Month: February 2016

BURNLEY 2 ROTHERHAM 0

BURNLEY 1 NOTTINGHAM FOREST 0

Did you see that huge fuss there was about the Messi/Suarez penalty routine when Messi slipped the ball sideways so that Suarez could run onto it and score. You’d have thought it had never happened before. You’d have thought it ranked alongside the invention of the wheel or the knife and fork.

But guess who did it in 1957 when everything was in black and white, TV sets were few and far between, SKY was what was above your head, if you had a car you were either a doctor or a bank manager or a mill owner, children still said please and thank you, somebody in Bacup had just got a telephone, Worsthorne was marvelling at electricity and in Burnley there were still mills and coal mines, and fish and chips was still cheap.

Well: Jimmy Mac and Danny Blanchflower did it in an international game against Portugal. They’d kept it well secret even from their team-mates so that today Billy Bingham and Harry Gregg can still talk about it with eyes wide open and mouths dropping in amazement.

‘And what if they’d missed?’ said Billy Bingham. ‘They’d have looked right silly buggars.’

‘Disrespectful,’ said Joey Barton who clearly doesn’t like this style of taking a penalty.

Beg to differ Joey: were Jimmy Mac and Danny Blanchflower disrespectful; two of the greatest football thinkers of the century? It’s a perfectly legitimate way to score a goal. What was that word Sean D used – discombobulate? What did Billy Dougal used to say – always do the unexpected. You do what you can to confuse and surprise the opposition at every opportunity.

At the latest meeting with Roy Oldfield to hear yet more Tales of the Turf, Jim Thomson came along as well. Jim was a player in the 70s when Roy was groundsman, beginning a long friendship that lasts to this day. Jim was also commercial manager at the club for a year or so, a period that included the Orient Game; and regular requests, at least two a week he says, from people wanting relatives’ ashes scattering on the pitch. Keen grassiculturalists will know, of course, that spreading deceased folks’ ashes on the pitch, no matter how much you love them, does not do the grass any good at all. Except for the dead of night when no-one is looking, it is a practice that has been discontinued at most football grounds.

Jim Thomson in his brief spell as CM had never heard of the great Reg Attwell, one of Jimmy Mac’s favourite players, and one of those legendary players of the early 50s who loved a drink or two, and a couple of pints before a game never did him any harm. So, when Jim received a request from a local undertaker for permission for the family to scatter the deceased Reg Atwell’s ashes on the pitch he simply asked, “Reg who, who on earth is Reg Atwell?”

Roy Oldfield, by the way, hated ashes being spread on his beloved green turf because it spoiled his perfect pitch.

On learning that Reg Atwell was an esteemed former player, of course Jim agreed and on the appointed day went to the office to collect the urn that was in a box, but for some reason known only to Jim he emptied the ashes into a green M&S carrier bag, which in those days were entirely free and did not cost 5p, and went to find the secretary, Albert Maddox.

“He’s here,” said Jim to the secretary, Albert Maddox who was back at the club.

“Who?” said a nonplussed Albert looking round the room.

“Reg Atwell,” replied Jim pointing to the green M&S carrier bag. “He’s here in the bag, his ashes, to scatter on the pitch.”

“Oh, right,” said Albert looking wide-eyed at the carrier bag. “He’s in there is he? You’d better go and see Roy and ask him where to put them?

“Oh God,” mumbled Jim, “he’ll be mad as hell.”

So Jim found Roy and told him, “I’ve got Reg Atwell here… in the carrier bag… his ashes… his family would like them scattering.”

Roy looked, furrowed his brow and pointed; pointed to the corner area between the Cricket Field Stand and the Bob Lord. “You can put ‘em there. You can put ‘im with Arthur.”

Jim looked puzzled. “Arthur who?” said Jim.

“Arthur bloody Woodruff. He played for Burnley. You can put Reg Atwell with Arthur Woodruff in that corner there.”

Jim duly emptied the carrier bag, taking great care that none of the ashes were on the actual pitch. And then he thought, that was the end of that.

But: a few days later there was another phone call from the undertaker. The undertaker apologised and explained that he was so sorry that these weren’t the ashes of the great Reg Atwell, there had been a terrible mistake and that the ashes of Reg Atwell had been confused with a woman who had died, and it was the woman’s ashes that had been sent in the urn, in the box, that Jim had emptied into the green M&S carrier bag, and had then spread in the corner where Arthur Woodruff had been sprinkled.

“So who is the woman?” asked Jim quite mortified at the mix-up; that it was not Reg Atwell, because the only reason he had said yes, was because it was, he thought, the late, great Reg Atwell.

“Can’t really say,” said the undertaker. “It’s a woman but we’re not too sure at the moment. You don’t still have Reg’s ashes do you?”

Jim, by now aghast at the thought that some unknown woman had been scattered out on the pitch by mistake, mumbled, “No I don’t, they’ve all been scattered… with Arthur Woodruff.”

It was years later when Jim bumped into the son of the undertaker and he found out who the unknown woman was. But that, as they say, is another story.

Neil Warnock was back in football. Now he was back with Rotherham. The guy has seen more retirements than Status Quo. He said he’d taken the job on because he fancied it, like he did the Torquay job years earlier when they seemed doomed but he’d ended up having a smashing time.

For that reason alone this could easily have been a banana skin game, the kind of game you expect to win but then it can easily all goes pear shaped, that is to say, if indeed a banana skin game can actually go pear shaped. But we exited with three more points, two more goals, another clean sheet and immense games from Ben Mee and Joey Barton, and Burnley moved up to second place.

Plus the added interest of an excellent female linesman, or whatever you call them these days. A legacy of the promotion to the Premier League and its requirements was that the club now has two sets of changing rooms for the officials, one for the chaps and one for the ladies. The latter hasn’t seen much use but I hear it’s where they do the ironing.

First goal was a penalty for Vokes that he converted with ease tucking it into the corner while the ‘keeper went the other way. Boyd was certainly brought down but Warnock was at his cantankerous best after the game berating the ref for guessing it was a penalty suggesting that he could never have seen it clearly from where he was. We miss Warnock when he is ‘retired’ and then chuckle when he’s back slating officials, a sort of elderly Mourhino without the good looks.

The second goal was from a pass by Gray to an unmarked Arfield who made no mistake. Things are not running smoothly for Gray at the minute, but even so he hit the bar with a thumping header and made Arfield’s goal.

Heaton had just one save to make all game, he’ll never earn an easier week’s wages but at 1-0 the Rotherham number 22 made a total hash of a wonderful chance he made for himself to make it 1-1, putting the ball wide when clean through. That plus a routine header was the sum total of Rotherham efforts on goal. It meant Burnley won this whilst never getting into top gear, never needing to get into top gear, which in turn meant that this was an eminently forgettable game beneath yet another grey, leaden sky.

‘Sometimes the hardest game is the one you are expected to win,’ said Sean D. And that’s exactly how it turned out. We all turned up pretty much expecting to win. But this is Burnley, and until that second goal it was far away from any comfort zone.

If Burnley win promotion it will be because of a number of factors; all the usual ones, toughness, relentlessness, organisation, willpower, team spirit, doggedness and currently being Championship top scorers, but also the fewest errors.  Gordon Banks once said the best goalkeeper are not necessarily the ones that make all the greatest saves, but simply the ones that make the fewest mistakes. At the moment Burnley is a team that makes the fewest mistakes. After this win it was nine unbeaten games, scored 20 and conceded 3, and in all probability 10 more wins needed for a final top-two place.

Three days later, Nottingham Forest, and a far sterner test expected. Things had been quiet over there lately and with Lansbury injured we were mercifully spared any more attempts to sign him. Most of the day and the day before had been spent reading and listening to the first salvoes in the great EU in or out battle. Call-me-Dave had come back with his ‘agreement’ a bit like Chamberlain came back waving his piece of paper after he had seen Hitler, and was only too pleased to stick a political knife into Boris in the House of Commons when Boris announced he was of the OUT party. Their relationship now seems to be a bit like Burnley v Blackburn.

Maybe I’m not hearing it right but the INS seem to be saying Britain will be safer, stronger and better off if we stay in. And on the other hand the OUTS seem to be saying Britain will be safer, stronger and better off if we opt out. From a purely Burnley FC point of view surely staying in is the best way forward as that’s the best chance Burnley have of being in Europe. I liked the response of one guy on one website though, when he said he is happy to be out of Europe as long as we can go somewhere warm like Florida.

But it wasn’t warmer at Turf Moor for the Forest game. As the sun vanished, the temperature dropped and by the time the game had ended cars were covered in frost and the ends of most noses were turning blue. Fortunately me and Mrs T were filled with inner warmth, courtesy of good pub pre-match grub at the Kettledrum. Gammon, chips and two eggs highly recommended.

‘Gonna be cold tonight,’ I remarked, so we had sticky toffee puddings as well to build up our layers of insulation.

What a cracking game though on a crystal clear night, a credit to two highly organised sides that both played attacking football, mostly Burnley in the first half who did everything right but score. In the second half Forest dominated much of the half but it was Burnley that scored the single goal that won the game.

