. This guy is a billionaire, more money than Croesus maybe. City’s place in the football hierarchy is down to him and his money. The wealth involved is so great that the numbers become almost meaningless. At Burnley we had Barry Kilby funding the club in the decade when that famous jam jar was empty on the mantelpiece and keeping the club solvent was a constant juggling act. BK isn’t short of a penny or two, but pales into insignificance when set against the Mansours of this world.

Whilst Mansour took City to a whole new level, Barry Kilby could only make sure that Burnley survived and lived to fight another day. Does Mansour have his heart in Manchester City? Barry Kilby’s heart is embedded most certainly somewhere inside Turf Moor. Images of the stadium and the game at the Etihad returned. This was the classless, money-no-object millionaires, complete with gold taps in the newly acquired stately home bathroom, versus honest working lads from a two-up, two-down. Bill Shankly once referred to Burnley as ‘that village team.’ Set against the riches of Manchester City, now a billionaire’s plaything, he wasn’t far wrong.

Hampshire Claret summed what a lot of us felt: ‘When I first got off the tram for my first visit to the Etihad I was impressed by the facilities and the ‘family friendly’ feel around the place, a live band playing, plenty of places to get a drink, supporter interviews around the players’ entrance but it quickly began to morph in my mind into some sort of football Disneyland. This was only reinforced by the arrival of the City players on their coach, greeted by a blaring PA but with little enthusiasm by the surrounding fans, rather just a sea of mobile phones. Sullen looking ‘stars’ with headphones on, ignored the fans around them and in return were silently stared at. Inside, the atmosphere was no different, largely silent fans sat on their hands waiting to be entertained; the whole thing felt like some artificial experiment to kill the spirit of football and was a huge disappointment to me.’

There’s an old Manchester City story: ‘When Les McDowell was manager in the fifties and City were bang average he was once spotted carrying an old gramophone into the ground. An ageing fan spotted him and called out to McDowell, “What on earth is that for?”

McDowell called back, “I got it for the team.” The supporter fell about laughing: “Tha’s bin robbed,” he called back.

The first thing about this tale is that back then a supporter could have a bit of banter with the manager as he walked by; probably over his garden wall as well. But today, replace Les McDowell with Pep Guardiola in the lead role and it just doesn’t seem funny. Football was once filled with funny and nostalgic but affectionate stories about idiosyncratic players and chain-smoking managers. Will anyone look back 20 years from now and remember anything remotely funny and affectionate to write about Ya Ya Toure or Bachary Sagna? Have any of today’s cosseted players had the same experience as the Barnsley player years ago who used to open the dressing room door at Oakwell by head-butting it; only to find one day that the new doors had the hinges reversed so they opened outwards. With the next head-butt he only managed to knock himself out.

Back on the coach travelling back from the Etihad we talked about the number of points needed, 40 maybe to stay up; the number of wins needed by May, five more maybe. Surely there must be an away win one day, we decided. Burnley were written off before the season even started by the experts but here we were at the beginning of January, 8 points clear of the bottom three but with a far superior goal difference worth an extra point. March we concluded might be the key, the deciding month; all fixtures would be away from home but three of them against the bottom three, Hull, Swansea and Sunderland. Hull and Swansea had just sacked their managers.

Football fans everywhere play the ‘what if’ game, we can’t help it, and we wondered ‘what if’ we won all those three games in March, or failing that took a point from each. You can argue it’s just wasteful thinking but it’s compulsive and easily preferable to wondering about Trump and Putin, or will we ever get on with Brexit.

The playing surface was of course immaculate at City so I remembered Roy Oldfield’s book ‘Mud, Sweat and Shears’ is due out in June. What a pleasure it has been to work with him and listen to all his tales of managers and players. What a tribute too to man’s ingenuity, making ends meet, thinking it’s Christmas when he finds a sack of old fertiliser, and finding Heath Robinson solutions to all that the weather could throw at him, and the hundreds of pigeons that sat on the Bob Lord roof after he had re-seeded the pitch just waiting for him to turn his back. His rule of thumb was use three times more seed than you need because a third wouldn’t germinate and the pigeons took another third. When we took him to Turf Moor to take some pictures of his old favourite spots Head Groundsman Paul Bradshaw even found the ancient brown bench that he sat on over 30 years ago by the old players’ entrance at the Cricket Field end, a bench so old it deserves to be on Antiques Roadshow.

Like so many other people, Roy long before he was groundsman and when he worked down the mines loved to watch Jimmy Mac. Mac’s first ever away game was at Sunderland, Burnley’s next opponents in the FA Cup. In an ancient fanzine I found a short interview with Jimmy and in it he revealed that his favourite part of the Turf Moor pitch was always down the Longside:

     ‘It’s true that I used to hold the ball for some time but there was one occasion that I’ll never forget. On this occasion I was down in front of the Bee Hole terrace and we were playing Bolton Wanderers. We were leading the game and I got the ball with just a couple of minutes to go. I was holding the ball up and I remember someone saying “just hold it Jim.” But the strange thing was that I was looking at this enormous shadow which was coming closer and closer and I was thinking this looks like a monster or even Frankenstein. In fact it was notorious Bolton full-back Tommy Banks so I didn’t hang around. The funniest memory from the Longside is maybe about Billy Morris. He was a Welch international and was in the Burnley side before me. The story was that Billy kicked the ball over the Longside wall and someone shouted to him, “Tha needs a spade lad.”

     “Why?” shouted Billy. “To bury theeself with,” came the reply.

Banks’s’ partner on the other side was Roy Hartle, the better looking of the two. Banks was craggy, square jawed, short cropped hair, a stare that frequently turned a winger’s knees to jelly, and a face that would curdle milk. He was stocky and broad, square shouldered and made of granite. A tackle from him was the equivalent of Fred Dibnah demolishing a chimney. But Hartle’s good looks didn’t make him any less fiercesome. He would shout across to Banks:

‘Hey Tommy, when tha’s finished wi’ yon winger toss ‘im o’er ‘ere for me to ‘ave a go.’

Sunderland away in the Cup: there was talk of Joey Barton maybe featuring in the game. There was the possibility of fringe players starting – Tarkowski, Kightly, Darikwa, Robinson perhaps. There was conjecture that the next Premier League game against Southampton would be the priority. Dyche had hinted that whilst the FA Cup might provide memories and emotional highs, it was the Premier place that paid the bills and was the real business. Jermaine Defoe was quoted as saying that there was unfinished business; the defeat at Burnley had left its mark and since then they’d drawn 2-2 with Liverpool. It was the kind of game that Burnley could easily lose along with all the others so far in the season. But said the gaffer, ‘If we can get a Cup run we’ll take it.’

Meanwhile David Moyes at Sunderland was claiming he had just about 11 senior players available with a number of players injured and that half a dozen of his U23s would be involved. But Moyes, currently so naturally gloomy, could make a carnival sound like a funeral so we took all that with a pinch of salt. Whilst Dyche in fact made several changes, Moyes put his strongest team out.

Mark Lawrenson had Burnley down for a defeat, but then he usually does and whilst the 0-0 scoreline was probably the last thing anyone imagined and some such draws can be as exciting, gripping and nerve-wracking, this was most certainly not. ‘Bored really,’ said ex player and radio pundit Paul Weller.

‘Yawn…not much going on…the game has utterly died (Talksport)…not much to report at all…magic is in short supply…dull stalemate…a forgettable 90 minutes…drab…lifeless…bore-draw…a shapeless scrap..’

Only 17,000 or so turned up for this sad game in which Burnley it was said ‘were resolute at the back, ‘ but this was more Wearyside than Wearside. Tarkowski replaced Mee, Darikwa replaced Lowton, Gudmondsson replaced Boyd and the midfield-two were Defour and Barton. Both of them played the full 90 minutes with Barton heavily booed by the sparse Sunderland crowd although they got bored of even doing that as torpor descended. A career as a pantomime villain is yet another option for him when he does finally hang up his boots. It looked like he would survive the game without a booking but alas referee Stuart Attwell waved the yellow in the final minute. Maybe that was his cunning plan.

On chances and opportunities it did sound that Burnley could and should have won; Vokes had a great chance early on, a Tarkowski effort hit the post and in the final 15 minutes or so it seemed that Burnley were the team that looked like winning whilst the Moyes team was only succeeding in putting its supporters to sleep, said one report, the same report suggesting that if both teams had played all night they wouldn’t have scored.

On SKY Soccer Saturday: ‘And is anything happening at the Stadium of Light?’ Stelling asked a couple of times. ‘No’, was the inevitable answer.

‘I’m not bothered about having another fixture to play,’ said Dyche, explaining that this had been normal life in the Championship and all part of the challenge. He was delighted, too, with the performances of the players brought in, particularly Darikwa at full-back and Pope in goal, the latter in fact as good as replaced by Robinson as Burnley’s second ‘keeper. Defour had his first full 90 minutes for the club and Dyche was clearly delighted with Barton’s contribution. Gray, meanwhile, hat-trick hero of the league game at Turf Moor, hardly got a sniff in this game

‘Barton breezed through his first 90 minutes on his return to English football,’ said the Sunday Mirror. ‘But the bad news for fans is they now have to sit through another 90 minutes at Turf Moor.’ The club immediately announced it would only be £5 for pensioners at the replay. ‘Hmmm after that game, perhaps they ought to pay us £5,’ was one prompt reply.

MANCHESTER CITY 2 BURNLEY 1

2017 and the New Year began; the last year, 2016, was one of the best at Turf Moor. Outside of football the year had its downsides and tragedies but for us footie fans that follow a club, whatever club it might be, football is the glue that holds things together and matchday is the marker in our week. Win and the next day is a treat of a day to enjoy. Lose and there is flatness, who wants to read the papers when your team has lost?

     A treat for Master Joe and his third away game; he’s always nagged us about wanting to go to Manchester City. We were there the first time we were in the Prem and saw the 3-3 draw. In the last visit it was 2-2. In theory this should have been 1-1. You can’t begin to find any similarities between the two clubs now in terms of finance. But it wasn’t always so; City went down to the Third Division some years ago and were once comedy gold for any comedian. How things have changed.

Burnley has been a success story based on painstaking hard work, progress inch by inch, shrewd management, cautious spending and careful planning. At City, money is no object, wages astronomical, and facilities second to none. A state of the art, new stadium, leased by the club, was as good as gift wrapped by the city council, its success and conversion as a football stadium in direct contrast to the problems at West Ham. If you are Man City you can summon allegedly the best manager in the world. But Guardiola hasn’t found it all plain sailing, in fact far from it. The Premier League is a different beast to what he has known in Spain and Germany; the Premier League is where a bottom club on its day can beat the top.

Burnley didn’t manage it and lost 2-1 but most if not everyone after this game must have been thinking the same; that Burnley blew it. They more than held their own in the first half and then when Fernandino was sent off for an atrocious tackle on Gudmondsson that could have broken both his ankles the game was set for a shock result. At half time along with everyone else in our little corner the general opinion was that this was the best opportunity so far to win an away game.

City in so many ways were a disgrace; petulant, argumentative, frequently surrounding and berating the referee, and at every opportunity doing what Dyche and the rest of us abhor, falling, rolling and theatrically feigning serious injury. Silva in the second half provided the perfect example dropping in agony over the goal line after a perfectly fair tackle and lying on the ground holding his leg as if it was seriously damaged.

