BURNLEY 0 PRESTON NORTH END 2
Into December and the season to be merry, Christmas coming and the geese getting fat; but over at the club that was ten years ahead of Burnley these were Scrooge like times with only a very small fire burning in the grate and down to their last candle .
We don’t forget do we? We haven’t forgotten the Coyle departure and the defection to Bolton. Forget it say some, it’s time to move on. It was six years ago. But over and again the subject raises its head and with Bolton Wanderers now in serious, serious trouble financially, it all kicked off again and up popped Coyle’s name along with Gartside.
Now it’s Burnley that sits ten years ahead of Bolton as they slide nearer to administration and a lower division with a sort of relentless inevitability. Something around £180million in debt, their benefactor Eddie Davies no longer bank-rolling them and players were unpaid for November; it was hard not to gloat – not so much at the club itself but at the two characters that caused Burnley supporters such angst at the turn of the year in 2009. Their only hope it seems is that at a reputed price of £30million and Davies not calling in the debt, a buyer will be found.
Their own supporters were reportedly planning protests seriously worried at the bleak future and many of those who refused ever to attend a game at the Horwich site, now vociferously voicing their views. Would Burnley fans happily continue to attend games if Burnley moved out to Whalley, for example, even if it was a state of the art stadium complete with shopping malls and a Frankie and Benny’s? Yes no doubt if they were in the Premiership as Bolton once used to be; but other than the diehards not if the club was in the bottom three of a lower division.
A pal got in touch to say he’d seen the piece about George Best and having chatted to Les Latcham several times, in fact has known him for years, he could shed some light as to why Best always found him so difficult to play against. Latcham never tried to kick lumps out of Best because he had figured a way to anticipate exactly what he would do when it was one against one.
Watching Best he had noticed how he always dropped his right shoulder if he went left, and always dropped his left shoulder if he went right. With that in mind Les said he always tried to keep Best close to the touchline and he rarely looked at the ball at his feet, but watched his shoulders. In that way he knew which way he was going to go. Best would congratulate him after the game for the way he played and the fact that he never resorted to fouling him. Best even asked him one day how he managed to know which way he was going to go and managed to play so well against him. Les replied if I told you you’d run me ragged in the next game.
My chum was also at the game when Burnley were at Old Trafford for an FA Cup-tie when Best did something memorable. George McCabe was referee. Burnley were winning but then one of Best’s boots came off and as he was about to put it back on the ball came to him so he kept the boot in his hand, took the ball some considerable distance and played a pass that led to Man U scoring. Man U scored both their goals late on to deny Burnley the win. The goal that Best had fashioned was allowed with some people questioning whether the goal should have stood, on account of McCabe should perhaps have stopped the game and made Best put his boot back on.
40 years later my chum was at Barnsley for a Burnley game and was in the guest lounge when who should he see but an elderly guy in a FIFA official blazer. He recognised him as George McCabe and walked over to him. In truth I have no idea what the rules are on a player playing with just one boot on but if I had to guess I’d wonder if it was a perfectly legitimate goal as long as Best wasn’t whacking anybody with the boot as he skipped past them.
Anyway: over went my pal and challenged McCabe. He told him he’d been at the game 40 years earlier and McCabe replied that yes he too remembered it. He was then taken aback when he was loudly reprimanded for giving the goal and preventing Burnley from progressing in to the next round by allowing Best to dribble 60 or 70 yards and create a goal even though he was only wearing one boot and was carrying the other in his hand.
Anyway: there was quite a scene in the Barnsley Guest Lounge and it ended with Mr McCabe being told in no uncertain terms he was in no way fit to be wearing a FIFA badge.
“It’s not often you can tell a referee 40 years later what you thought of his performance, but I did,” said my chum. “I got a huge weight off my shoulders and have felt better ever since.”
Terribly sad though, to read of the predicament that former Burnley winger Dave Thomas finds himself in with worsening Glaucoma and deteriorating eyesight; deteriorating to such an extent that he has applied for a Guide Dog and is now raising money for Guide Dogs. Google David Thomas Fundraising for Guide Dogs, and it should come up. His initial target was £5,000 and when last I looked it was well over £8,000.
Those of us who saw him play all know what a wonderful talent he had, the best of which was at QPR and Everton. When he lived near Chichester Mrs T and me used to meet up with him and his own Mrs T whenever we went down to stay at Midhurst.
Dave had worked in the same Chichester school as sister in law, a lab technician, and Dave, a PE teacher then, occasionally had to fill in doing the odd science lesson as cover for anyone who was away. Sister-in-law never cottoned on as to who he was.
Then, on the occasion that I first went to see Dave at his home over 10 years ago, my own Mrs T dropped me off and then went down to the beach to walk the dog. An hour or so later back she came and knocked at the door which Dave then went to answer.
‘Good Lord,’ he said, ‘you look just like someone I work with.’
It was the beginning of our regular, if now infrequent meetings, since he returned to the north-east. A number of operations have not cured his sight problems. The world can be a cruel place with afflictions like this. Anyone who read the double page spread in the Daily Mail about Dave cannot fail to have been moved.