Despite carving Forest open time and again in the first 45 minutes, alas the strikers could not for the life of them see the wood for the trees and missed golden chances to score. That plus last ditch blocks by defenders and some inspired goalkeeping constantly thwarted Burnley. A peach of a curling Barton free kick in the first 5 minutes had us all screaming goal as both Vokes and Gray burst forward to get on the end of it at perfect head height, but Gray headed over. The poor bloke is having a torrid time in front of goal. Elsewhere he ran Forest ragged but his next goal is proving particularly elusive.

No way could Forest be so limp in the second half but in spite of all their good play and sizeable support,  it was hard to think of one good chance they created or any save that Heaton had to make, save for a punched clearance. Dyche described the back four as a wall, and indeed they were with Tarkowski immense, but Mee totally superb. If there is a better Championship centre back at the moment then my name is Boris. Ward gets better by the game and gets forward as impressively as any left back we’ve had for ages. Vokes got the goal, his tenth of the season slotting home the Ward cross when Boyd stepped over the ball and left it to him. One day we can describe one of his goals as a Vokes poke, but not this time; it was a crisp sidefoot. Only a deflection in the first half prevented Vokes scoring as another sidefoot shot was heading home.

Two snatched chances and misses in the second half by Boyd and then Gray when more or less clean through, would have made the score more respectable. All in all Burnley had eight clear scoring chances. Perhaps the Forest manager missed them as he seemed to think that Forest should actually have got something out of the game. It was hard to see exactly what he based this view on, since for all their approach play, Forest were to put it mildly, quite toothless in front of goal.

So: ten league games unbeaten and seven clean sheets. Hull, Middlesbrough, Burnley and Brighton all won, all bunched at the top. Which will be the two that crack? And for the record I’m with Boris.

READING 0 BURNLEY 0

After all the rain on the day of the Hull game, rain that clattered down all morning and then all through the game and into the evening, I still couldn’t get over how good that pitch was even by the end of the game. The amount of rain that came down it would have been no surprise to have seen Noah’s Ark slowly floating down Brunshaw Hill.

My head went back to the mudbaths of previous decades and then I thought of Roy Oldfield’s diaries that I’ve borrowed and how day after day the word rain crops up. For Roy it really was Man versus Weather and from his notes you can see how on so many days he experienced real frustration and exasperation.

30 years ago it would have taken Roy a couple of hours after the game to get the pitch back in some semblance of order, then either another couple of hours on Sunday morning, or Monday afternoon with the apprentices. They would have been repairing slide and skid marks, replacing divots, forking, brushing as best they could when it was wet, to remove the debris that if left would form a fine compacted layer that would make drainage even worse. Then after all that it would possibly need rolling to get a level surface back again.

Today Head Groundsman Paul Bradshaw with his team can have it done in an hour with the worst damage described by him as scuffs. What made matters worse for Roy were the frequent occasions when training took place on the pitch which added to periods when there were two games a week and meant it was a daily job undertaking pitch repairs. He remembers one occasion when a manager took training on the pitch just four hours before a game.

Paul Bradshaw no longer needs the tons of sand and topsoil that Roy needed for repairs and filling and levelling. The biggest difference, he said, in terms of time-saving, are the rotary machines he has that literally hoover up the post-match fine debris that Roy had to rake and sweep up. Funny how things come round: Paul, whose father was club secretary Bob Bradshaw, as a schoolboy helped in the summer on the pitch working for Roy. And now he is back as Head Groundsman. He came from Liverpool FC where he worked on the Academy pitches. Then he came to Burnley FC to take responsibility for a purpose-built pitch at Gawthorpe that was constructed during Steve Cotterill’s time. He became Head Goundsman in 2008.

The machinery and mowers he has at Turf Moor would make Roy Oldfield’s eyes water. Roy had his wheelbarrow, a mower, manual labour plus ingenuity. He bought cheap polythene sheeting and borrowed a couple of heaters to try and fashion a heated tunnel on particularly frozen days. He used fireworks to chase away the pigeons that swooped down on any newly seeded patches. The pigeons used to sit on the Bob Lord stand roof and watch him seeding. The minute his back was turned they were down feeding.

Roy and Brian Miller heard of a place in Huddersfield that sold fireworks on ropes that went off at intervals. They brought several lengths back and fixed them to chairs that they then spaced out over the pitch. But the pigeons were smart. They must have been to the UCFB. They learned to wait until the last firework had gone off and then down they came again. Roy used to get so mad. George Bray and Jimmy Holland used to be in stitches when they saw him cursing ‘these bloody pigeons.’

One of the pluses of being in the Prem I always used to think was the regular coverage that Burnley and Sean Dyche got in the national press. There was something most days in at least one paper and of course on Sundays you got a decent report, sometimes most of a page. I must have spent a fortune on scrapbooks. Today it’s hard to spot anything Burnley and the scant coverage of anything Championship, never mind Burnley, is a disgrace. In the Sunday Telegraph after the Reading game there was not one reference to anything Championship. If it’s not Premier League, it doesn’t seem to matter.

So: it was something of a surprise to see a big feature on Sean D in the Daily Express the other day. What seemed to have inspired it was that someone had heard that he had used the word ‘discombobulate’ in a pre-match talk. ‘I think I heard it on the Simpsons,’ he told the reporter.

Apparently the word means to confuse or disconcert someone and this is what is attempted in any game.  In the olden days Billy Dougal used to tell players at Burnley ‘always do the unexpected’. That way you catch the opposition out and surprise them. No team can prepare for what they don’t expect was his message. Billy had he known the word ‘discombobulate’ might well have used it. New word it might be, but there is not much new in football although to hear some of the jargon and coachspeak, we might think there is.

So: when Sean D is telling his players to discombobulate the opposition it ain’t new. Billy Dougal was saying it 60 years ago. Football remains basically a simple game. Like Brian Clough used to tell his players: ‘just kick it and head it, and everything else is a bonus.’

Something that Sean D is adamant about, however, is that no club will ever emulate the promotion that Burnley achieved in 2014. No club will emulate what Burnley did because never again will it be achieved on such a small budget.

As in most interviews with Sean D there is reference to Brian Clough. ‘In one of my first games he came in and just said to treat the ball like your girlfriend, look after her and take care of her…and then wished us all the best.’ Then he went out. And we won. On another occasion Forest had gone something like 8 games without a win so he just said: ‘have a few days off, see you at the ground on Saturday.’ In they came and beat the champions Everton.

It was possibly the same day as the interview that the Daily Express had front page headlined with something about weekend blizzards and minus-10 temperatures. Of course there weren’t, once again they’d got it wrong. An Express weather forecast is about as reliable as a Cameron EU promise.

There wasn’t a hint of a blizzard over the Reading ground, though people did say it was damned cold. There was a snittering of snow over our neck of the woods here in Leeds; for the rest of the day the sun shone. For this game the evergreen Michael Duff was not on the bench, replaced by new man Tarkowski. Is this the end then for Duff, a wonderful servant for the club over the years since Cotterill signed him?

The temperature rose in the front parlour chez moi when Gray missed a penalty. Hot air and choice words filled the room. Furious Reading players protested that Gray had dived. It took an age for the penalty to be taken which may well have unnerved Gray. A Reading player scuffed up the penalty spot. There were claims that the goalkeeper was well off his line when he saved the penalty.  Hot air and choice words filled the office yet again when a picture on FB showed Sam Vokes rising above the crowd in the Reading goalmouth whilst having his shirt not just tugged but pulled clean off his shoulder. It’s a wonder he didn’t catch pneumonia he was so exposed. How do referees or linesmen not see these things? Or do they see them but pretend they don’t, and just let them go unpunished 999 times out of a thousand?

‘Things hotting up now that Al Habsi has saved the penalty,’ reported Tony Cottee on Sky. ‘Joey Barton already in the book and a few tackles flying in.’ Bruising was another description of the encounter on a very poor surface. By now both Hull City and Brighton were winning. Meanwhile twitter was making the game sound almost exciting as it reported dangerous crosses from Lowton and then Jones hitting the woodwork. By all accounts it was all Burnley in the final ten minutes with the consensus that this was two points dropped. According to reports all the best chances fell to Burnley who really should have taken the lead within minutes but Gray side-footed over from point blank rage.

Andy Payton on twitter was sympathetic. It happens, good strikers bounce back.

The penalty controversy rumbled on. Dyche vehemently condemned the Reading gamesmanship preceding the kick, the kicking away of the ball, the roughing up of the penalty spot, and then later in the evening pictures clearly confirmed that Al Habsi was almost three feet off his line as Gray took the kick. You could only echo the question asked – what on earth was the referee or linesman looking at. No wonder the shot was saved with the narrowed angle. Added to that there were Reading players (and Burnley) encroaching inside the penalty area before Gray even took the kick. Commentators and reporters were unanimous that they had never before seen anything like the scuffing of the penalty spot.

What a pleasure it was to listen to Jimmy Mac, Alex Elder and John Connelly on the SKY re-run of Time of their Lives, which looked mainly at the title win of 1959/60, occasionally straying into other areas as well.  A few years have passed since it was first screened but I remember thinking when I first saw it that Alex Elder still looked like he could play for 90 minutes and all I could say back then was I wish I was as good looking as Jimmy Mac. John Connelly, sadly, is no longer with us of course. It all took place in a studio set that looked so comfy that it could have been your own front room.