Then it must have occurred to him that he would need to roll back onto the pitch in order for the ref to stop the game for him to get treatment. And so he did. It was one of many sad examples of Oscar winning performances in the ‘I’m really injured’ performances.

What is it with these divas and prima donnas we wondered? Do they expect the ‘little’ teams to arrive and surrender? Do their huge wages and inflated egos make them think they are above the rules of football? The tackle on Gudmondsson was horrendous; the red was more than merited, but City players surrounded the referee and argued and bullied him and behaved appallingly.

It was the same when Burnley scored. It took nearly two minutes to re-start the game because of the melee, the jostling of the referee and linesman, the bickering and total lack of any professional restraint and sportsmanship. Dyche was adamant that in the aftermath of the goal that another City player should have been sent off, Sagna for kicking at Boyd. There it was in the post-match highlights, as sly a kick at Boyd’s ankle as you could wish to see.

The goal spurred and fired Burnley but as much as it has to be said that City were dislikeable and repugnant in their behaviour; Burnley were simply not good enough to beat their ten men.

Probably all of us were astonished that Defour was on the bench. Hendrick was back but Marney was out so it seemed odds on that Defour would slot in with his silky, cultured play. He stands out in a Burnley shirt because of the time he creates for himself, the space he finds, the intelligence of his passes and above all else his beautiful first-touch.     When he did come on for most of the second half and displayed his vision and touch it made us wonder all the more why he hadn’t started.

Dyche later explained that he had been left on the bench having picked up a minor injury in the previous game. ‘For him it’s a big shift from playing bits of football over the Christmas period to two games in three days. I asked him and he said he’d never done that and he still has a couple of niggles. He came off Saturday with a tight hamstring and it’s one of them. We’re still trying to inch him along to full fitness.’

You couldn’t fault any Burnley player for effort and determination but the difference in skill level was abundantly apparent when Guardiola brought on Aguero and Silva for the second half. Once they came on, City never really looked like losing and with Sterling, de Bruyne (when not falling, rolling and acting), Silva and Aguero able to break so quickly, twist and turn with such speed, and above all else think so quickly and instinctively to make a pass; the Burnley defence was all too often sliced open on the break.

And that was exactly how the City second goal was scored with a break at lightning speed and Aguero evading Mee’s stumbling tackle. Four City players broke forward at a speed of which we can only dream at Turf Moor. Heaton made the diving interception at Sterling’s feet, but how oh how did Aguero then manage to score with a shot from the goal-line that flashed across and hit a mesmerised defender, Lowton, on the line and ricocheted into the net. It was a simply ridiculous goal to concede and this against a ten-man team. Heaton had taken the ball cleanly from Sterling but the latter went to ground as he stubbed his foot on the Turf. But was it genuine or was it a dive? No matter, if it was a dive it went unpunished allowing Aguero to strike the bullet shot that kissed the post before it hit Lowton.

It was rotten luck on the outstanding Heaton who had done his job at Sterling’s feet. It was ironic; in the first half he made some superb stops. In the second he had little to do other than pick the ball out of the net twice.

Burnley had chances enough in the second half; Arfield blasted high and wide, Vokes headed wide, Gray sliced a shot from a great opening, Bravo tipped another effort over the bar when it seemed certain to loop in. All in all it’s easy to say we gave them a run for their money, made them work, made them ‘win ugly’ and certainly there was the full range of the ugly side of football in this game. Toure was by a long way the man of the match, but what a sullen, grumbling temperament he displayed throughout the game, resulting in a deserved yellow for his continual mouthing at referee Mason.

Nor did it end with the final whistle. Guardiola took up the role of being chief misery-guts during the post-match interview that according to many showed the full range of tetchy petulance, rudeness and lack of respect. Reactions to it in the media were maybe a bit over the top and reports of his disrespect were hugely exaggerated. But clearly he had been knocked for six by the unrelenting physical nature of Premier football. Tika taka football was in short supply at the Etihad in this game and it was obvious that coming to terms with new demands had taken its toll. In fact things were more tacky tacky than tika taka. The effect on him was clear and already he was saying his coaching days may be nearing their end. In that interview we were looking at a man who was relieved to have won but clearly disillusioned by what he had seen and I’ll hazard a guess disheartened at his players’ behaviour; their shirts may be blue but red is their favourite colour with 7 red cards this season so far.

Any lingering sense of affection for this one homely, family oriented club drained away. We once had good friends there and when Burnley played there we’d join them back in the good old days. It was once a club that you really felt belonged to its supporters, had a human side to it, was never pretentious in any kind of way. It was Manchester’s back-street club set in a world of grimy terraces in a run-down area. Now it is re-located and re-invented. Back then you felt it was Manchester’s ‘proper’ club. Now there is none of that; it belongs to the prawn sandwich brigade just as its rival across the city does; the by-word now is corporate. It is the world of the nouveau riche, the tradesman now a millionaire, with pretensions to grandeur, all gloss and gold-framed mirrors. Their new supporters joining on to the bandwagon think it is all normal, the older ‘real’ supporters still blink and rub their eyes and wonder how it has all happened as the old identity has been replaced by the new.

Despite the defeat and the disappointment it brought; a dose of reality and sense came in a mail from a chum. He needed a picture of young Joe on mascot day and along with the request put things in perspective. Here we were, having come away from one of the richest clubs in the world with possibly three or four of the world’s best players and we were feeling a tad down because we hadn’t got a point, in fact at half time it seemed reasonable to think we might actually have won. But Phil wrote:

I was just thinking about how kids roughly Joe’s age are growing up as Burnley fans watching all this success. I didn’t see a winning side from my first game in 1976 until the 1981/82 season when Miller improbably found a system that worked. And the football in those days was rubbish. Watching Trevor Steven was like marvelling at an alien that had suddenly alighted on earth wearing a Burnley kit.

And Phil was right. Here we were having endured the dross of the 80s and then the struggles of the 90s and all the financial lurches and splutters of the next decade, but since Joe got his first season ticket for the first Dyche promotion season it has been highs and climaxes all the way. Even the relegation season was a joy to watch as Ings and Trippier came so close to keeping Burnley up and the football was a treat to watch. But for City, it was Aguero who looked like an alien alighting on earth to bring class to this ugly, snarling City side.

For Master Joe, despite the defeat, this was a magical day; the coach trip, the picnic on board, the first sight of this awesome stadium, a huge shop on two floors. We looked at prices and quickly moved on. He couldn’t wait to get inside to our seats. Our seats were right next to a City section and alas he learned a few new words as abuse and bile were hurled back and forth as the game went on in the second half. What is it that makes grown men curse and swear and stand and gesture towards others just a few yards away?

Meanwhile the news came through that Barton had been signed for the rest of the season in time for the City game to count as his one-game suspension for betting in Scotland. The conversations and debates were instant – would he play at Sunderland in the cup game or be on the bench – and where of course would this leave Defour. And surely there would be things in the contract to safeguard the club if the FA slapped a longer ban on him.

In the criticism of City there were no sour grapes; even with ten they outskilled Burnley with players who are the crème de la crème. But one thing was for sure; their antics and complaints left a distinct sour taste.

BURNLEY 4 SUNDERLAND 1

     2016: that was some year, Brexit, Trump, a procession of stars of stage, screen, music and sport passing away leaving us mere mortals saddened, but enjoying their memories, Carrie Fisher and Richard Adams the latest. You can put that into perspective by remembering that 55million people die every year; but some we miss more than others and a little bit of our youth and growing up goes with them.

Arnold Palmer was one them and it made me remember my father who was a really keen golfer, and a good one too. Alas a tumour meant the removal of an eye and that was as good as the end of his golfing. He made valiant efforts to continue once he had recovered and his glass eye was in situ but one-eyed golfers tend to squiff most shots and he was no exception. He did have one or two moments of fun with the eye though; one party piece being to remove it on the green and look closely at the ball and the length of the grass with it. The committee, not known for its humour asked him to stop when a lady member passed by and fainted. Then at mealtimes at home his favourite habit was to take out his eye, place it on top of the mash and say:

‘By gum mother the potatoes look good tonight.’

It’s a fair bet that not every Burnley supporter, either in Burnley or the world in general will have heard the name Charles Sutcliffe, let alone knows of the contributions he made to football. Born in Burnley in 1864, he played for Burnley, became a director, joined the Football league Management Committee, eventually to become President, and was the man that organised the football league fixtures for 24 years, long before the days of computers. He died in 1939 having spent a lifetime devoted to football. 11,000 people filled Turf Moor and sang Abide with Me at his funeral. It took 5 cars to carry the wreaths. The minister summed him up: ‘he lived and died for football.’ One story summed up his devotion and tireless efforts, it also happens to be a Christmas story.

When he was in charge of referees and their appointments he received a Christmas Eve call from a referee who had fallen ill. Sutcliffe had only just stopped refereeing games himself but knowing he couldn’t find a replacement at such short notice for the game on Christmas Day all he could do was decide to referee the game himself.

His plans for Christmas Day, being at home with his family, were therefore cancelled and on a cold, drab day he set off early to get the 9 o clock train that would take him to the game. He arrived at noon and with time to spare all he could do was while away the time wandering slowly through the cold, empty streets. Sadly there were no pubs open on Christmas Day back then where he could warm himself and have a reviving drink.

He refereed the game and afterwards the club secretary thanked him profusely especially when Sutcliffe said he didn’t want any expenses and the money could go in the players’ Christmas collection box. As a thankyou the secretary invited Sutcliffe to have a bowl of hotpot with them. He gratefully accepted having had nothing to eat since early morning. Feeling warm and refreshed Sutcliffe then left the club and followed the path that would take him to the railway station. Occasionally the lights of a house would illuminate his way and inside some of them he could hear the merriment from Christmas parties.

He felt well pleased with himself for the sacrifice he had made, giving up his Christmas Day and a hearty dinner at home, in order to make sure that a small club had played its fixture. The hotpot had been delicious, he told himself; it was nice of them to spare me some. At this point however with the station in view, he heard the sound of footsteps chasing down the street behind him and a voice called out. It was the club secretary.

“Er Mr Sutcliffe,’ he gasped puffing and panting. ‘It was so good of you to come all this way and referee our game when tha could ‘ave been enjoying the day at ‘ome. But I’m glad I caught thee. Tha’s forgotten to pay fert thotpot.’

Those of us with long memories and a bit long in the tooth can still remember a time when games were played on Christmas Day. The last such game was at Blackpool on December 25, 1965, when Blackpool beat Blackburn Rovers 4-2. Blackpool clung to the tradition because they got bigger than average gates due to the number of people who spent Christmas in Blackpool. Back then and certainly in the 40s and 50s women’s lib and their emancipation hadn’t been invented yet and whilst the mum dutifully cooked Christmas Dinner the husband would happily and without a second thought head for the match. Or it would be an early dinner so that the man of the house could attend the game afterwards. Times have changed; it’s just as likely these days that Christmas Dinner was cooked by Dad and mum came to the game on Boxing Day. Burnley’s last ever Christmas Day game was in 1957 with a 2-1 win over Manchester City.