December 5: and home to Preston North End. It seemed an age since we last played them, 2011 in the League.The Keane brothers were in opposition and the last time brothers were in opposition was 50 years ago when the Irvine brothers played for Burnley and Stoke City.
Who will ever forget the dipping, swerving 30-yard shot from Joey Gudjonsson that seemed like it was heading for Row Z in the Cricket Field Stand and then began to arc downwards and in it went? Who will ever forget the 4-3 win when all seemed lost at one stage? Who will ever forget the video of the Preston woman crying her eyes out at the end of the game they’d just lost? One shouldn’t mock but it really is funny. And going back donkeys’ years, who will forget the win at Deepdale that took Burnley to the Sherpa Van Trophy Final just a year after they had nearly exited the Football League?
Little Joe unable to come with us; he was poorly. Thank goodness it was PNE and not the Charlton game when he is due to be mascot for his birthday. Into December and the Christmas Spirit growing; one could almost burst into a song and dance in M&S with the tannoy system blaring above your head with festive music; mulled wine at a sample stall, housewives muttering I need stuffing and husbands nodding, and on farms throughout the UK, turkeys looking at each other nervously.
This time it was Hurricane Desmond that was due; although it was hard to take a hurricane called Desmond seriously. That was until we saw the news later in the evening and saw the havoc it had wreaked in the north. We got away lightly at the Turf, wet and wild though it was.
It was a defeat and for sure demonstrates the age-old adage that if you don’t take chances you won’t win games. Add to that a MOTM match performance from the Preston keeper, plus a bit of dodgy refereeing, and some individual errors, then you have all the ingredients for a defeat.
The conditions were atrocious, not quite the worst we have ever seen, the Man City game during the first Premier season springs to mind, but nevertheless the driving rain, the strong, swirling wind and the slippery conditions made this a difficult afternoon so that both sides deserve credit for providing a game that was filled with incident. Even sitting up in the JH it was like sitting under a garden sprinkler. Style and class were largely absent but this was no game where you nodded off with boredom.
Burnley started off like a house on fire, beginning with the best opening 15 minutes of dominant football we have seen for an age. Preston came more into it but nevertheless Burnley created chances, enough to have rattled up a clear lead well before the end of the half. You can talk about turning points and maybe the Barton miss was one of them. Barton knew it and beat the ground in rage and frustration after he had side-footed wide a pinpoint cross from Gray. Vokes had a brilliant snapshot saved by the keeper. Two superb balls across the box from Mee should have been slammed home but the forwards were lurking on the edge of the area, rather than on the edge of the 6-yard box. There was no-one to come rushing in and take the chances; and how Burnley paid the price.
Second half and midway through: Vokes caught out in the centre circle, faffing as my granny used to say. I’d just muttered for God’s sake stop faffing, stop faffing, but faff he did and faffed some more and lost the ball. Before you knew it Keane (theirs) had the ball just inside the half and set off on a run, brushing leaden footed defenders aside as if they weren’t there. Finally, skating past Duff with ease he fired from distance and the ball went under Heaton who will surely say he should have saved it. Maybe the ball was swirling in the wind, maybe it was wet and greasy, but out of nothing Preston were a goal up.
They gathered by the touchline in their Birds Eye Custard Yellow kit and celebrated like there was no tomorrow. All we could do was fume at the daftness of the scoreline. At this point you rued the fact that Preston should have been down to ten men when their full back, already yellow carded, up-ended Mee in full flight with a blatant body check but the offence was only punished with a free kick and a talking-to. It was simply ludicrous that Kevin Friend had not brought out the second yellow. It would have reduced PNE to ten men when the score was still 0-0. It was this that was the turning point of the game and an unfathomable decision.
Later in the game Barton too should have had a second yellow but Friend let him off, maybe because he knew he had goofed already with the Preston player, so did he decide he could hardly send Barton off?
A by now one-dimensional Burnley huffed and puffed for the rest of the game slowly deteriorating more and more. Preston headed away Burnley corners with ease. Gray fired well wide from the one variation. To baffle many of us, Hennings and Marney who had made such an impact at Cardiff were left on the bench this time and on came Taylor, Kightly and Lowton, the latter a puzzling change, unless Darikwa had been crocked. With Vokes now struggling to have any impact he tamely shot straight at the keeper when clean through. Meanwhile Gray fought and battled but too often he looked alone up front in desperate need of some pacey support.
The Preston second goal with 5 minutes remaining came with Duff being beaten far too easily again in a sort of right back position, the ball being cut back and there was the long-haired one with a dreadlock pigtail halfway down his back that must have weighed a ton in the rain, calmly stroking the ball home. It is a long time since Turf Moor has emptied so quickly before the final whistle.
Some folks on the webs were critical; others were saying get a grip it was just a bad day at the office. Yours truly and family headed to the Stubbing Wharf in Hebden Bridge where a roaring fire, packed tables, pub grub and a convivial atmosphere dried us out whilst the roaring Desmond made sure that the north just got wetter and wetter and wetter and as is traditional, in weather like this, Carlisle United’s ground slowly disappeared into the deepening floods.