Names that came across were those of Alan Brown, Harry Potts, Bob Lord, Billy Dougal and a sprinkling of opponents – Tom Finney, Maurice Setters, Eddie Clamp, Tommy Banks and Don Megson.  Connelly was quite clear in his assessment that the foundations of the title winning team were laid down by Alan Brown. Jimmy Mac was of the opinion that Harry Potts was almost too nice to be a football manager and that everything he learned came from Billy Dougal; and Alex Elder, according to Pele at one time, was the best left back in the world. And we had him at Turf Moor. If you can remember Roberto Carlos at Real Madrid we had Alex Elder doing the same stuff at Burnley. We were blessed.

In the old grainy black and white clips of Burnley games of the period two players stood out, Connelly and Ray Pointer. Seeing the blonde bombshell again on film, that pale, boyish, slight, almost frail figure, just a few days after his funeral; brought a lump to the throat. What wonderful players there were in that team orchestrated by McIlroy and Adamson.

They talked of the astonishing game at Spurs when Spurs went into a 4-0 lead, but Burnley came back to draw 4-4. John Connelly said the toughest full back he played against was Tommy Banks of Bolton. Alex Elder hated playing against Cliff Jones of Spurs.  When Alan Brown brought John Connelly to Burnley in his car it was the first time he had been in a car. When Alex Elder was selected to play for a Rest of the World team, a huge honour then that really meant something; he then broke his leg at Gawthorpe in training and missed the game. Five of the Burnley lads in the title team worked at Bank Hall Pit in lieu of National Service. A whole generation of young folk now maybe won’t know that years ago National Service in the Forces for up to two years was compulsory.

Jimmy Mac never liked playing against Maurice Setters, then of West Brom, who kicked him so high in the air one game that Mac landed and dislocated his shoulder. But in those days he was patched up, his arm was put in a sling and out he came to play on the wing just to try and be a nuisance. Hard to imagine that today, they all agreed. When Jimmy Mac was sold to Stoke City he was almost joined by Maurice Setters in ’65 and would have had to play against him in training every day, instead of just twice a year. But, to his great relief Mac went to Oldham thus avoiding Setters. But somebody who was at Stoke City with Jimmy was hard man Eddie Clamp, another one that used to kick Jimmy at every opportunity. Now he had to train and play against Clamp every day in practices. It was Clamp, Jimmy said, that made him think twice about time wasting by the corner flag if Clamp was playing, in the days when he was the Wolves main hatchet man.

I spent a lazy Sunday watching wall to wall football on SKY. Well. After all it was Valentine’s Day and Mrs T wanted to spoil me. The Aston Villa display was embarrassing and humiliating. It made me realise just what efforts Burnley put into every game in the Prem two seasons ago. They fought to the bitter end and never gave in. Villa were a disgrace against Liverpool losing 6-0 and their fans exited in droves long before the final whistle. Not once did we have to suffer at Turf Moor like those Villa fans watching their team demolished by Liverpool. A little lad says to his dad (a Villa fan) what time’s kick off today dad? And his dad replies every 15 minutes son.

Disappointing though it was not to have won at Reading with the chances created and the penalty, nevertheless bearing in mind how infrequently Burnley do manage to beat Reading, it was generally felt this was a decent point. Better to be a Burnley fan at the moment than a Derby supporter. They lost at home to M K Dons and their miserable run continues. Blackburn lost again, but that we now take for granted.

BRIAN JENSEN at BURNLEY

 He is known as the Beast and he has had this name since his West Brom days;

And the Beast, Brian Jensen, is someone for whom Chumbawumba might have specially written their hit song ‘Tubthumping’, with its line that goes:

“I get knocked down… but I get up again… you’re never going to keep me down.”

 In truth Brian Jensen has had more ups and downs than a fiddler’s elbow but he symbolises the old maxim that if you keep at it, work hard, persevere and believe in yourself, you get there in the end.

 In a number of seasons he was a keeper prone to making regular errors that cost points and games. At West Brom he was replaced by Russell Hoult. At Burnley he would win his place and then lose it. Other goalkeepers were bought to replace him, but it was always temporarily as he inevitably fought back and hung on to the shirt. In his own words he was always being “kicked in the teeth.”

 Despite all this, by season 2008/09 through sheer hard work, dedication, application, and intense practice, he was thought of in some quarters as the best keeper in the Championship, shared the Burnley player-of-the-year award with Robbie Blake, was named the Carling goalkeeper of the tournament, and gave several master classes in the art of goalkeeping. In ten out of Burnley’s 61 games he was voted man of the match on the Clarets Mad website. If 2008/09 was one of the greatest seasons in Burnley’s illustrious history, Brian Jensen was one of the major reasons.

 During that season there was an early home game against Reading when Burnley won 1–0 but the day belonged to Jensen who defied a rampant Reading with a string of saves. It was a portent of things to come. In the final run-in, including the play-offs, there were six clean sheets in the final eight games. At Chelsea in the Carling Cup on that never to be forgotten night in November he made great saves during the game itself and then saved two of the Chelsea penalties after extra-time had finished.

 “When we were watching a video of Chelsea the day before the game, the gaffer broke the ice by saying, ‘come on lads they’ve just been beaten, it’s easy to turn them over’. Yeah they’d lost a couple of weeks earlier to Liverpool, their first home defeat in 86 games. Everybody started laughing and the boss said, ‘Just go out there and enjoy yourselves. You’ve come this far, it will be a great experience you’re never going to have again, make sure you enjoy it’. That was how we approached it, and maybe the fact that we were so relaxed is why we did so well. Drogba scored, but we came back and equalised in the second half and after that we always felt we could cause an upset.

 In the shoot-out, as I saw it, there was no pressure. We’d already done ourselves proud in taking Chelsea that far at their place, so although the outcome was massive, I didn’t feel under any pressure – even with 40,000 breathing down my neck. I saved their first penalty, from Wayne Bridge, and their last from John Obi Mikel so I was portrayed as the hero but really all 14 players we used were heroes. If I was a hero it was only for 10 minutes, they were heroes for the first two hours.”

 The night will be associated with two players; Akinbiyi who came on as substitute and scored the equalising goal, and then the defiant Jensen. Of the two, it was Jensen’s night. He broke Chelsea hearts but sent 6,100 Burnley fans home in raptures.

 In the next Carling game, at home to Arsenal, he had a truly amazing game, saving a procession of one-on-ones. If it was Chelsea that was the glamour night, the night of shock and astonishment; it was the Arsenal night, when Burnley won 2–0, that brought back memories of those great Cup nights of the sixties at Turf Moor. His performance was truly astonishing.

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Born and raised in Norrebro, Denmark, Jensen began playing football as a defender. The team he played with, however, lacked a tall goalkeeper so the job went to him, (in his own words) “the biggest and the dumbest.” Attracting the attention of AZ Alkmaar he then impressed further in a youth tournament in the Netherlands where he was named best goalkeeper. From Alkmaar he was loaned to a small club for eight months, Hvidovre back in Denmark and at the same time finished an electricians’ course. Returning to Alkmaar he played just one game in the championship being second-string keeper behind Dutch international Oscar Moens.

He was next invited to train with West Bromwich Albion and here he was bestowed the soubriquet ‘Beast’ when the West Brom first choice Chris Adamson told reporters that he was “nothing but a beast.” The name stuck as soon as the fans shouted the name at him in his first game. He moved to West Brom on March 2000, reports vary as to whether it was £80,000 or £150,000, and made his debut against Tranmere Rovers keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 win.

He stayed at West Brom for three years and was a regular for much of 2000/01 until the arrival of Russell Hoult saw him lose his place. Injuries and the form of Russell Hoult blocked his return and left him frustrated in the reserve team.

“I went on trial to West Brom,” he said in a later interview, Brian Little brought me over in March 2000. I arrived on the Friday, I was on the bench the following day when we lost 3–0 at home and Brian was sacked on the Monday. I have a lot to thank Brian for but I never got to work with him. I played the last 12 games that season, and then the new manager Gary Megson brought in Russell Hoult. What could I say? We won 28 games, 23 of them 1–0. It was clean sheet after clean sheet. Russell was brilliant. When somebody is doing that well in your position, you have to take it on the chin. Fortunately Burnley came in for me. I would have taken anything, just to prove West Brom wrong.”

His first-team place was never regained so that in 2003 Stan Ternent at hard-up Burnley, eager to replace goalkeepers Marlon Beresford and Nik Michopoulos, saw Jensen as the replacement and signed him on a free transfer.

“West Brom gave me my big opportunity and I’m thankful for that. It was a good achievement for me and it was nice to be there.”

Despite the aggravations at West Brom and an opportunity to return to Denmark, Jensen opted to remain in English football where he was determined to stay. “I had a couple of offers from Denmark but I told all the managers in Denmark that my first priority was here. I wanted to stay in English football because that’s my style of football.

The giant Dane put his name to a two-year contract and looked forward to the new challenge – and a regular place in the side. “It’s a challenge and I’m just going to do my best,” he said.