These were good times for men and husbands. They didn’t need to help with the ironing, the dusting or the shopping. It was an era when men were always right, and dinner was on the table when they came home from the factory or if they were a bit further up the ladder, they might be the manager of the local Co-op because back then there were dozens of little Co-op shops. Women were usually referred to as ‘mother’ and could often be found darning – an old-fashioned and seldom heard word these days that means mending old socks. It was a time when men felt free to go to the pub for a wet without fear of recrimination, in fact most pubs and clubs had ‘men only’ rooms that were free of stress and worry. Football grounds, too, were just about men-only, other than the chairman’s wife. A woman standing on the terraces, good Lord, what was that?

Interestingly it was Sunderland next at Turf Moor; Sunderland almost a last bastion of male superiority, allotments, giant leeks and working men’s’ clubs where you can still find the occasional men-only snooker room. Up there women are generally called ‘pet’ but to be fair men have stopped patting them on the head; although back in the day this was often difficult since the women usually had their hair in curlers under a headscarf.

Christmas well and truly over and the turkey remains made into a splendid pie for some future family gathering. Sweaters from M&S returned and exchanged for larger ones that fit (sad I know). A few sad-looking mince pies lingered in the tin; matchday grey, dull and overcast. The first of two games in three days: a throwback to the old days when such things were a matter of course; but these days, coaches, managers and fitness experts bemoan the lack of recuperation and recovery time.

‘We’ll have a bottle of Prosecco tonight if we win,’ said Mrs T. We were due to eat at the Hare and Hounds, Todmorden, after the game. Little did we know we’d end up having two and courtesy too of our good friend W who was feeling in a generous mood.

‘W is thinking of treating us to a bottle of Prosecco tonight,’ tweeted Mrs W, as we were driving to the game.

‘Well what a coincidence,’ Mrs T replied, ‘we’d thought of that as well but if W wants to treat us, all the better, we won’t say no.’

Now we know W well; let’s just say that throwing money around is not his forte; we’re not saying in any way his middle name is Scrooge, but just sometimes you can hear the sound of a scratchy pen nib in the candlelight when he counts his money in the front parlour and he treats himself to two extra bits of coal on the flickering fire; so the offer did indeed surprise us (in the nicest possible way), but when Mrs W tweeted during the game in the second half as the goals rained in, it seemed he might be having second thoughts.

‘W is quietly weeping as the Prosecco seems nailed on,’ she tweeted.

We needn’t have worried about whether there would be Prosecco or not, the game was won, in some style, Sunderland thumped, Burnley fans delirious, Sunderland fans aghast and there on the table when we got to the pub was bottle number one of the bubbly nectar. It went down far too fast. A second bottle was immediately ordered. And Gray, we hoped was on champagne by now, having scored a superb hat-trick and for added pleasure, the first to be scored by a Burnley player in the top division since Peter Noble in 1975.

To put it mildly Sunderland were the worst side to have visited Turf Moor for years but in no way should that detract from a superb Burnley performance once they got into their stride. It could so easily have been more than four but Arfield missed a golden chance to make it five. Burnley took their foot off the pedal once they were four up and allowed Sunderland to get back into the game so that Defoe was able to score a consolation goal.

Managers and pundits have this formula that if at least seven or eight of the team are at their best then a win is on the cards. This was a game in fact when every player was at his best other than Arfield leaving his shooting boots back in the dressing room. On another day it might have been him with the hat-trick. A shove in the back as he burst through and seemed certain to score earned the penalty that Barnes tucked away nicely.

Defour was in for the suspended Hendrick and ran the midfield with delicate, clinical passes, assured control and pure intelligence, possessing the priceless knack of always being in space. Biff Bang Barnes was just Barnes, making one of the Gray goals, all muscle, belligerence and fearlessness. Boyd covered every blade of grass, harrying, covering and tackling. Mee and Keane showed Sunderland what defending was all about other than allowing Defoe to score. Heaton had so little to do he could easily have brought an armchair and the programme to read. Ward (continually bursting forward) and Lowton were dominant, Marney was simply Marney, all energy and unlucky to be booked meaning that he would miss the City game.

And Gray: outstanding with a display of taking chances, bullying defenders, working the right wing, using his pace and demonstrating the power and fierceness of his shooting. Exactly a year ago he had scored a hat-trick against Bristol City in the Championship. His face, his smiles, the image of him holding the ball high above his head one-handed after his third goal, was iconic. His Little Mix girlfriend was in the crowd in the cheap seats watching him. Glamour and Pop show-biz came to Turf Moor for the day.

This, according to Sunderland manager Moyes was classic old-fashioned English football to which they had no answer. Oh dear Boro lost again, but no doubt it would have made the snooty Aitor Karanka sniff with disdain. But Sunderland had no answer to balls over the top, balls down the wings, and balls forward, simple, basic back to front football. The Sunderland defenders simply couldn’t cope. Funny really: play the game this way and lose and you might call it Hoofball; but play it and win and then you can call it classic, highly effective, retro style, power football.

In less than a week, in the space of just two games Burnley pulled away even further from the bottom three, in fact were actually nearer to the top seven. Hull had only drawn the night before, Swansea lost and of course Sunderland had been routed. On New Year’s Eve Burnley were in 11^th place and few people would have bet money on that at the beginning of the season.

At the end of the day, one manager would be able to go home and celebrate the New Year in style with champagne. The other probably needed a large brandy. Much the same could be said for the fans of each club. Whilst Burnley fans preened and danced, Sunderland fans were humbled.

And for us, the two bottles of Prosecco at the Hare and Hounds went down a fair treat. That was some year, and we finished it in style.

BURNLEY 1 MIDDLESBROUGH 0

28 years since Lockerbie… goodbye Zsa Zsa Gabor… and Rick Parfitt…then George Michael… Pardew leaves the Palace… Express forecasts weather mayhem (again)… Allardyce summoned to the Palace… 51 years since the last Christmas Day league game at Blackpool… no Christmas Day bells at York Minster for first time since 1361…

Football was on hold so that Christmas weekend could take over. Poinsettias were arriving, cards distributed up and down the street, the one mince pie a day rule was holding firm and the neighbour opposite had bought yet more strings of lights. His house was now doing a passable imitation of New York at midnight. Mrs T was organising an evening of nachos, nibbles and nuts for the street. And soon to come was the January window. What presents would that bring we wondered. But there was an early one – or so we thought.

Sean D had been coy for weeks regarding Joseph Barton training at Turf Moor. It was something he would do for anyone needing a bit of help and support he said. But: the rapport between the two of them since that first omelette suggested from the outset that there was more to this than met the eye. ‘He accepted me as the finished article as the older, wiser person I have always wanted to be in the dressing room,’ he wrote in his book. ‘I responded to him as one of the few managers I felt was a friend.’

He referred to his prime attributes as being ‘awareness, application and competitiveness. So many players are done when they lose even a fraction of their pace, I’m fortunate because I never had any to lose.’

Probably most of us suspected that if JB was going to sign for anyone it would be Burnley despite him saying he’d had interest from several clubs. His ill-fated stay at Rangers had been short-lived; the homeliness of Burnley was now the preferred option. It was a short deal until the end of the season, money no problem with the sale of The Jut to Birmingham for a million. In one interview Barton had said if he’d known what was in store he’d never have joined Rangers. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but lots of us might have said ‘we told yer to stay at Burnley.’

‘Aged 34 with the slate wiped clean once again,’ wrote Barry Glendenning in the Guardian, ‘he now sits on a stool in the last chance saloon.’ Little did he or we know that a surprise was just around the corner and the stool not quite firmly anchored. Perhaps it was only at Burnley, he thought, that he could rehabilitate his reputation as a footballer. There is no question that in the promotion season he was a stunning success.

But where would this leave Defour we pondered. There had been stories that his partner had been tweeting unhappy tweets. There was another story that he had been back to Belgium and in an interview with a Belgian journalist had expressed his unhappiness at being on the bench and that some of the manager’s decisions were ‘bizarre,’ although the word bizarre however might have been down to the vagaries of translation. True or not, the Defour situation at this point was becoming a bit like the curious case of the Jelle who was eventually shipped out.

And then all of that became academic when Barton was charged with misconduct by the FA with regard to over 1,000 football bets going back 10 years up to 2016. Any moves to re-sign him immediately became open to speculation especially when Sean D said that his signing was only agreed in principle as opposed to earlier club statements that it was done bar international clearance. The newest club statement was brief: that it would be discussed with Barton and his lawyers. The words touch and bargepole sprang to mind immediately with the worry that a lengthy ban was in prospect. A certain signing was now most definitely in real doubt. Were the last chance saloon doors about to wing shut and hit him in the face we wondered?

The Turkey arrived at number 12 the other day. Not as big as usual, not a houseful this Christmas. Roy Oldfield remembered the days at Turf Moor when he was on Turkey duty. He had many jobs to perform as groundsman and fetching the Turkeys from Bob Lord’s factory to the ground was one of them. He laughed when I said that Fletch always maintained that the bigger the Turkey, the more secure was your place at the club. Margaret Potts said that the one of the first ones they got was too big to go in the oven. Everyone got one and the joke was that those who got a small Turkey were the next to be sold.

‘No not a bit of it Dave,’ said Roy. ’They were all the same size and nice ones too. None of them were small and it was my job to ferry them all down to the Cricket Field Stand in the small van we had. It took about 5 journeys there were that many. And then I had to lay them all out in the long corridor that went the length of the Cricket Field Stand. It was always cold in there as well especially in late December so there they lay until they were collected. It was quite a sight as well, 60 or so Turkeys all laid out down the floor from one end to the other.’

Smart businessman was our Bob though, they weren’t exactly free; the club paid him for them.

Roy would get a Christmas bonus too in his pay packet with an accompanying letter beginning Dear Roy:

On behalf of our Directors and myself I send you this short letter to indicate our sincere and grateful thanks for all your work for the club during the past 12 months. At this stage it is our opinion that we possess a work force which is second to none in these very trying and difficult days and quite candidly we are proud of you. We trust in the coming Christmas time you will be able to enjoy yourself and finally please accept as a token of our appreciation the value of one half of one week’s salary.

It was dated 11 December, 1980, and these were indeed the bad times of poor results, falling gates, unpaid bills, clamouring creditors, disgruntled supporters and a critical press. Lord had just a year remaining.

Next up was Middlesbrough and out of nowhere they had emerged as the club to dislike. Their fans had made fun of Dyche when he’d been up there as part of a recent commentary team. Their manager Karanka had said truly daft things about Burnley when the two clubs had met at Turf Moor last in the Championship; that if he’d had the money Burnley had he’d have had Burnley promoted by February or something like that. Once upon a time they were a club that were ‘just there’. Not a club you gave any great thought to, certainly not an interesting club, just a club that was dull and boring up in the cold, drab north-east. Their mid-fielder de Roon was now saying he wanted three points from Burnley as a Christmas present; just the kind of remark that the opposing manager might pin up on the dressing room wall to gee up the troops.

The word was that a lot of wound-up Boro fans were desperate to beat Burnley but it was hard to see quite where this rivalry was coming from other than Karanka’s provocation and the Teesside Gazette website. Allegedly according to this there had been simmering sound-bites, dug-out animosity and cyber-sabre rattling from fans fizzing back and forth according to one writer Anthony Vickers. A routine Premier game was as a result being seen as a grudge match and memories were dredged up of a previous encounter in April 2014 when Boro came as party pooper, won 1-0 and celebrated like they’d won the World Cup. If memory serves it was a niggly, grumpy and bad tempered game with diving, shirt pulling and arguing. Ayala was sent off followed by more petulant theatrics, continental histrionics versus good old Lancashire grit.