With that supreme irony that happens so often in football his first League away game for Burnley was against West Brom. Burnley lost 1–4 making it seven goals conceded in the first two League games. It was a far from easy season for the Clarets who by the end were just two points away from relegation. His form had its ups and downs during the season but one particularly stunning game was at Sunderland. Burnley came back with a 1–1 draw and it was down to him with a series of remarkable saves.

“There were three saves I could pick out.” The save from a Kevin Kyle header was his favourite. “It was just a reaction save and how it went round the post I don’t know.” The spectators’ favourite, however, was the injury time tip over the bar to foil Marcus Stewart.

Being someone able to analyse his own game Jensen knew that at this time he was not consistent enough. “I’m starting to be a little more consistent but I’d like to keep a few more clean sheets. It’s irritating me that the goals are going in,” he said at the time. Sometimes it was not his fault and certainly he had several very good games.

“Jensen stems a deluge,” began the Independent report by Norman Fox on the Millwall Burnley Cup game in February 2004 when Burnley lost.

The final season of Stan Ternent’s tenure was beset by shortage of money. At one point relegation looked a distinct possibility but one game stemmed the downward tide. It was at Bradford City and there was an unlikely 2 – 1 win with a last minute Ian Moore goal. But prior to that, it had been Jensen’s day with what Bradford manager Bryan Robson called, “a world-class display,” when he made save after save.

For the new season new manager Steve Cotterill looked for a more consistent keeper and Welsh international Danny Coyne was brought in from Leicester. If Jensen was irritated or dissatisfied he did not show it as Coyne took the jersey. Coyne began well but a bad injury at QPR put him out of the game for six months. Jensen duly came back into the team.

With Coyne fit again, Steve Cotterill introduced a clear policy to alternate the two goalkeepers – Coyne and Jensen – and it was up to each of them to stake their claim. The decision to alternate the two raised some eyebrows. Coyne was happy; it was the chance to get some games. Jensen was polite and tactful. “The manager has told me there is no number one round here. He plans to play us both on and off until the end of the season. It’s a strange one really but I can see what the gaffer wants to do. At the end of the day we are both good keepers and I think his decision will work out well for the club. It gives me a break after playing in the last 29 games and I certainly think it can work.”

It is not unreasonable to assume that privately Jensen might well have been far from happy with the situation, but to have said so publicly would have resulted in another period where he was ostracised by the manager.

He was awarded a new three year contract and asked the Denmark manager, Morten Olsen, to take a look at him. “I thought that last season in particular they would have come out to watch me. I broke the record here for clean sheets at Turf Moor and I thought personally I was doing pretty well and so did everybody else. They never even sent anyone just to have a quick look. I was a little disappointed.”

On recovery from his injury Danny Coyne eventually regained his place ousting the Dane. But again another freak injury put Coyne out. Again Jensen came back into the side for most of 2005/06.

Consistency was still elusive, Coyne suffered a third injury on his return, and in January 2007 manager Cotterill unhappy with Jensen’s performances took Mike Pollitt on loan from Wigan. There were differences between Jensen and Cotterill and he was not even on the bench. Supporters thought this was ridiculous. There is the story, apocryphal perhaps, that it was the chairman’s wife who persuaded Cotterill that it all looked rather silly and would look even sillier if there was an injury to Coyne, after he’d returned for the departed Pollitt, during a game and Jensen was sat in the stands twiddling his thumbs. As it happened back came Jensen yet again.

But still Cotterill looked to find a replacement for him. The injury prone Coyne was released and in came the Hungarian Gabor Kiraly, he of tracksuit bottom fame. Again Jensen was relegated to the number two spot. Having seen off a Welsh international, he now faced a Hungarian international.

Kiraly began well but his eccentricities were evident. Jensen came back for a couple of Carling Cup games and won the game for Burnley at Grimsby in the penalty shoot-out. He was equally impressive in a 3–0 win over Oldham. He kept his place for the next game at Colchester but a last minute clanger in the next game against Blackpool at Turf Moor allowed Blackpool to take a point. Back came Kiraly. In truth the goalkeeping situation was becoming a joke and being dropped again after the Blackpool game led to another rift between himself and Cotterill.

“It’s all very well being dropped but it has to be justified. Everyone knows I didn’t think that was the case otherwise I wouldn’t have asked to be on the transfer list. There were a few things that the manager Steve Cotterill and I didn’t agree with, but that’s how it goes in football.”

Manager Cotterill was next replaced by new manager Owen Coyle. Kiraly at this point had the goalkeeper’s jersey but two dreadful games where he came in for vast criticism, a 0–3 defeat at Blackpool and a home Cup defeat against Arsenal, saw him lose his place. Yet again back came Jensen.

Still the pantomime was not over. Bad mistakes by Jensen saw Kiraly come back yet again. But then Kiraly had a nightmare game against Wolves. Once more in came Jensen and 2007/08 petered out with no solution in sight to the goalkeeping problem – except that out went Owen Coyle to sign Peruvian international Diego Penny – the new number one for season 2008/09.

Penny looked OK. Pre season games had been excellent. Confidence was high. New signings were in place. There was a quiet optimism. The first game of the season was away at Sheffield Wednesday, but within minutes at Sheffield, Burnley were 0–2 down and the game was lost 1–4. Penny was shell-shocked and Jensen came back yet again for the next game at Bury in the Carling Cup. His performance was so good that Coyle retained him. Faced with competition from a Welsh international, a Hungarian international, and a Peruvian international, here was Jensen back again and the stage was set for what was going to be a marvellous season both for him personally and the team as a whole.

Perhaps the first indication of what was to come was the game at home to Reading on October of ‘08/09. “Brian Jensen heroics deny frustrated Reading,” began the Telegraph report. “While Blake took the scoring accolades, it was goalkeeper Brian Jensen who emerged the real home hero producing a string of sterling saves.”

“He really replicated what he does in training. He is a top class, quality goalkeeper,” said his manager. Those words were music to Jensen’s ears and his display was a foretaste of even better things on the horizon. It was about to get even better.

**************************

Arsenal arrived at Burnley for the 2008/09 Carling Cup game, not quite as all-powerful as they had once been, not quite the same wonderful team that they had been with Pires, Henry and Viera, but nevertheless still one to be to be much admired and respected. A top four side definitely, but inconsistent, beatable, and their days of title and Cup wins were over. It had been the ‘reserves’ and youths who Wenger had played so far in the Carling Cup and they had swept all before them with big wins over Sheffield United and Wigan Athletic. The nation purred at their silky skills, their interplay, the lovely passing, their technical skills and certainly the quality of the goals.

These had been home wins though and it was generally felt that these youngsters, good as they were, would find a cold, wet, inhospitable night in Lancashire, changing in cramped, basic dressing-rooms, to which they were unaccustomed, a far different prospect than the comfort and sophistication of the Emirates Stadium. Nothing had changed in these claustrophobic, tiny changing rooms since they had been built 40 years earlier in the days of Bob Lord. “All they get is a chair and a coat hanger,” said CE Paul Fletcher with a twinkle in his eye, “this isn’t a hotel.”

With Fulham and Chelsea already despatched, (capital punishment was the slogan), Burnley, the team town and supporters relished the visit of Arsenal. There was a palpable sense of a win in the air especially as conditions on the night were appalling. Snow had fallen in Burnley and the surrounding areas. It was horribly cold. It was bad enough to prevent some fans getting to the ground. But the pitch was clear and the night was right for an upset. Thanks to a wonderful team display, and a marvellous individual performance by Jensen, the upset duly came.

19, 045 people were there on December 2nd 2008. It was a match of a lifetime for Jensen and a game to remember for the Burnley fans who roared themselves hoarse. Burnley had not been in the quarter-finals of a major competition for 25 years.

The bare stats say that a goal in each half from Kevin McDonald won the game but give no inkling of the pulsating 90 minutes that took place with millions watching on TV and Jensens’s heroics.

4 mins: A sign of things to come came when Jensen saves from Nicklas Bendtner who beats the offside trap and is clean through.

Two minutes later the Clarets are ahead but within minutes of that Jensen saves a certain equaliser when again Bendtner has a golden chance.

10 mins: Carlos Vela’s flick-on puts Bendtner in the clear again. Jensen saves the one -on-one.

12 mins: Jensen saves a shot from Merida.

20 mins: Jensen saves from Carlos Vela.

37 mins: More opportunities come the Clarets way but in the 37^th minute Jensen again keeps Burnley in the game when the best move of the game sees Mark Randall break through and shoot powerfully. The shot is beaten away by Jensen. It seems over and again that Jensen must be beaten as Arsenal play their one-touch football.

41 mins: Jensen again as he saves from Carlos Vela.

49 mins: Merida shoots having beaten three defenders but Jensen’s positioning forces him to put his shot wide.

57 mins: Goal by Burnley as McDonald latches on to Eagles’ throw and scores with the outside of his foot. Instead of being three or four goals down, Burnley are now ahead. 2–0 it might be but the game is far from safe as Arsenal still make chances and force more saves from Jensen. There are occasions when you think they must score but there is just no way round, through or past the giant keeper.

87 mins: A slip from Caldwell lets Vela in. His cross is hit by Bendtner whose shot is smothered by Jensen who again positions himself well and the ball flies over the bar. The look on Bendtner’s face says it all. “This man is unbeatable.”

“The 33-year-od Jensen was the scourge of Arsenal with a heroic display of goalkeeping as Owen Coyle’s Burnley ruined Wenger’s hopes of lifting the Carling Cup with the youngest team in the competition’s history. McDonald’s goal in the 6th minute put the hosts ahead, yet it was Jensen’s performance at the opposite end that defined Burnley’s night.” The Guardian

 “For all the clever touches, delicate passes and intelligent movement, the visitors could not find a way past Brian Jensen in the home goal. Four times in the opening half, Carlos Vela and Niklas Bendtner created opportunities. Four times the Danish goalkeeper stood tall to deny them. He remained a frustrating figure.” The Herald

 Arsenal’s kids… were unlucky to run into big Brian Jensen – the Best of Burnley – who has grabbed his share of glory in this competition. The keeper made a string of saves to deny the visitors a place in the last four. Jensen, the penalty shoot-out king who knocked out Chelsea put his frame in the way time and again as Arsenal went one-on-one so often. Nicknamed the Beast because of his bulk, Jensen made sure the Lancashire club’s Carling Cup adventure continues…” Daily Mirror

 “Burnley hero Brian Jensen has his sights on lifting the Carling Cup after dumping another of the big four… he overshadowed Claret’s two-goal Kevin McDonald with SIX great saves to deny Arsenal’s kids. Gunner’s boss Arsene Wenger said: we had six one-on-ones with their keeper sand did not score any of them…” The Sun

 “Burnley fought their way to the semi-finals on the back of a superb display of goalkeeping from the enormous Dane Brian Jensen. The 33-year-old made four point-blank saves in the first half alone… Daily Mail

 A stunning performance by goalkeeper Brian Jensen booked Burnley’s first major semi-final for 25 years.” Telegraph

    The reward for Jensen, as well as the not unexpected MOTM award, and everyone else was a place in the semi-finals against Tottenham. A rather more unusual and unexpected reward, was the presentation of a five-foot sausage sandwich to commemorate his sterling displays. Burnley butcher George Heys and baker Glen Whiteside decided to pay tribute to him by naming the huge sandwich “the beast.”

 “I’ve been in the game a long time,” said an astonished Jensen, “but having a sandwich named after you is something I never expected. Apparently they’ll come up with something else if we win promotion. It’s a shambles (he uses the word as we might use the word mad). A butcher turned up at the stadium with the biggest hot dog I have ever seen and now I have got a couple of bags of sausages back home. It was funny at first but I did so many interviews about it that when I was asked to do another one I said no. It was time to concentrate on football, not sausages.”

It is undoubtedly that concentration that has enabled Jensen to see off each rival who has arrived at the club and to bounce back from his early career setbacks. Club goalkeeping coach Phil Hughes has no doubts as to why Jensen had the best season of his career in 2008/09. “Brian Jensen is one of the hardest working keepers I have ever worked with,” he said. “Brian has always had the attributes to be a top goalkeeper. He has the size, the work ethic and technically he is absolutely fine.

“Brian is not a player who sulks or someone who turns his back on competition,” added Hughes referring to the arrival of each new keeper at the club. “He meets every challenge head on and he’s managed to keep ahead of everybody who has come in through determination, self-belief and hard work.”

The world of the goalkeeper is in the spotlight for the full 90 minutes of any game. Whereas one slip from an outfield player might not be costly, one mistake from the goalkeeper and fingers point and heads shake. One serious mistake can cost the game. If an outfield player can hide or have a quiet spell during a game, there is no such luxury for the keeper. A centre forward misses a golden opportunity and a week later if he scores the mistake is forgotten. Not so with a goalkeeper whose mistakes can be remembered for weeks. Only the strong survive, and Brian Jensen is very, very strong.

At the Gawthorpe training ground the goalkeeper arrives 30 minute early for individual coaching. They receive an hour and quarter specific goalkeeping practise each day. On top of that there is the shot stopping drill that comes when other players have their shooting sessions.

A goalkeeper might be called upon in a game to make routine saves and then perhaps two or three saves that are out of the ordinary and quite special. In the Arsenal game Brian Jensen made six saves that were quite extraordinary. It was his night and the match of a lifetime.

One set of Turf Moor programme notes, as his season of a lifetime came to a close, likened to his career as a soap opera – and one with a happy ending. “I have always had kicks in the teeth. The only season I have known for a fact that I would be playing was my first season here in 2003/04. Since then I have always been fighting with really good goalkeepers and it’s always been ‘here we go again’.”

After Arsenal came Tottenham in the semi-final. Having lost 1–4 at Tottenham in the first leg, despite a first half performance that could not have been bettered by Barcelona, the return leg at Burnley was won 3–0 so that at the end of normal time the tie was level. In other competitions the away goal they scored would have taken them to Wembley but not so in the Carling when Tottenham then had an extra 30 mins to try to score again. This they did with just two minutes to go.

The goal that took Tottenham through was a perfectly placed shot by Pavlyuchenko, but even so Jensen got a finger to it and nearly saved the day. It was a cruel, cruel ending.

“Because we were up against the wall against Spurs and everyone had written us off, we showed everyone what we were about and in the end it was a case of so near, so far.”

But referring to the Arsenal game he added: “When I made the early saves I felt nobody was going to beat me and I’ll tell you it’s the best feeling in the world.”

The reward for Jensen and all his perseverance was yet another never to be forgotten day at Wembley in May 2009. In the final weeks of the season everything went right for Burnley Football Club, and Jensen contributed to six clean sheets in the final eight games. How important they were. On Wembley day he wasn’t called upon to perform heroics as he had been in other games; the day belonged to Wade Elliott and his marvellous goal. The victory, though, meant Premier League football at last for ‘The Beast’, this amiable giant of a man. Everything comes to he who waits, goes the old adage. In Brian Jensen’s case what it should really say is, everything comes to he who works and perseveres damned hard.

Life after the Premier League season took another turn for Brian. Brian Laws upped his salary and his very entertaining book, full of insights, was an instant hit. He left the club at the end of season 2012/13 having been reserve to Lee Grant for much of the final two seasons of his Burnley career. An appearance at Barnsley in the FA Cup in 2013 was his final game and sadly it was marred by the kind of error that is a ‘keeper’s nightmare. It was a cruel way to appear for the final time other than a cameo few minutes in the very last game of the season on May 4th. With the 2–0 win assured, manager Sean Dyche brought him on so that the crowd could say a final thank you to him and he could have one last touch of the ball in the first team. It was an emotional moment.

Following the news of his release in interviews for the No Nay Never website with Kevin Robinson, Jensen provided insights into the managers he had had worked with at Burnley – all bar Brian Laws that is, upon whom he would make no comment. Stan Ternent he described as “old school”, a man you could learn from. “I was always fascinated by him and on top of that he was the nicest man in the world. “A good manager who really loved the club and his training sessions were really good.” With total honesty it was in this interview that Jensen acknowledged that in his first season he was so inconsistent, ten out of ten one week and “absolute garbage the next.”

“I just couldn’t work with Steve Cotterill,” he admitted. In fact in his book he is quite scathing about him. Whilst describing him as “not a bad manager, some of the stuff he was saying and doing was good,” simultaneously it was not a good time, in and out of the team over and again. Cotterill never convinced him that he was either wanted or rated. “Working under him was a battle.” Jensen was convinced he had upset him in some way but could never fathom why. Hence the transfer requests despite the fact that he never really wanted to leave. Since those difficult days he and Cotterill have been in touch and “there are no grudges held.”

About Owen Coyle he was quite adamant that had he stayed at the club he would not have been relegated. Coyle’s belief and man-management skills were inspirational. “And when someone believes in you 100% the difference it makes is massive… he just made us all feel wanted.” He was devastated when Coyle left and the impact of Coyle’s departure will probably never be properly calculated. The heart of the club was ripped out and a whole group of players were left in a vacuum. “Obviously there was a sour taste; he was a guy that believed in me… I’m devastated because I’m 100% sure that we would have stayed up. I’m sure he would have made sure we got those extra five or six points that would have kept us in the Premier League.”

He was sympathetic towards Eddie Howe hinting that resources that were promised to him never materialised so that he could never have taken the club on to promotion. Thus, Howe did not find it easy and Jensen had no issue with him going back to Bournemouth. Considering that Sean Dyche was the guy who released Jensen and he was indeed upset to be released, he was magnanimous in his appraisal of him. He too, he suggested needed the backing of the Board.

He says he will always be a Claret. “Burnley put my name around the world.” Say what you like about him, he served the club to the very best of his ability, for ten years. There were several memorable occasions when he was unbeatable. Some players are remembered for many, many years and some are soon forgotten. Brian Jensen will be one of those remembered with gratitude. That flying save against Chelsea’s last penalty in the Carling Cup will be an image that lasts for years; and will be in the club’s history books forever.