A Gazette sub-plot pointed to Sean Dyche’s Chesterfield being beaten by Middlesbrough in an FA Cup semi-final. And in addition to that were Karanka’s objections to Dyche talking of Burnley’s lesser spending power and how Derby and Boro were upping the spending cycle, when in fact Karanka retaliated by pointing to Burnley’s parachute payments and the millions they generated. When Burnley drew 1-1 in the recent promotion season with a very late equaliser, and stopped Boro going 4 points clear, it was Karanka who accused Burnley of celebrating like they had won the World Cup.

Derogatory comments about Boro that did do the rounds were undoubtedly not helped by the League decision to have the trophy up at Middlesbrough on the final day when Burnley were down at Charlton. Joey B certainly made a few remarks about it at the final gala dinner at the club; within minutes his comments were on social media. Allegedly a video of the Burnley team on the club coach chanting something highly derogatory about Karanka was also leaked. The esteemed Northern Echo was referring to the ‘festering animosity’ and the game was a sell-out. Boro, a point ahead, were looking to pull away even further. Burnley were simply looking for three points, another case of seeing through the noise, ignoring the hype. Win the points and the rest takes care of itself, the Dyche mantra.

Boxing Day: and now the media up int northeast was saying the phoney war was over with Karanka and Dyche saying nice things about each other. Phoney war over or just Christmas phoney niceness we wondered. It was a splendid Christmas Day at Thomas Towers with pride of place on the mantelpiece going to my claret and blue gnome that talks. It says things like ‘on me ‘ead son’ and ‘get to Specsavers’ when you walk past it, as class a piece of tat as you could wish for. You can get them at British Gnome Stores. The day topped off with as good a Mrs Brown Christmas Special as we’ve seen; not to everyone’s taste of course but we feckin’ luv it in our house.

The day raw: the wind biting, the brass band playing carols and Christmas songs by the chip van; their noses and fingers slowly turning the same colour as their bright blue jackets in the freezing air. Brave blokes drinking pints, sensible blokes having a hot coffee from the nearby vendor, for me a gingerbread and cinnamon Christmas Special with mince pies from the box we just happened to have with us. Inside the stadium, just a sprinkling of empty seats, a swirling wind and ‘horrible conditions’ said Andre Gray afterwards.

Championes, championes we are the champions, the crowd sang and roared as the game reached its conclusion with Burnley leading 1-0. It was clearly directed at the Boro fans and their manager Karanka. Some might say it was a scrappy, messy 1-0 win; others might say it was merited and deserved in a gripping game that was filled with incident and tension. A game that you didn’t want to take your eyes off for a second in case you missed something. At stake was a huge opportunity for Burnley to climb away from the bottom three, assuming those already in the bottom three did their bit and lost – which they obligingly did.

After a first half where Burnley had the edge (despite what Karanka claimed) it had become clear that just one goal might be enough to settle this game and with Boro having fashioned just the one clear chance early in the first half, you hoped that one moment of skill, luck (not exactly abundant this season) or magic might win the game for Burnley. Boro were back in the game for the first 20 minutes of the second half; a period that convinced Karanka they were the better side. But once Burnley took the lead in the 80^th minute the fight in them just evaporated.

It was exactly skill and luck that created the goal with as perfect an example of classic route one football as you could wish for. Heaton took a free kick from in his own half; Vokes headed the ball on and down, whereupon Gray latched onto it in a flash and volleyed the ball home with supreme skill, from just inside the box whilst shrugging off the defender. 5 seconds maybe from Heaton’s toe-end to Valdes watching it cross the line. Valdes parried the shot but his bad luck and Burnley’s good luck saw the ball spin in slow motion over the line as he scrambled after it and all of us willing it over the line.

Jubilation then, with the Burnley win, but bewilderment at Craig Pawson’s hapless refereeing display, the only consolation being he was equally bad for both sides. Somehow he managed to book 11 players, six of them from Burnley in a game that yes was fiercely contested, was just occasionally confrontational, but was never dirty. Karanka seems to think his side are a pure footballing side and that Burnley are just a long ball team. The stats from the game would tell him otherwise; that Boro played 100 long balls to Burnley’s 82. Pawson, meanwhile, issues cards presumably on the basis that if you issue enough you will eventually get one right.

30 Middlesbrough coaches made the journey down to Burnley. Burnley’s a ‘sh*thole’ their fans sang during the game. 30 Middlesbrough coaches made the journey back home and no doubt this journey seemed twice as long. In the great scheme of things some wins are more satisfying than others. This was one of them.

WEST HAM 1 BURNLEY 0

TOTTENHAM 2 BURNLEY 1

England thumped again in India… a 5-day Post Office workers strike… rail chaos in the south… the world pie-eating championships return to Wigan… Len leaves Strictly… Christmas jumpers spreading uncontrollably…

It was way back in October when the Guardian first mentioned that homely a place as Burnley might be; nobody saw it as their favourite destination on a matchday if you were the away team. Surrounded by terraced streets and chip shops, ugly and intimidating, with a boisterous crowd that unsettles visitors and an uncompromising Burnley side, “It’s a difficult place to come to,” said Dyche, “there are no secrets what you are going to get at Turf Moor.”

It’s an old-school ground said someone who came up from Bournemouth with a great atmosphere. Like grounds used to be before they became identikit, sterile and sanitised, a ground that shook to the foundations when that first goal of Hendrick’s went in, a ground that doesn’t charge an extra pound for extra onions on your hot dog, a ground where fans prefer their football with pie and peas not a prawn sandwich. And how many other grounds serve bene?

When Burnley won that first promotion in 2009 Fletch said straight away that visiting teams would hate the tiny dressing rooms where all they would get was a peg, a towel and a bar of soap. The away dressing room is still not much bigger than a broom cupboard although a narrow extension has added a few benches. Teams that bring three huge skips of kit and equipment struggle to get them down the corridor never mind into the dressing room.

There are tales of dodgy heating in the away room and the lights actually went out at half-time when Chelsea arrived one year. Sabotage was the cry but in fact it was a simple electrical fault – too many hair dryers maybe?

Teams hate coming here now said both Boyd and Hendrick; the crowd are right on them up close and personal. But the pitch was brilliant added Hendrick and that’s where we play, not the dressing room.

‘The away teams come into our changing rooms and they’re like nothing they’ve ever seen,’ said George Boyd.

‘They’ve only had a lick of paint and a new lightbulb in 40 years,’ said another paper; a slight exaggeration there maybe; the old, shared, communal baths have been replaced, the ones where Jimmy Holland only added extra bath salts if he was in a good mood, where groundsman Roy Oldfield was thrown in one day, and where you feared to think what might be floating in the water.

Roy, incidentally, got his own back at Gawthorpe when the players were out training; he mixed up all the clothes on all the pegs and then sat back as they came in and swore and cursed as they tried to find their own clothes. Not even Roy ever found out who it was that nailed Keith Newton’s shoes to the floor one day.

‘A lot of people say it’s a fortress,’ said Hendrick. ‘Away teams look at the fixtures and see us away, and probably don’t want to come. But the pitch is brilliant.’ Take a bow Head Groundsman Paul Bradshaw.

The talk next was of how good was THAT goal, a goal that flew past Artur Boruc as a blur. Was it up there with the all-time greats that we’ve seen over the years at Turf Moor? How did it compare with that volley of Blake’s in 2008 against Man United, the goal that set the bar for great goals, or Elliott’s at Wembley? Sean D was adamant; that the Hendrick goal had it been scored at Chelsea by Costa or at Old Trafford by Ibrahimovic it would have been replayed 20 times over the weekend.

The media had re-named Turf Moor; it was now Tough Moor. The Times had done a new table of just home games. Chelsea were top with 21 points. Burnley were fifth with 16 points after 5 wins, 1 draw and 3 defeats. That was some record.

West Ham were now in their new home, The London Stadium aka the Taxpayers Stadium; by all accounts a stadium acquired on the cheap but with a whole host of teething problems not the least of which was just two wins there since moving in and a dearth of pie and mash shops. A team that struggled to win at home, versus a team that found it impossible to win away; it was reasonable to assume that one of them would improve their record. The odds were with West Ham with Burnley having scored just one solitary goal away from home and never having won a previous Premier League game in London.

‘The furthest away I’ve ever sat from the pitch,’ said Burnley commentator Phil Bird.

‘Bloody freezing,’ said Sarah Renton in fancy Christmas dress for the game.

‘We’ve got to give a performance,’ said Sean Dyche.

‘We need to beat Burnley and we need the points,’ said Slaven Bilic.

‘Possibly the worst stadium ever,’ said Jeremy Dyer, ‘so far back it’s unreal, almost in Stratford.’

‘West Ham are hammering away relentlessly,’ says Jeff Stelling on SKY.

And with half-time within touching distance West Ham scored from a penalty, yet another in added time. ‘What is it about added time?’ says John Gibault from far away Seattle. In hindsight it was the only way this game was ever going to be settled. Heaton in fact saved the pen but Noble was first to the rebound and scored. Dyche was adamant that the whole thing was a poor refereeing decision with Heaton initially impeded before Mee committed the foul. It was a poor way to lose.

By all accounts this was not the best first-half showing from Burnley, unable to string three passes together, the guile of Defour sitting on the bench, running power preferred to craft, the 4-4-2 with Gray and Vokes up front ineffective, all the usual away gripes and weaknesses, ‘almost every player below par ,’ ‘just looking to feed off scraps,’ ‘just not good enough away from home,’ ‘total lack of confidence away from home,’ ‘we could have played until next Wednesday and not scored.’ Burnley could have been 2-0 down before the penalty without any complaints, but for the woodwork.

Michael Keane revealed that Sean D had some harsh words for them all at half-time so that the second half wasn’t quite the same level of averageness as the first with Burney remembering that they actually had a front foot; so that by the end of the game West Ham and certainly Bilic were relieved to have seen the game out with Burnley described as dominant. But after this game questions were being asked about Defour. Just why was he bought? Could he not play more than half a game? Does he have inherent, permanent fitness problems? Is he totally unsuited to the Premier League or is it that he just doesn’t fit into the ‘Dyche framework?’

The only consolations were the score kept down to just 1-0 and below us, Swansea, Sunderland, Hull, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace all lost although the manner of the defeat to an average nervous West Ham made it all the more galling.

How close they were though to getting a point in that better second half, Vokes missed a sitter of a header from just yards out with the net gaping. In his defence one might argue that a defender’s boot just inches from his face might just have distracted him a tad. Anywhere else on the field and a competent referee might well have blown for dangerous play. Arfield drew a wonder save from the goalkeeper with his 25-yard free kick. There were other chances from balls that were headed or flashed across the box. Jonathan Liew, however, in the Telegraph put his finger on it succinctly:

‘Their fightback in the second half merely underlined the paucity of their ambition in the first. This side can really play; if only they tried it once in a while. Too often they are being forced to chase games that with a little enterprise would require no chasing.’

     Mike Walters in the Mirror came up with a couple of nice little one-liners that ‘in the land of Payet and mash West Ham were so nervy you would not let them plug the fairy lights on your Christmas tree into a socket,’ and Burnley’s Boyd ‘covers an awful lot of ground but so does my Vauxhall Astra.’

Funny how people see games in different ways, Paul MacInnes at the Guardian made it sound like a humdinger of a game with Burnley bullish. But however you viewed it; this was a hugely disappointing defeat.