BURNLEY 1 HULL CITY 0

I got hold of another footie book the other week; ‘The Forgotten Fifteen’ by James Bentley, the story of Bury’s promotion in 1984/85 with just 15 players from the old Fourth Division to the Third. It was the side managed by Martin Dobson after he was excommunicated by John Bond and left Burnley. With Dobbo assisted by Frank Casper and Ray Pointer it’s as good as reading a Burnley book.

Add to the mix Terry Pashley, Joe Jakub, Kevin Young, Winston White, Wayne Entwistle and Leighton James, and then it pretty much is a Burnley book. In fact you could argue it’s the story of how Burnley were promoted in 1984/85 disguised as Bury, or was it Bury disguised as Burnley?

This was the hooligan riddled 84/85 season; the miners’ strike, Thatcher and Scargill, and the troubles of the times are fully dealt with. At the end of the season came the Bradford Fire, and the catastrophe at Heysel involving Liverpool. At Burnley John Bond had gone and it was the John Benson season when Burnley went down to the Fourth Division. Irony of ironies, Dobson with whom Bond had been so contemptuous took Bury up, whilst Burnley went down.

The interviews with the players and management in the Bentley book are lengthy and engrossing, and for Clarets those conducted with the Burnley contingent are essential reading. Not until I read it did I realise or remember just what other dire events took place that season.

James Bentley’s book is substantial, detailed and really well structured with alternate lengthy interviews and then accounts of the games. With so many mentions of old Burnley heroes there is never a dull moment. And in the background there are instructive accounts of two particular instances of the hooliganism that was close to wrecking the game; the games between Luton and Millwall, and then Birmingham and Leeds. Am I right in thinking the terrace cry of ‘You’ll Never Take the Longside,’ was well aired that season at Turf Moor.

The Bradford fire was mentioned by Roy Oldfield when I went to see him again. Roy had helped kit man George Bray taking the kit to Bradford on one occasion and had travelled on the coach with the team; in those days just the one skip as opposed to the lorry load they take today. As they unloaded things in the dressing room George Bray had turned to Roy and said: ‘If there’s ever a fire down here we haven’t a chance.’

A publisher has agreed to produce Roy’s tales sometime in 2017 so the questions keep on coming: What was Roy’s favourite team and whose pictures decorated his wall?                                                                                   Who was the visiting manager who was upset his picture wasn’t on Roy’s wall?                                                                     Who was the Burnley player who went to see Blackpool Illuminations in the daytime?                                                        What was the ingenious way Roy stopped pigeons swooping down on his seed?                                                                            Who was the Burnley player that refused to come off the bench when he was sub because he said the game was so awful?                                                                                                                                                     Which was the Blackburn player that broke Steve Kindon’s nose?                                                                                                         Which visiting team wanted a crate of milk instead of half-time mugs of tea?                                                                             Which Burnley player left Roy to look after his son after a game and then forgot him and went home without him?                                                                                                                                                                                   Which ’47 Cup Final player said he wanted his runner-up medal in his coffin when he passed away? Which famous long distance walker needed Jimmy Holland to see to his feet when he stayed overnight in Burnley?                                                                                                                                                             What did Albert Maddox say most nights as he went home?

Roy Oldfield might have been interested to see how the pitch played during the Hull game in the incessant rain. In his day it would have cut up, become a morass in the goalmouths and maybe down the centre, with slide marks everywhere and divots gouged out. Today there was barely a mark on it after the game. And mud, when was the last time we saw mud at Turf Moor? On one of the leading Hull fan websites their headline was Hull Slip to Defeat at Muddy Turf Moor. It left me baffled, where was this mud? The inference was that Hull lost to the mud, not Burnley.

The Big Match: Hull the visitors on a day so foul, wet and miserable, the journey from Leeds such a long, slow drag, that all it needed was a 1-0 win for Hull to cap the gloom and send me home to the whisky bottle.  Well out of the monsoon my chum Geoff Town was celebrating his 70^th with his Mrs in the 1882. His cake must surely be a contender for Gateaux of the Year.

But even the foulest of days can turn out OK, at least for Burnley fans. It was Hull who went home on the end of a 1-0 defeat in this crunch game that was so hugely important. A Hull win would have sent them even further ahead; but a Burnley win would close the gap to just one point. Scientists and mathematicians have pondered for decades and tried to decide if there is indeed such a thing as a 6-pointer, is there a fool-proof formula, but have failed to come up with an answer.   But the football fan doesn’t overthink these things and knows full well, there are indeed certain games that we can say are 6-pointers, and you could argue that this was one of them.

We came home cock-a-hoop. But what fickle folk we footie fans are. There were three ways to look at these 90 minutes. If we had lost we might have said this was a truly awful, dire, deadly dull game, I just wanna go home. If we had drawn we might have said well what a bore that was. But the win sent me and Mrs T home saying what a great game this was between two damned good teams. In fact it turned out to be an almost old-fashioned game, a ding-dong battle in atrocious rain under the floodlights, two heavyweights slugging it out, an all-out battle, no quarter asked and none given with a referee who permitted just a few meaty challenges to remind us of what football used to be like. All that was missing was the 1960’s mud and Brian O’ Neil.

After the warm-up Heaton had gone back in the dressing room and said the conditions might be difficult. It was possibly the understatement of the year. The conditions of endless rain and swirling wind were just ghastly so every player out there deserved a huge pat on the back for providing nearly 18,000 fans with a game that in truth was well worth watching. It must have been particularly horrendous for the goalkeepers and it could well have been the conditions that contributed to the Burnley goal when McGregor in the Hull goal spilled a long shot from Joey and Vokes slotted it home with what was almost a trick shot as the ball was behind him. Tough on McGregor then but Heaton was in superb form on a number of occasions, a contender for man of the match, save for one slip that could have been costly. McGregor’s gaff was the instant that cost Hull the game; Heaton’s slip didn’t matter, two moments that illustrated just how fine the margins were between the two teams.

Vokes deserved his goal and was ridiculously yellow-carded by the referee in the second half for an alleged dive when it looked more like a penalty from where we sat right in line with it. Opinions varied after the game when it was dissected on the websites but since when has Sam Vokes ever been a ‘diver’? After one game a couple of years ago, he was taken to task by the MOTD pundits for not going down after he was clearly rugby wrestled by Swansea’s Ashley Williams if memory serves. He was clear on goal, Williams was hanging on to him round the waist, he stayed on his feet, ‘if he goes down it’s a penalty’ said Ruud Gullit, ‘the referee has to give it.’ After that game Big Sam said going down is not what he does. A manager like Neil Warnock would have shredded him. It’s stayed in my head ever since and for that reason he gets the benefit of the doubt that he did not dive in the Hull game. Referees are quick to label players as divers; conversely a good referee will learn which players do not dive and will stay upright if they can.

Jones was the sponsors’ man of the match and was a worthy winner, his control, tidiness, link-up play and ability to keep the ball moving; the way he is so hard to shake off the ball and rarely loses it were all exemplary. But it was Barton yet again alongside him that caught the eye so often. Is he really heading for 34? Where does his energy come from? Where does this drive and will to win come from when he is well-off enough to hang up his boots and is assured of a career in the media any time he chooses? For 90 minutes he stuck his head in, got clattered and got up again, ran, chased, tackled, sprayed passes and took the long distance shot that led to the goal.

Maybe the goal took all of us by surprise, maybe we were all convinced that this was a game heading for a 0-0 final result, that if they’d played until midnight neither side would score, that these were two strong sides cancelling each other out. So: when it came so unexpectedly 14 minutes from the end we went wild as if we’d just sealed promotion. There was that initial feeling of disbelief – what, have we really scored – and then it sank in, bloody hell we really had.

Hull upped their game, stung by this Burnley impudence, they must have felt it was undeserved and they were hard done to, they made chances but didn’t take them. Heaton, Lowton, Keane, Mee and Ward held firm, with Mee in particular having a giant of a game, one of possibly five players eligible for MOTM.

If Ray Pointer and Frank Teasdale had been looking down from somewhere up above they must have been well pleased. The minute’s silence was immaculate. The flowers placed on Frank Teasdale’s empty seat a poignant touch. The current chairman, Mike Garlick, paid tribute to him in the programme with a pointed reference to the abuse and torment he suffered in the lean years.

Later in the evening, at home, we watched and listened to all the tributes to Leicester City. But what I couldn’t help thinking about was that moment in the Prem season here at Turf Moor when Burnley missed a penalty at one end of the ground and a minute later Leicester scored at the other. It had been a crucial game won by Leicester, both teams down at the bottom end, but what might have happened if Burnley had scored that penalty. There are single moments in some football matches that as well as deciding the result of that game, can go on to re-shape the subsequent future of a football club, because the consequences are so huge. A similar goal was that of Wade Elliott in the play-off final. Of course it sent Burnley up, but it had a huge impact on Sheffield United. Immediate decline set in; look where they are now.

So there they were on Saturday night: Leicester, five points clear at the top of the Premier League. But think back to that penalty moment at Burnley and what might have happened had Burnley scored, and where might Leicester City be now.

Hull manager Steve Bruce summed up his miserable day: ‘On days like today, the ones that don’t make the mistake, win.’ The Sunday Telegraph described it as a game that would be decided by a moment of brilliance or a mistake in the wretched conditions. Both of them hit the nail bang on the head. There are more than a few furlongs left to be run, but there are signs that Burnley are moving from a canter to a gallop, added the Telegraph. Sean Dyche’s view was that stopping Hull increasing the gap mattered.

In the cold light of day 24 hours later, the victory over Hull seemed thoroughly deserved. It was easy to think on the day that a draw might have been a fair result, but taking into account Burnley might well have had a penalty with a different referee, they carved out three heading chances in the first 20 minutes, was it Barton that hit the crossbar with a vicious shot, for which the ref gave a corner deciding it was a finger-tip save, and Gray could well have made it 2-0 in the second half. Yes it was deserved, we decided; it was a massive, massive win and you could only marvel at their display of toughness and resolve in that ghastly rain, and admire the stoicism of those in wheelchairs down below us in the Jimmy Mac corner. They got yet another soaking today sat out in the open.

The next torrential downpour is due to arrive with Storm Imogen (who thinks these names up, my mother’s name Ivy would have been better). Fingers crossed it’s not on a matchday.

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 1 BURNLEY 1

Monday was last day of the Transfer Window and we watched in anticipation; Tuesday was away at Sheffield Wednesday and Saturday home to Hull City. These are the weeks when it’s great to be a football fan with barely time to think. It’s all a much-needed antidote to Call-me-Dave’s European posturing, Trump’s trumpeting and the world’s glum news.

9 p.m. Sunday saw us all optimistic that Alex Pritchard was on his way, generally agreed to be a good signing; the local Hacks tweeting various positive stuff. Any deals for James Tarkowski or Alan Judge had faded into inconspicuousness. It seemed reasonable to assume that if promotion really was a serious target that Burnley might pay a serious price for any player they really wanted. But if two of them were Tarkowski and Judge, those deals had vanished into obscurity.

With £10million+ being spent at Gawthorpe and more millions being spent on new office blocks and retail come ticketing blocks, clearly these were the big priorities. But with the money to come from the Ings tribunal, it seemed reasonable to think that the jar on the mantelpiece still had a fair bit in it to make available.

10 p.m. Sunday night came the word that any Pritchard deal had been scuppered by West Brom and instead of a medical at Burnley on Monday; he’d be having one at the Hawthorns. You could hear the groans on all the messageboards as with just one day to go, yet again it looked like another window when clear targets would be missed.

The messages from the club during the month were as ever the same: they wouldn’t pay over the odds, missed deals wouldn’t be for the lack of trying, these things were like a jigsaw puzzle with so many pieces to fit together and any one of them missing would scupper the move, they were last minute so often because of the way the chain of people, players and clubs had to be completed, but so much could go wrong at the last minute.

But wait: 10 30 p.m. later still on Sunday night, Stuart James of the Guardian tweeted that Tarkowski was due at Burnley for a medical after a £3million fee agreed. The story grew a little; somebody knew a waiter at a local hotel and had spotted him there. Meanwhile other people were asking do we really need anybody as we are playing so well.

Monday a.m. and the SKY info bar says that Tarkowski is having a medical at Turf Moor. Twitter sources say we are still in for the Northampton goalkeeper Adam Smith.

Chris Boden tweets that it looks like Tarkowski is the only possible business for Burnley today; another tweet suggests that one fan has had his picture taken with him outside the club shop. Just one small problem there, the club shop has been demolished. Perhaps they mean the temporary shop.

Monday 11 a.m. depart for Wetherby, switch off SKY Sports News wondering if when we get back what news there will be. Car nearly blown off road but we battle on.

Monday 11.am: return from Wetherby and switch on SKY Sports news. There is no news.

Nobody has posted a picture on twitter of Tarkowski outside any club shop. But the newest story was that Middlesbrough and Burnley were battling to sign Graham Dorrans from Norwich City. Just at the minute when I’m wondering what’s happening with Tarkowski; Don Goodman is on the SKY sofa discussing the move and says what a good move it will be for both player and Burnley if it is concluded.  Jim White is in the building we are told by one of the totties with a large chest. It seems to be a pre-requisite of all these SKY cuties that they have large chests.

Monday 4 25 p.m. just seen him coming out of Padiham Medical Centre said David Hartley on FB, adding ‘honest’ minutes later.

How long does a medical take, people are asking? Just as I type, up it comes on SKY: James Tarkowski completes medical ahead of move to Burnley. We watch a couple of Frasiers; you can only watch SKY Sports News for so long. Burnley officially announced the signing and within minutes, sadly, the news of the death of former chairman, Frank Teasdale.

Frank Teasdale became chairman when the club was hundreds of thousands in debt and losing thousands more every week. The supply of talent had dried up, any decent players had been sold, the reserve team disbanded, and the scouting system and youth teams had to be pruned. He shepherded the club through the leanest years in its history and at the time received few if any thanks, in fact receiving constant abuse for problems that fans laid at his door. Things were financially dire during his tenancy until Jimmy Mullen with what was essentially Frank Casper’s team, at last got the club out of the old Fourth Division. You can argue that this was the beginning of the long road back to where we are today.

Before that though there was the traumatic Orient game in ’87 to sit through and who knows what went through his mind in the hours before the game kicked off. The club at that point was penniless but that awful day acted as a catalyst and woke up the town that then realised their club had almost exited the league. Astonishingly, Frank was at Wembley a year later for a Cup Final, Sherpa not FA of course, but a wonderful day out all the same for the club.

Roger Eli in ‘Thanks for the Memories,’ tells a nice story about him. After the success of ‘91/92, the team and Frank went to Bermuda to the Sonesta Beach Hotel. Frank had been through the torture of the Orient game and all the aggro and abuse hurled at him towards the end of Frank Casper’s reign, especially the Scarborough game. After York City, he had 10 days of enjoyment.

‘What a time we had in Bermuda. We took to going out with another group there on the motor bikes they’d hired. For one trip I had to nip up to my room to get some money. Up in the lift I went, still wearing my black helmet with the visor pulled down. Going out on a motor bike was a strict no-no for a footballer back then. If I remember right it was in the contract and a sackable offence. Then Teasdale got in. Bloody hell I thought, what if he knows who I am? I kept quiet, turned my head away, kept the visor down and let Mike Conroy do the talking. He won’t know who I am, I convinced myself. Up the lift went to my floor and out I got confident he didn’t know who I was. Hell, I’ve got away with it I thought.’

‘Be careful on that bike Roger,’ said Frank with a grin. If it was a film it would have been one of those sublime comedy moments.

‘He was an entertaining chap when he was relaxed. But I found out how stubborn he could be in the boardroom one summer when I was in a contract dispute that involved the PFA. There were definitely two Frank Teasdales; the hard-faced one who sat behind the desk, and the smiley-faced one in social settings when there was a bit of a laugh to be had.’

From the brink of non-league football in ’87 to the club that Burnley FC is today: a club that has experienced two spells in the Premier League, is now embarking on a £10million+ programme at Gawthorpe, is investing hugely in infrastructure, has a massively active Community Department, can spend £6million on a striker, and then a reported £3million on a centre-half; Frank Teasdale contributed to all this by keeping things going, despite the sit down demonstrations, the chants and mockery, all based on fans’ perceptions and frustrations that the club was going nowhere.

And yet: we owe Frank Teasdale a huge debt of thanks for keeping a sinking ship afloat and then when it was merely drifting, trying, with very little money, to give it some direction. His thumbprint was firmly on two key springboards, the promotion at York, and the promotion at Scunthorpe. It was Frank that appointed Stan Ternent, an appointment that was vindicated when Stan then went on to take the club to the championship.

He had so many tales to tell, by the bar he would chat away, but there were so many big questions to ask him; alas we will never know the answers that only he would have known. Sadly, he was always reticent about being interviewed and that was a pity. His was a good story filled with drama.

Sean D meanwhile had been thinking about footie boots. During any game you can sit and stare in wonderment at the garish colours that players wear today a million miles away from what we wore as kids years ago. When ah were a lad and barely a teenager my first pair were thick, stiff, brown, ankle high monsters with studs that were nailed in. It was like wearing clogs. No amount of dubbin, spit or polish would soften those things. I was 15 when I got something that vaguely resembled something comfortable but even then, boots were like Model T Ford cars, you could have any colour as long as it was black. But they at least had aluminium screw-in studs that went clip-clop went you went down Ferney Lee Road to the park.

So: Sean D was musing about boots the other day and in the boot room there was one wall where all the boots were black (staff) and one wall that looked like a rainbow (players). He says he began work in the Dunlop Factory in Kettering and his first pair were factory rejects that his mother got for 3 quid. He always cleaned his boots meticulously even taking the laces out to wash them. He said there wasn’t much else to do in Kettering. The ones he really wanted were £44, 1978 World Cup Adidas boots but at that price, that was the end of that. He coated the studs with Vaseline. As a player the only freebies he ever got were a few bits and bobs when Chesterfield got to the FA Cup semi-finals; his boots from that game are somewhere in his garage.