I used to love a comedian called Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ Davies, astonishingly still performing at the age of 79. At his peak he belonged to an era of comedians like Charlie Williams, Bernard Manning (not everyone’s cup of tea), Ken Goodwin, Frank Carson and Duggie Brown. The Comedians was a half hour TV show of rapid quick fire gags as a gaggle of comics came on and off and did their stuff. For a while it was compulsory viewing. Charlie Williams was the first black stand-up comic, ex-miner and ex-Doncaster Rovers footballer. He could crack jokes like “ey me owld flower don’t upset me or I’ll come and live next door.” Ken Goodwin used to play the village simpleton. Irishman Frank Carson’s catchphrase was “it’s the way I tell ‘em’. Freddy Parrot Face Davies wearing a silly hat was forever saying what we might well be thinking today after yet another away defeat, “I’m jutht about thik up to here.”

After another Blackburn Rovers 3-2 defeat and back into the bottom three you could well imagine Owen Coyle muttering it: ‘I’m jutht about thick up to here.’

Bury supporters after a twelfth consecutive defeat, were all ‘jutht about thick up to here.’

And we, on Sunday afternoon, either at White Hart Lane, or on our sofas, were none too confident of anything other than a bit of a tubbing. The messageboards were gloomy to say the least with a huge majority predicting a 4-0 defeat or a rather more respectable 3-0 defeat. Others called for a re-run of the spirit (and a bit of the good fortune) that saw Burnley win 4-1 years ago in a Milk Cup game in the 80s when Billy Hamilton scored two. Burnley were now hovering over the bottom three following Sunderland’s win the previous day, no away win, just one away goal.     Defour was yet again on the bench. How do you say in Belgian ‘jutht about thick up to here?’ Macbeth’s three witches might have struggled to put on a gloomier act.

It was yet another away defeat but this one was only by 2-1 and again there were contentious decisions. Dyche was adamant that Sissoko should have had a straight red for a high, studs-up tackle on Ward, instead of merely a yellow. Pochinetto disagreed – funny that. Sissoko then went on to set up the winner when Rose lashed the ball home. It’s a shame that SD sounded like an old broken record with his criticisms of referee decisions but what else could Dyche do.

He could put on a funny hat and smile and say he’s ‘jutht about thick up to here,’ but that would detract from the situation where yet again a contentious decision has affected a result. Maybe if my player had gone down and rolled over a dozen times he might have got the red, said Dyche, but I don’t like that.

‘If he does 14 rolls on the floor the ref is under pressure, I don’t want my players to do that, but equally I don’t know how we are going to get those decisions.’   Ward accordingly just got up and got on with the game. It’s clear that honesty can backfire. It might win you admirers, but it doesn’t win points.

Burnley had taken the lead through Barnes and even before that Gray should have put them ahead but for an instinctive save with his foot by Lloris. Ali made the scores level within 5 minutes and from a distance of 230 miles we willed them to hang on to the point. It was not to be. It was hard to find any report that didn’t say Sissoko was lucky to stay on.

Words like plucky and spirited were sprinkled on the news pages; there was an away goal to celebrate and even a lead in an away game, short-lived though it was.     Being plucky is all very well, but we’d settle for luck over pluck any day. There was general agreement; this was a proper performance, another referee might well have given the decision against Dier when Gray was bursting past him; you wondered if this had been Mee bringing down Kane at the other end what he would have done then. When Sissoko passed to Rose to set up the goal he had Wink on his right as well. Sissoko was probably winking for the rest of the day after he escaped the red.

‘Burnley did what Burnley do,’ said the Telegraph,’ fought hard and defended deep. There was no disgrace for them here.’

‘Burnley fought admirably,’ said the Mirror,’ digging in despite a furious onslaught.’

‘Déjà vu for Sean Dyche,’ said the Times.

In the aftermath of the game Dyche pointed to six game-changing decisions so far. Here was another one and this ref, our Kev, was no Friend of Burnley.

 

STOKE CITY 2 BURNLEY 0

Mourhino sent to the stands again… Primark is coming to Burnley… Ed Balls booted off Strictly and Honey G from X Factor… banana prices to go up, Brexit blamed… Kirk Douglas turns 100… we mourn for Chapacoense…

The evidence was emphatic; a more cast-iron penalty you will never see just about every paper said after the Manchester City game with Referee Marriner getting it hopelessly wrong. And if as one or two suggested the sun was in the lineman’s eyes the irony was that here was the Premier League awash with more money than it knows what to do with, but couldn’t afford to supply linesmen with a cap.

‘Game but limited,’ wrote Jim White in the Telegraph about the general performance, but then what else when two key players went off injured within minutes of each other.

And the goals: ‘A comedy of errors for the first, and their second appeared to have been choreographed by the Keystone Cops.’

Beneath them the other teams clawed a little closer to Burnley’s 14 points so that Hull in the bottom three were just three points behind.

What a bizarre feeling it was back at the little school where I worked 20 years ago, except it wasn’t little any more with extensions and new classrooms and a re-modelled sports field and acres of new housing around it. The only thing left of me was the sign on one of the old walls: DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE PLAYGROUND. Gone were the old lead factory and the relics of the pit heads. But, the terraced rows just across the road were still there including the one on the end where we had fun watching the firemen put out a fire one morning.

Builders had been in to the school and had left all their timber neatly stacked in the playground overnight. It was round about the time that Jimmy Mullen was buying striker after striker in order to find one that could score goals to keep them up. Anyway: this dad who lived in the end terrace was a bit of a rogue (in fact most of the village were) and helped himself to the timber that he then cut up and stacked in his back yard for his fire. I knew he’d nicked it, he knew I knew he’d nicked it, I knew he knew I knew…

The smoke and flames that billowed from his chimney were spectacular of course and ironically it was me that phoned for the fire brigade whilst laughing down the phone. Fireman Sam on the other end was a bit taken aback that I found it funny. Up roared two fire engines and we took two classes out to watch from the safety of the playground as his house narrowly escaped being burned to the ground.

“Everything alright,” I shouted down to him. “New wood was it?” To this day I’m pretty sure his reply was something unprintable.

We’d booked coach seats and tickets for Stoke, a mixed ground for Burnley in recent years. Memories were of bitterly cold, strong winds blowing straight into the away end and up yer trouser leg that brought tears to your eyes; a parking ticket one year and then another year when in drenching rain the away supporters were prevented from leaving by closed gates and goons and stewards in their yellow jackets until the home supporters had gone. This is what it must be like to be a sheep, we muttered. In fact we all stood there making sheep noises… baaa… baaa…

Stoke City has never seemed a welcoming place. Jimmy Mac was there for a spell after Bob Lord gave him the elbow and Jimmy tells the story that he never liked the red striped kit. He once went into the Border Bookshop in Todmorden on Halifax Road some years ago and up on a shelf was a copy of the Football Monthly picture of him in the Stoke shirt.

“It just doesn’t look like me in that shirt,” he told Victor the bookshop proprietor. Victor passed away some time ago but the shop is still there run by his wife Carole and there is as fine a selection of football books in that shop as you will find anywhere.

Jimmy Mac was at Stoke City for just three years helping them to promotion from the Second Division to the First. He was never truly happy there but one consolation was playing alongside Stanley Matthews. The story goes that very young and green Ron Chopper Harris was giving Sir Stan a bit of a kicking in one game at Chelsea and Stoke wing half and very hard man Eddie Clamp, Stan’s unofficial minder, warned him to stop. Young Ron ignored him but learned to his cost what it felt like to receive retribution from a real master when Clamp went into him with such force the poor lad left the field on a stretcher and spoke in a very high voice for several days afterwards from his hospital bed.

Promotion meant that Mac actually played against Burnley losing the first game at Turf Moor 1-0 with a performance that was far removed from the dazzling Mac of old. Local reporter Keith McNee wrote that ‘his languid performance finally killed the lingering McIlroy legend’. He would play several more games for Stoke until January ’66 but that April game at Turf Moor was the beginning of the end. Training was becoming more and more difficult and for a period he trained alone in and around the Burnley area only travelling to Stoke just once a week. His last game for Stoke City ironically was against Burnley on December 27^th, 1965 when Stoke won 3-1

After an indifferent start Hughes had got Stoke winning again. Such was Burnley’s dire away form that Sean D was hinting at changes. Tarkowski had laid a strong claim to inclusion in the next starting line-up.

“It’s another chance, another game, different build-up, mentality; we’ve got to re-think our mentality away from home and what we’re about, a re-think how we take on different shapes, different formats, and different personnel. I’m not pontificating but we have to change the whole feel of how we play sometimes. The definition of madness is always doing what you’ve always done and expecting a different outcome.”

And so to Stoke on the 3^rd day of December; the tree was up, the lights were on, the baubles dangling, the first mince pie had gone down nicely with a morsel of cheese, and the first Christmas Dinner with chums in Birkenshaw. Down to Rodley we went for the switch on of the Christmas Lights and pie and peas. Black Friday had been and gone.

Two seasons ago Burnley won a pulsating game at Stoke taking a two-goal lead and then withstood everything bar the kitchen sink being thrown at them in order to hang on to the win as Stoke tossed, crossed, lobbed, threw ball after ball into the box for their six-footers to aim at. This time it was Stoke that triumphed.

Before the game, the coach arriving early, we’d wandered round the ground and found the Stanley Matthews statue. Actually there are three figures on the huge stone plinth all in a different pose. The old Wolves warhorse Eddie Clamp, a name that perfectly suited his unpitying style, ended up being a teammate of Matthews at Stoke. Clamp (allegedly a real comedian in-between mercilessly thundering into opposition ball-players) apparently described the statue when he saw it.

“Excellent,” he said, “Too high for dogs to piss on it, and too low for the seagulls to crap on it.”

The club shop had all the usual stuff, but not a book to be seen. “You’ve no books,” I said to somebody. “Ah we don’t read books in Stoke,” he said.

Once again Burnley made the opposition in an away game look like Barcelona, their early decent 10-minute spell soon quelled. The second half was better, more spirited, more determined, more dominant. But sadly there was never any time when you thought hey Burnley can pull this back. In the opposition box they were either luckless or toothless or Grant made fine saves.

Sean D had made changes as he hinted he would. Defour was dropped to the bench, a surprise to us all. Flanagan was in for Lowton. It was back to the old 4-4-2 with Gray but not Vokes up front, Vokes replaced by the more muscular and rustic Barnes. Marney was fit to play, Heaton was not. Gudmondsson, we were informed, would be out a while longer. Robinson in goal brings confidence, a fine keeper, and reflexes as sharp as ever. He had no chance with either of the two Stoke goals.

The first you could view in either of two ways. A cross came over after some slick and silky Stoke play (not words you would normally see in connection with Stoke), Mee diving headed the ball outwards but only glanced it. It went to Walters (who hadn’t scored since August according to one newspaper), who stuck a foot out instinctively and it flukily looped over Robinson. As jammy a goal you will not see. Version 2: slick play from Stoke, Mee miscues a brave header, Walters in an instant deftly and deliberately guides the ball over Robinson, a quite brilliant goal such was the speed of Walter’s reaction and instinct.

The second goal was the one that had our heads in our hands. Flanagan was by-passed by Arnautovic as if he wasn’t there, a spectator as the ball was whipped round him and crossed to the foot of the unmarked player who smacked it home first time with a great strike. Game over

We wondered if another real hiding was on the cards. Stoke were driving forwards, Burnley no match for their power and passing, flair and individual skills. Hughes was purring at this first 45 minutes afterwards. He saw them as a top ten side and they looked the part. What they had were players who could strut and turn on some style. Arnautovic, infuriating, preening, gesturing, posturing, was a class act. What they also had was a maddening urge to fall and clutch their knees or shins, rolling and writhing on the floor as if every bone was broken, at every opportunity.

There was a moment when Dyche was adamant a Stoke defender should have been red-carded. The second half and Gray had burst through but was clearly being held back. Even so he staggered onwards staying on his feet getting well into the penalty area until it was clear he would lose the ball. Clattenburg brought the play back and awarded the free kick from where the holding had begun. This was a red card offence said Dyche. A defender sent off at that point might well have changed the game in Burnley’s favour; another instance then of Burnley being on the wrong end of a referee decision to add to all the others. Needless to say the free kick came to nothing. There were claims for a possible penalty as early as the first minute when a defender reportedly threw an arm out to deflect a free kick. “An unnatural position,” said Dyche of the arm.

On came the muscular Tarkowski and impressed. At last there was a match for some of the Stoke big guys. Boyd, ineffective throughout, was taken off and Burnley ended with three strikers as Vokes came on to join Barnes and Gray. Kightly arrived presumably to provide the crosses. There weren’t many. Stoke’s shot total was 10, believe it or not Burnley’s was 14. Stoke 4 corners but Burnley 9; this was no one-sided match. Burnley did enough to make us believe that Bournemouth, next up, could be beaten.

Bournemouth 3-1 down to Liverpool came back to win 4-3. A little bit of that belief kind of evaporated.

The Stoke game had begun with a minute’s silence in memory of those who perished on a hillside in Colombia. The air crash involving the Brazilian team Chapacoense from the small city of Chapeco with its 200,000 people touched us all; a small club in a Brazilian league that had risen to the top, in some ways in recent years, just like Burnley, beating sides from bigger cities with far bigger budgets. ‘A fairytale rise,’ those that knew them called it and here they were filled with pride and joy on their way to a prestigious Final. Even the stadium was of a similar size to Turf Moor holding just over 22,000. Fans were filling it up to shed tears and say prayers within minutes.

In this crash, unlike the Munich tragedy that hit Manchester United so hard, a complete team was destroyed. The world is filled with tragedies. This was one of them and something like this puts many things into perspective. Some tragedies take place on an almost daily basis and fill our TV screens with such regularity that we grow almost immune to the impact, not because we are hard-hearted but because we are just too familiar with the repetition. But just sometimes something happens that makes us really share and feel the grief. The Chapacoense plane crash was just such a one.

The bond between a team and its people and town is unique; and the grief we saw in and around the stadium as supporters filed in so emotionally, was the visible evidence of the connection that all football fans have with their chosen team and with each other right around the globe. So often we say oh it’s only a game when we lose, but this time it was a lot more than that. Over time, Turin and Manchester United rose again. All of us hoped that Chapocoense would do the same.

 

BURNLEY 3 BOURNEMOUTH 2

Italy said NO to something… The Christmas Radio Times arrived… the £100 OAP fuel bonus arrived… The HP gave Brexit got the nod… Bob Lord died 35 years ago… the spread of Christmas decorations and illuminated Santas has at last reached the north…

There was a bit of a kafuffle in midweek when there was a suggestion in the Lanc Telegraph that away game tactics needed to change and that one way would be to play a flat back 5. The line-up would go 5-4-1. The tactic would be to park the back 5 near the half way line rather than deep. This is known as parking the bus in technical handbooks. It might not be pretty, we might not get a shot on goal, it might be boring but we might get a point, was the argument.

Some weeks earlier there had been a suggestion to go 5-3-2 or it might have been 5-4-1, I can’t remember which but the key point was that two of the back 5 would be the flying wing-backs necessary to make this work. The essence of it to be successful would be pace. This is known as a Flat Back Three with a Frilly Bit on each side in the technical handbooks.

I think many of us do it; we get our new Christmas Radio Times and in the half-hope and half expectation that there will be a few decent programmes, we get our pens, and circle all the things we want to watch. In our house it’s part of the ritual, along with putting up the tree, clambering up into the loft and dragging out all the decorations, festooning the house, writing the cards (what a chore), hoping nobody sends one of those infernal round robin letters that tell us all the bad news that someone has experienced in the year. Who wants to read about gallstones, shingles, broken legs at Christmas? It’s always struck me as one of the great mysteries that come Christmas someone will sit down and write down every mishap that has happened during the year, when it’s supposed to be a time of good cheer and merriment, and send their misery list to all and sundry. We’ve had them in previous years from people we hardly know. We’ve had them from people we haven’t seen for at least ten years.

December is mince pies, seeing what new lights the neighbours have got, sloe gin and the order to Abel and Cole, not reading about some distant relative’s emphysema. It’s piling up all the presents you’re sending to people, lots of them from the club shop for Joe, realising you don’t have enough wrapping paper, the roll of sellotape is about to expire, suddenly remembering you haven’t sent a card to dear Aunt Gladys, indeed wondering if old Aunty Gladys has lasted the full year and would a card to her be wasted. In fact, did she actually send us one last year?

On a glum note, (sorry) it’s about (in our house) the central heating packing in, having engineers come to investigate the subsiding conservatory and dig yer patio up, the day before Christmas Eve; the central heating packing in, about catching mice in the kitchen while the damn cat sleeps and yawns all day. I can hear these mice chatting under the dishwasher:

     “Nowt to worry about chaps the cat in this house, Mabel, is no problem, if she sees you just act confident, wink, and say you live here, she’ll go straight back to sleep.”

Anyway: there’s something quite therapeutic about going through the new Radio Times. The cover is cheerful and bright, a picture of Santa never fails to gee me up. It’s one of the great comforts that all’s well with the world and another year has gone by without the world blowing up totally, although come next year with Trump in charge of the world it might be a different story. I looked for all the old chestnuts, Morecambe and Wise… Wallace and Gromit… Dr Zhivago… Casablanca and High Noon, yep there they were. But I did manage to circle Last Tango in Halifax… Mrs Brown’s Boys… The Lady in the Van… Grantchester… Maigret… Jungle Book the new one… Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes… Ethel and Ernest… Jonathan Creek … and Captain America.

     On SKY there would be Ten in Ten: that’s 10 games in 10 days, and not one was Burnley, but the bonus being no monkeying around with kick-off times.

Christmas and December back in 2002: it was the daft season with all those cricket scores. We’d lost 6-2 at home to Rotherham when Rotherham looked and played like Inter Milan in their blue and black striped kit, all 6 feet tall, made of solid brawn and Yorkshire pudding, muscle-bound hybrids from the cloning labs of Rotherham. Next up was Gillingham 4 Burnley 2 so that was ten goals conceded in just two games.

Fog and mist had swirled off the Medway producing Dickensian conditions making a backdrop that would have suited any film or TV production of a horror story. Or they could have just filmed the game. Stan T was sorry that people had paid good money to travel so far and see such a performance. The treatment room was full of the injured, suspensions were looming, too many players were off form and we dreaded the next game, Wolves on Boxing Day.

But this was Burnley, as unpredictable a side back then as you could wish for. Being a Burnley supporter we said this was punishment for something done in a previous life. In the first half Burnley played them off the park and went into a two-goal lead. And then in the second half it was back to the old Burnley as Wolves piled forward and Burnley vanished. Wolves scored but somehow Burnley held on as nails were chewed to the bone and nerves were shredded. We had eleven heroes was the general verdict. Gareth Taylor scored the first and Dean West the second and we all sat back at half-time filled with the spirit of Christmas and pies but we all knew that it would have been better if we’d scored three. It was a landmark day though, Boxing Day wins were as rare as hens’ teeth and Burnley hadn’t beaten Wolves for something like 40 years. It was a time when we were just pleased to be able to hang on to the Championship place. We’ve come a long way since then.

The 10^th day of Christmas and Joe was mascot again, the annual birthday treat. You take out a mortgage to pay for it these days. The omens were good; he had been mascot on three previous occasions and we’d won them all. Mascots for this game had a special treat; normally they do a training session in the gym with the coaches but in December it is out of action because of the all the Christmas revelries. They train on the pitch then and who’s grumbling? It must be a dream for these young lads to be out there in front of the stands at the same time as the team. All he wanted for Christmas was kit, track suit, the annual book, goalkeeper gloves, a goalkeeper top and a Premier football. The till played Jingle Bells when I paid the bill.

Gray was not back in the starting line-up again and had been talking about the tweets that got him in such bother. They were really wrong he admitted and when they were made the audience was small; fame and being a role model was a long way away. At the end of the day back then he was a ‘nobody,’ he said and now he regrets writing them and is frustrated by the quickness to see the bad side of him, especially being photographed with a drug dealer who has since been jailed for 7 years. People, alas, have no idea what his life has been like and what he has had to deal with whilst growing up. Where he comes from has made him what he is; friends and his father spent time in jail. It’s nothing new to him. What frustrates him is people seeing the bad side and not the good and he does not want to be tarnished as homophobic.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, not 10 Lords a leaping, but Bournemouth and Eddie Howe. Sean Dyche had been lamenting that Burnley did not have the same spending power as Bournemouth, now wanting to build a new stadium. Burnley weren’t a club that could spend £15million on one player. At the beginning of the season this was a game that you saw on the fixture list and had down as a home win. But Bournemouth had proved they were no slouches with some fine players and results.

The incredible run continued: four times mascot and four wins. It started with a cautious 4-5-1; I suspect most of us expected to see Gray up front in a 4-4-2. Nevertheless with goals from Hendrick and ward Burnley were two up within 15 minutes. The Hendrick goal was sublime and must surely be a contender for goal of the season, controlling a ball beautifully 30 yards out, a few strides forward setting up the shot and then a wonderful volley from well outside the box that upped and then dipped into the top right corner. It brought the house down, settled nerves, inspired confidence and before we knew it Ward pounced on a loose ball in the six-yard area and it was 2-0.

Not until then did Bournemouth begin to play and dominate with some lovely football, but didn’t look like scoring until in the second minute of the one-minute added time at the end of the half and then scored after a spell of passing. Dyche was livid, no doubt counting up the number of times that late goals have been conceded with a referee’s help.

By this time Vokes and Defour had faded and just minutes into the second half were replaced by Gray and Barnes. The warning signs had been there that Bournemouth were taking over the game and 2-2 looked imminent. At last came a really pro-active pair of substitutions early in a half; rare for Dyche and by the end of the day he was to put it mildly, dead chuffed. The game was transformed, Gray was up for it, Barnes as ever was beefy and bouncy and could have scored with a magnificent volley with his first touch from 20 yards but it was just over. And Gray: back to his marauding best and deserved a goal for one run from deep inside his own half, speeding away right into the Bournemouth box, shooting, forcing the save from a difficult angle, which even then might have spun into the net but for a second save. The Bournemouth back-line was now nervy and unsettled.

If we thought the game was safe when Boyd scored a third after Gray had flicked him through, we were wrong. This is Burnley and they leave us nervy and tense whenever we have even a two-goal lead. And so it proved again as Bournemouth came back into it, far from defeated and with just minutes to go scored their second. But Burnley held on without further ado, the points safe, euphoria supreme and birthday boy happy as Larry. We’d been right back up on Row Z at the back of the James Hargreaves (I won’t bore you with why) the first time I’ve ever sat higher up than a pigeon).

What a perfect view though of the Boyd goal down below us, the crisp shot from just inside the corner of the area, megging one defender and evading the keeper at the far post. Initial reaction was to leave us wondering just how the hell he scored that. TV replays showed this was no fluke; heaven then for all of us in claret spectacles, more so for those sat up right at the back only a few more steps away from cloud nine.

The day not finished; ten of us to The Queen at Cliviger for the first time in months to continue the birthday celebrations. Steak and Kidney Suet pudding for me, Mount Everest on a plate, I’ve seen some Suet Puds in my time but this was a beaut, hand crafted with perfect symmetry. Those who had the Cheese and Onion Pie pronounced it as good as ever and the Cliviger Gorgeous sausages quite resplendent on a bed of mash and veg with extra gravy. Harry Hill’s golden sausage paled into insignificance.

Sean D was clearly delighted afterwards: “I was super pleased with our substitutions. I don’t often try to take credit but Ashley and Andre has a massive effect when they came on. Often it’s a case of waiting for something to happen to make a substitution but today I was pro-active in making something happen. It clearly had an effect on the game and we created three or four really good chances after that.”

“What good value our season tickets are,” someone pointed out. “We may look as though we don’t know what we’re doing away from home, but the home games have been fantastic, even the one’s we lost against City and Arsenal.”

Before the game a mini band of a trio of Santas wandered round playing, singing and spreading good cheer. This was an all-round day of excellence, including watching Blackburn lose while we stuffed our faces in The Queen and then the bonus of watching Burnley all over again on SKY and MOTD.

The tenth day of Christmas was rather special and young Master Joe not little any more, slept like a log from the minute his head hit the pillow.

BURNLEY 1 MAN CITY 2

     Mysterious pyramids have been found in Antarctica… Farage would like to be the US Ambassador… 25 years since Freddy Mercury died… George Best would have been 70 this weekend… outbreaks of Christmas decorations had been spotted and were said to be spreading uncontrollably… but there won’t be many in Bradford.

Football fans are resilient creatures, gluttons for punishment; we were humbled at West Brom but the chance to make amends was uppermost in our heads. A home game against Man City was next, what’s not to look forward to, we thought. This is what it’s all about.

But before that, there was a bit of a jolt, the name of the school where I was head for 14 years cropped up quite out of the blue. Poor Joe while we were away in Hornsea had suffered a 13-0 defeat. ‘But they fouled us all the time,’ he said.

‘Ah well,’ I consoled him, ‘you had a moral victory,’ and then tried explaining to a 9-year old exactly what that was.

But the email that came stopped me in my tracks: next game against Carlton Giants, at Dolphin Lane, Thorpe Primary School. Hell I thought, if I had a pound for every time I drove there for 14 years I’d be a wealthy man.

At Easter, 1982, as Burnley were heading towards promotion with that last harvest of home-grown young players; I was due to leave leafy lane, St Margaret’s where I’d been Deputy Head, to be head of Thorpe on the Hill Primary School. The name gives it a pleasant, rural image. A better name would have been Thorpe in the middle of the old abandoned coalmines and engine sheds. The idea of being the head of a little village school had always appealed, except this was no picturesque, picture postcard village; this was an ex-industrial area, grey, dilapidated, with an old deserted quarry thrown in for good measure. The M62 dissected the village; in between it, and the school, lay the allotments from which hens would often wander over to the school and hop up into the hall. Another guy kept rabbits to which one errant pupil helped himself on his way home and kept his new pets under his bed feeding them chips until his mother noticed the strange smell emanating from his bedroom.

It was quite ironic that this little school of under 100 pupils out in the semi-rural boondocks and spoil heaps, but with Leeds just a few miles away, should produce the one professional footballer I ever had in a school team. At the interview for the job one of the things I said I’d do was get a football team going. This I duly did. I remember for that interview I’d even polished my shoes, something I hadn’t done for years. I noticed one of the interviewing panel peering at them as I sat in front of them arranged in a horseshoe. I like to think it was the shoes that got me the job; it was either that or bad luck.

Anyway: the ten-year old was Dean West and even then he snapped and snarled and launched into tackles in every game he played. We had so few lads to choose from we had a girl in goals long before women’s football became a big thing and in macho south Leeds it became an eye opener. If you could kick a ball you were in the team but this motley bunch of ragamuffins were second in the local Wakefield League playing against schools four times the size of little us. That was solely down to Dean West who covered every blade of grass with complete and utter fearlessness and competitiveness. After one memorable game in mud and rain against the crack top school that we won 1-0, I jokingly said to him and his dad, “I’ll get you a trial at Burnley one day.” That went down like a lead balloon seeing as his dad had eyes only for Leeds United.

So indeed he did sign for Leeds as a youth but eventually played for Stan Ternent at Bury, and then when Stan joined Burnley he brought Dean along with him. Lo and behold the lad did play for Burnley. Funny that

Three years trickled by, Burnley had gone up, then down and John Bond came and went. We didn’t know there was even worse to come. Thorpe School meanwhile was stuck in its time warp of peeling paint, heating that failed in winter, plus two staff who had been there far too long and had both feet fixed firmly still in the fifties. One, the ageing Deputy Head ready for retirement was memorable for his Ralphie Coates comb-over hair style. The other was the school’s pianist and used the nuffnote method; that is to say if you hit enuff notes you eventually get the right ones. The first secretary was a lovely elderly lady but could only type with one finger and was deaf in one ear. Her replacement was a clairvoyant and could see dead people – or so she said. This was in fact quite unnerving. Sadly, by now, Dean West had left and the school team found its proper level losing games by huge scores on a regular basis.

One day I heard the sound of pattering hooves coming across the hall floor. It was only 8 o clock and all was quiet until I heard little voices as well. “You tell ‘im… no you tell ‘im… you knock… no you knock.”

Two small lads came to the open door and with them was a goat on the end of a piece of string that had left puddles all over the polished hall floor. The two boys looked at me:

“We found this goat sir outside in the road,” said one of them as if I would have a solution.

The goat and I looked at each other. Burnley FC’s problems suddenly seemed insignificant. I’d been to few if any games in the last few years but looked at the results and stuck reports in my page-a-day diary.

To cut a long story short the news got round that the Head had a goat in his office and eventually an old guy in a battered ancient car turned up, took it out, shoved it into the car on the back seat, and drove off. As he did this another car turned up with an LEA adviser inside who looked askance at the old man and the goat and then stared at me with a dumbstruck look. I, meanwhile, didn’t bat an eyelid as if it was quite normal. It was that kind of school. You never quite knew what might happen next, unlike Turf Moor when every day was in the wilderness of the old Fourth Division you knew what to expect, just more misery and false hopes.

If humour and laughs were in short supply at Turf Moor in the wilderness years, there were plenty at Thorpe. There was the Christmas that Santa in the grotto got slowly tipsy. The mums had been down to Leeds market to get cheap sweets. The brought half a ton back and Santa was giving them to the children as they left. Most of them pulled a face and said they were horrible. The mums had unknowingly bought bagloads of chocolate liqueurs upon which Santa was happily snacking. One lad called David had the happy habit of running out of the classroom and sitting either on top of the piano or on the shed roof. I could never persuade him it would be helpful if he ran straight home. Sports Days were fun. We had them for parents as well until the time they were stopped because two dads had a fight because they both said they’d won. The kids didn’t bat an eyelid; it was quite common up on the estate.

For all of the 80s that I was in this little school Burnley were pants other than the one promotion year. Whilst I was the wasteland of Thorpe, Burnley were enduring the backwoods of the Fourth Division. It seemed kind of apt.

Burnley versus Manchester City: funnily enough there was no sense of apprehension or trepidation. A defeat would be nothing less than expected; anything else an absolute bonus. The email about the game at Thorpe had been a reminder of times past when not a person in the world would have forecast that one day we’d have a third season in the Prem and the next game would be against Man City in front of an absolute full house. OK we lost badly at West Brom, but just think back to games at Hartlepool or Maidstone or Exeter many of us thought, knowing which we preferred.

We wondered if Sean D would make a few changes. His words after West Brom, more blunt than usual about his players, suggested some kind of possible epiphany, a road to Damascus moment perhaps when he had realised that some of his players were just not up to the task and there’s no way to make a silk purse out of just running, resolve and digging in. Defour it seemed could still not last a full game. Hendrick seemed no better than the loaned-out Ulvestad; Arfield looked to be running on empty. The lack of pace was blatant. Meanwhile: Joe (he prefers it to Joey) Barton was back training at Gawthorpe, albeit not with the first team; “hmmm,’” we hummed wondering what that might bring.

“Don’t write us off this weekend,” the manager said referring to the unpredictable marvel of football. And we didn’t: anticipating at least a fightback if not a win. There’s always something special about a game like this when the millionaire, super-power elite are in town and all away seats are sold out and filled with raucous, away fans. There’s a kind of carnival atmosphere; Harry Potts Way heaving, the world watching, crowds building at the turnstiles, the samba band, an atmosphere you could bottle.

Pep Guardiola was quick to praise Burnley for what they had achieved so far. Among his compliments was: “Their legs are faster and cleaner than ours.” It reminded me of the old Paul Fletcher joke when he said as an older player he had a hot bath before every game to help him loosen up.

“I was never fast but I was always clean,” he said.

The plus of a lunchtime kick-off is a 10 am Weatherspoon’s breakfast messaged Garry Ingham; wrap up warm messaged Eddie Rawlinson with a fabulous picture of white, frost covered Cliviger fields and hedgerows. In Leeds there was a blanket of fog with a pale, hazy sun just visible through the grey murk. The car took an age to de-frost. Out came the old flask for its first appearance of the season and the old heavy overcoat that weighs a ton. Driving across the moors the view of Ingleborough and Pen Y Ghent white with snow 40 miles away on the horizon was breathtaking beneath the clear blue skies. A stunning drive and a great game in prospect; what more could you want? An upset was maybe on the cards.

But Burnley lost and the more I looked at the scoreline back at home, the more miffed I felt that they hadn’t got a deserved point from a battling performance. Of course City were the more skilful, Toure back in favour was hugely impressive pulling all the strings. Two years ago he hardly left the centre circle, today he was everywhere.

Today was light years away from the dross of the West Brom performance which was no surprise; no one doubted that they had all had a Pep talk but the surprise in fact was Heaton’s absence. Robinson took over. Not bad when you can replace an England international with another and Robinson had a fine game delighted no doubt to be playing in a Premier game again.

The abiding images: Burnley taking the lead with a Marney piledriver not unlike the Boyd goal of two years ago. Referee Marriner’s refusal to award a penalty when Hendrick was sent flying in the first half. The two city goals as scruffy as you will see. Marney and Gudmondsson departing with injuries within minutes of each other. The quickness of petulant, snarling City players to surround the referee at every opportunity complaining about decisions; the pressure Burnley applied in the final 15 minutes forcing Bravo into saves and defenders into hoofed clearances, the save from a great Barnes overhead effort crucial. THAT splendid crunching but perfectly fair tackle by Mee on Sterling that put him out of the game. The splendid contribution of Tarkowski in the makeshift midfield role, and the huge encouragement and roars of support that came from the Burnley fans when it was clear that this team, thrown out of its stride by the two injuries, was refusing to lie down and capitulate.

City knew that they had been in a game; Burnley knew that they had deserved something. It left us all at the end with that empty feeling that you get when you know you had not deserved to lose, especially when the second of the goals was simply a comedy of errors. In a crowded box with the ball set up to be comfortably cleared, two defenders went for it and made a total hash, crashing into each other so that the ball ran free. In a trice it was gathered up, taken to the by-line and crossed where the comedy continued as it bounced off Aguero’s knee with him barely aware of where it was. It was just a cruel way to lose. It left us with that same feeling that we had losing to that ridiculous last minute Arsenal goal.

We trudged down the stairs, disconsolate and irked. We shook our heads. We asked each other just when will a Premier ref recognise a blatant penalty and award it in our favour. All the BT pundits including Howard Webb were agreed; this was a penalty. On MOTD it looked impossible not to give it. How many is that so far this season, we wondered. Maybe Sean D lists them in his Filofax; who can blame him if he does.

WEST BROM 4 BURNLEY 0

The Queen is going to get the builders in… Brexit could mean Santa is barred from entering the UK… Blair threatens to take up politics again… Ed Balls was still going strong on Strictly… England walloped by India… not many laughs this week and certainly none at West Brom.

With Mrs T I moved to from Hebden Bridge to Leeds in 1969; it’s an age ago and I really can’t remember exactly which year it was. The Turf Moor roots were and remained sound enough; they had to be. I was entering Leeds United country at a time when they had a cracking side. In between the kicks and bruises they inflicted on other teams, along with small dogs and stray old ladies, they did actually play a superb brand of football.

The kids at the school I joined, St Margaret’s Horsforth, were all disciples which set an immediate problem when, overseen by the dictatorial Head (Old Jack who we met in the last diary) and with no school kit, I asked them what kits they had at home, and of course they all said white Leeds United shirts. There was nothing for it but to say that this would have to be the kit we played in. What made all this worse of course was the fact that we could see two Leeds landmarks quite clearly from our upstairs windows, one was Armley Jail and the other were the Elland Road floodlights. And then as if to underline the predicament, Burnley were doing far from well at this time, in fact were heading for relegation from the First Division.

Anyway: Jack Prince did two things that have always stuck in my mind; one of them involved Gilbert and Sullivan and the other the FA Cup when Leeds United won it in 1972. We never ever saw his wife, Mrs Prince, who was said to be as portly as he and six inches shorter to boot, but then, one Christmas, he insisted that the older children accompanied by their teachers, one of them me, should attend Yeadon Town Hall to see his wife in a Gilbert and Sullivan production. Up until this point she had seemed like the wife of Captain Mainwaring – just a figment of the imagination.

If I say that this was the musical equivalent of watching Burnley 0 Hereford 6, you will appreciate just how awful it was until a wonderful moment arrived when someone stood on his wife’s long gown. She turned to walk offstage, you could see the foot on the bottom of the dress, you knew what would happen, and just as a Jimmy Mac penalty kick might slowly but unerringly trickle across the line, the dress slipped slowly down and half of it stayed on the floor whilst she exited stage right. It was the only and last time he ever dragooned us to Yeadon to see Gilbert and Sullivan. It was the last time we saw her.

And then he insisted that the school football team should see the FA Cup that would be on display in a church hall down Horsforth Town Street one weekday evening. This meant that I would have to be there as well. And the old head being the tyrant he was, you didn’t dare say, “No I’m a Burnley supporter.” You were told to be there and so you dutifully turned up.

In my hazy mind I can half see Peter Lorimer coming on the stage and saying a few words and then some lackey in attendance lifted up the Cup and the lads cheered whilst I sat there thinking what on earth am I doing here. How is this happening? The lads all went up and made a queue and were allowed to touch the Cup but I thought NO, no way am I going up there to touch a Cup won by Leeds United. It was a defining moment in which I convinced myself that in this act of defiance I had stood symbolically up to old Jack Prince as he glowered at me with narrowed eyes for not accompanying the boys.

In 1974 we were there at Elland Road to see that memorable game when we trounced Leeds on their own pitch 4-1. We had tickets in the home end behind the goal and were very close to the front. In went that delightful chip from Doug Collins right in front of us. In went Nulty’s goal that sealed the win with him somehow on his hands and knees as he scored. But we also saw close up that vile challenge on Casper by Hunter after the ball had gone that left him writhing on the ground. Were we already 4-1 up at that point I seem to think we were, but the recollection is not of the score as Hunter made the tackle, but how delayed it was and then the look of sheer venom on Hunter’s face as he looked down at the stricken Casper on the floor. It’s over 40 years ago now. I doubt Hunter remembers it but Frank certainly does.

And so since all those years ago, we have trudged back and forth from Leeds to Burnley, save for a lull in the 80s when job and offspring interfered, the journey becoming more and more fraught as delays, roadworks, speed cameras, plus more and more traffic and traffic lights, have slowed us down more and more. But, the stretch between Todmorden and Burnley through the Cliviger Gorge has barely changed one bit since the old Ford Prefect in the late 50s chugged to Turf Moor from Longfield Road.

Somewhere, somehow, there’s an alternative Leeds United history. What might have happened if they’d stood by Brian Clough instead of showing him the door after just 40 days? It was the very same day that now doing supply work at a school in Beeston; I’d taken a group of lads and dads on a tour of Elland Road with one of their old pros as host. We got there to find cameras, lights and a whole sea of action, of photographers and reporters and microphones.

What might have happened if Jimmy Adamson had got his way, the directors had backed him and he had been allowed to sign Kevin Keegan from Hamburg and Keegan had transformed a whole city as he did at Southampton. And then I stopped wondering what might have happened and thought, who cares, I’m a Burnley supporter. But, having said that, I felt real sympathy for Adamson because it was then he lost what little love he had left for football.

World Cup weekend was over and Burnley players were back in the fold, Heaton and Keane England, Defour Belgium, Hendrick Ireland, Vokes Wales and Gudmondsson Iceland with no injuries to report. The game against West Brom scheduled for a Monday night so it was a Hornsea weekend for Mrs T et moi.

Tom Heaton had a fine game at Wembley and until the madness of the final five minutes could have been well pleased with his performance. But 2-0 up, the defence went gung-ho, Heaton was dreadfully exposed for both goals, the first of which he had absolutely no chance. The second was of the sort that is embarrassing for all goalkeepers, through his legs. But: where was the left back, where was the cover; there wasn’t any leaving the scorer in oceans of room to streak forward and fire home from close range. The press were kind asking questions about the defence rather than Heaton. Unlucky was the general consensus in those papers that I saw. Southgate meanwhile preferred to give the ageing Jagielka 45 minutes rather than a debut to Michael Keane. We scratched our heads and then groaned.

We were in desperate need of some football of our own. We’d watched the weekend games and most of the results had been pretty favourable to Burnley with Hull, West Ham, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace all losing. The Burnley game on Monday night TV: and the last time they had played at West Brom in the Prem it has been a 0-4 catastrophe.

Sean D in a huge Sunday Times feature briefly compared the two Prem seasons; the first had been ‘a rolling wave of emotion, this time it felt like business.’ SD is nothing if not consistent and even the huge full page feature had little new to say, homing in on his belief that all these new and overseas coaches that have flooded the Premier League and lauded for their ‘innovations’ are doing nothing that hasn’t been around in football for some time.

‘Horrible journey and bloody freezing,’ wrote Paul Weller as the rains lashed down and the motorways in several places ground to a halt. There were flood alert warning sirens in Padiham, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge as if they hadn’t had enough a year ago. Roads into Whalley were closed. In Leeds the rain was biblical, lashing down in horizontal sheets driven by the winds and running like a river down the drive below our house. Wheelie bins were seen floating down roads that were now rivers.

But all the while the news was that at West Brom the pitch was fine and things had abated down there. The Hawthorns, pitch fine, drizzly, traffic grim, tweeted Henry Winter. It would have been a mercy if the Hawthorns had been flooded but we weren’t to know that prior to the game.

‘Horrible night,’ one tweet summed it up, and not just the weather. Somehow Burnley contrived to make West Brom look like Barcelona on a night when all the shortcomings we knew were there surfaced again. West Brom: a side of no great brilliance, no galacticos, nothing outstanding, bang average – or so we thought.

Gifted two early goals they took complete control of the game and made Burnley look like mugs. They were everything Burnley were not; quick on the break, powerful, strong, springing attacks like sprinters off the blocks. Burnley passed it around, backwards, sideways, more sideways, back again, getting nowhere and when they did reach anywhere near the West Brom area it all faded to nothing. Impotent was the only word to describe it; plenty of possession but not a clue what to do with it.

Just one good chance fell Burnley’s way with the score at only 1-0. The ball came to Hendricks who had a perfect opportunity to lob the keeper (which he tried to do) but the attempt was way off target. After that I guess we all knew this was going to be a long and painful night.

Defour as ever did not play the full 90 minutes in fact was taken off after just 45. On came Barnes to make a 4-4-2 formation, Gray again left on the bench looking morose. Things picked up a little but by this time West Brom had gone 3-0 up all too easily. Gudmondsson was the pick of the bunch but was taken off when it would have been a kindness to have replaced the toiling Arfield.

As bad as anything I can remember under Dyche, tweeted Chris Boden. Did they all go out ‘til 5 in the morning partying with Rooney, asked someone else; in Accrington Julian Booth’s Facebook message was TV GONE OFF. He was one of the lucky ones. ‘We should have our fares and ticket costs refunded after this dismal show,’ said many who went. On the touchline as the debacle continued Dyche looked on quite shell-shocked, frequently consulting, hand over his mouth, his henchmen as to what to do next. If he was bemused who could blame him; how on earth was this the same side that dug in at Old Trafford?

After the game he lamented that West Brom has always been a bad ground for him since he broke his leg there as a 17-year old when he was at Nottingham Forest but whilst the results against Man United, Everton and Palace had given us all cause for some optimism, this West Brom result was a painful reminder of just how fallible and limited this Burnley side is and that the result had little to do with bad grounds or bad luck. This was a result down to rank bad defending at one end and a lack of any ideas as to how to get forward at pace at the other, or what to do in the final third. If West Brom were ‘sensational’ as one report claimed, it was because they were allowed to be – or because the wily old Pulis pulled off a masterstroke.

Quite simply West Brom sat back and allowed Burnley to have possession and this as we know is an alien game for them. This time they passed and passed and then when they lost the ball in the final third as they inevitably did, the West Brom counter attacks at speed were all too much. Time and again they were helplessly exposed and with Keane and Mee having nightmare games against the rampaging Rondon, a centre forward with terrifying pace to match his physical presence, the night was set for an abject defeat and all too sadly shown on SKY for the nation to see just how tame and weak-willed Burnley could be.

This was a gloomy and chastening result but a wise old man once said to me no matter how down and despondent you feel, always try to end the day with a chuckle and this I did. As sure as apples is apples someone will surely one day take a pot shot at President Elect Trump. But just think, how would we keep a straight face when his bodyguards all shout “Donald duck.”

It seemed moderately amusing at the fag-end of the evening as we headed to bed desperate for something to lighten the gloom. In the cold, grey light of the following morning, however, it was anything but, as images of the sorry capitulation returned and news of rain and floods dominated the news.