And so to Sheffield, the ground where you can take a bloody big drum in that gives everyone a migraine and bang it all night, but not a Tupperware box for your sandwiches, these have to go in your pocket. Not that it was our sandwich box but a chum came across and urged me to write that at Sheffield, for some bizarre reason Tupperware is banned and the stewards took his away. Fortunately, we’d eaten our sarnies in the car. We then pondered all night on the dangers of Tupperware. We wondered if the stewards have Tupperware detectors under their yellow coats. Perhaps they should erect big warning signs THIS IS A TUPPERWATE FREE ZONE. In truth we were bemused, let’s be honest if you’re going to throw something at somebody; what possible harm can Tupperware do? I can well remember the Tupperware parties my mother used to throw and none ever ended in a riot.

Both managers were satisfied with the point each at Sheffield. Before the game both sets of supporters would probably have taken the point. But as it progressed, both sets of supporters probably felt that the game was there to be won if either side had stepped up a gear. Burnley certainly didn’t with Sean D adding to the consensus that in the final third this was a night when it was more fumble than rumble and more bore than roar.

Burnley scored very early and then totally controlled the first half; if Arfield had kept his shot down from Boyd’s cross instead of skying it over the bar, and the score had gone to 2-0, you’d have been hard pushed to think Burnley could possibly lose this game. A Vokes header that was going in was scrambled away somehow by the keeper.

Instead the game remained 1-0 so that when Sheffield scored early in the second half and then more or less controlled the second half until very late on when Burnley rallied a little, it was their supporters who saw the game was there for the taking. And indeed it was had they upped their game a little as Burnley became more and more sluggish during the first 30 minutes of the half.

Things changed a little when the ineffective Boyd was taken off and Taylor came on with the latter providing decent crosses, one of them so perfect that it evaded the Wednesday keeper, plopped invitingly at Vokes’ feet by the far post as if guided by sensors, screamed (as we did) to be slotted home, but somehow Vokes’ feet seemed mesmerised and the chance was gone. Quite how he missed it we need replays to work out. We stood or sat heads in hands quite incredulous, quite disbelieving that it was still 1-1. Then in the very final minute the ball fell to Hennings. He shot straight at Westwood. Again we groaned.

A point then is better than nowt I suppose and how miserable we would have been driving home had we lost, on a night that got colder and damper by the minute. To my delight there was still one bacon sandwich in the box (Tupperware for the use of) in the car which Mrs T let me have, for it really belonged to her. We sped home reasonably happy with the point but still picturing the cross from Taylor, as accurate as a guided missile, and wondering what Vokes’ feet were thinking about.

ARSENAL 2 BURNLEY 1 FA Cup

The thought was still going round my head that the win over Derby was another of those special Turf Moor nights under the floodlights when the place looks and feels like a theatre with the spotlights picking out every bit of drama and everything looking so much brighter and sharper. The tribute to all those who had passed away in 2015 was sobering and respected immaculately; the list including a number of people I knew and several former players. But then the news came that Ray Pointer too had passed away and I’ll bet that more than a few us who saw him play muttered a saddened ‘oh no.’ When he came back to Turf Moor as a Portsmouth player he was given a huge reception filled with respect and love. Supporters remember these things and appreciate returning players who have had a genuine love for Burnley and didn’t leave simply in search of the lure of the lucre.  The great Ray Pointer was just such a player and he has a warm place in our hearts.

In his prime there were no other centre-forwards quite like him. He came to prominence when the typical English CF was just a muscular battering ram with a forehead made of stone whose job was to steamroller opponents in just one area of the pitch and get up to the high balls. And then Ray came along, a touch of glamour in a grey Burnley, a slight, will-of-the-wisp figure with wonderful blonde hair, lightening sharp, quick as a whippet, and a new style centre-forward that didn’t just plod up and down the middle of the pitch like a leviathan, but covered every inch of the opponents half, chased, harried and in modern parlance ‘pressed.’ And whilst doing that he scored goals, chasing lost causes or nipping into positions unseen because he was so quick. He latched onto Jimmy Mac passes or headed home crosses from either Pilkington or Connelly, none better than one goal in particular a bullet header in the 2-0 win over Spurs at Turf Moor in the title season. And brave too: he once clattered into the Cricket Field Stand and was carried off. You assumed he was on his way to Casualty.  But out he came again with his head swathed in bandages and carried on. He was a wonderful, wonderful player, played three times for England; he would be worth millions in today’s money, and remains a genuine Burnley legend when the word is bandied about so much these days, it is almost meaningless.

I only ever met him once and that was in October 2006 at a club dinner and he was 70. He looked about half that, still slim, lithe, athletic and blonde. We all knew of his Burnley goal scoring exploits but when he left he just carried on scoring. Even in a short stay at Bury he scored 17 goals in just 19 appearances and then Jimmy Hill snapped him up and took him to Coventry where 11 more took his tally to 28 for the season. Bob Lord always said he only sold players that were past their best but I think we all know that in many cases this was just spin to appease unhappy supporters.

His memories of the ’62 Cup Final were interesting and he said what others of the side said, that it was a flat occasion when they just weren’t up for it. Of course they were all disappointed that they had lost, as much for the supporters as for themselves. But, he added, it was a rare occasion when they worried about the opposition, they weren’t their ‘normal’ selves and the occasion he thinks did get to them. Towards the end of that season he said they had lost their feeling of invincibility and it had been replaced by self-doubt. It was the season when the double was a real possibility and the goals were going in as if they were playing pinball, but over the last 10 games of the season it all faded away.

Of the goals he scored he remembered that it was rare to score from a long-range shot. ‘You can’t really expect to beat the goalkeeper from outside the penalty area. You’re pretty lucky if you do.’ He played in age when the ball was heavy, there was little if any dip and swerve, when grounds were mudbaths. You wonder just how many he would have scored today with his speed of foot and thought and perfect pitches. I can’t help thinking he would have been the type of player to score every week in a slick, free-flowing side like Manchester City or Arsenal.  If the traditional centre forward of the time was a bludgeon like Bobby Smith, then Ray was the rapier like Aguero.

There have been all kinds of theories as to why Burnley faded in that Cup Final season. Was it because they had simply run out of steam, their legs had gone, or was it because they lacked what we might call ‘swagger’ so that when they met the millionaires of Tottenham feelings of inferiority crept in. Did the feelings of doubt stem from the ‘small town’ mentality, or was it simply that Jimmy Mac was never fully fit over the final games; in fact he missed several of them. Whatever it was, they enjoyed themselves far more at the evening banquet than they did in the game itself, as if they were relieved it was all out of the way.

If you happen to have one, there is a big chapter about him in No Nay Never Volume Two with an extensive interview with him that Tim Quelch conducted some years ago. When I re-read it, it struck me that the descriptions of him were so ‘modern’ and that he would have fitted into the current Burnley side so easily with his incredible work ethic, as he switched positions, dropping back into his own half to pick up the ball, harrying the opposition attack, working so hard to regain possession, roaming all over the opposition half. The most iconic picture of him is of a moment when he didn’t score and he is standing in the goalmouth, knees slightly bent, at Manchester City when the title was won, arms wide across and looking in jubilation and triumph as Pilkington’s shot goes over the line. He was only 5’ 9” and weighed a mere 10 stones. Small in stature he might have been but he was a giant on a football field.

It was intriguing to read that Joey B keeps a diary. Good for him I thought, I bet not too many footballers do that. But Joey is different and if he thinks that Burnley FC is smarter than the average bear, then Joey B too is smarter than the average footballer methinks. The Derby game was another when he ran the show to the point of exhaustion as Burnley gained the ascendancy.

You can’t beat keeping a diary for getting rid of angst and stress or at least that’s what was clear many years ago when after a day’s slog headmastering I came home most days in a strop about other folks, or days when nothing went right, or some parent had come in complaining.  Don’t get me wrong there were good days too and they got jotted down as well, but today when I look at these ancient page-a-day tomes it’s clear they were essentially a way of getting de-stressed. It seems Joey sees them in a similar light.

He’s wrong on one thing though, seeing them as something that isn’t a male thing to do. But he’s 100% right about something else; that they are a way of reflecting and sorting out in your mind what is rational and what isn’t, and indeed who is sane when things around you are all going crazy. They are a coping mechanism for when things go out of kilter and the act of simply writing them down gets things out of your head and acts as a straightener. That, plus walking our Golden Retriever whatever the weather every night for 10 years and more when I was a Head, certainly kept me sane.

‘They’re almost like Old and New Testament,’ he says. His career can be parcelled up into different phases. The New Testament is the now, happy at Burnley, committed to the club and a staunch supporter of all that Sean Dyche stands for.’

I went to see Roy Oldfield again the former Burnley groundsman and a few more tales of the Turf came out including Ray Pointer with whom he shared a brew many a time when Ray was back as a coach in the late 70s.

Roy was another one who kept a diary, except this was a practical day-to-day diary of everything he did to keep the pitch at Turf Moor in playable condition and as perfect as he could manage considering how basic his equipment was. Mrs T keeps a garden diary and I used to keep a steam train diary in the days when I chased stream trains all over Yorkshire with a camera. Roy’s diaries give an insight into all kinds of things:

Which was the visiting manager that thought using the floodlights would thaw out the pitch?                                                                     Who told the apprentices one winter to throw buckets of hot water onto a frozen pitch melt it?    Who was the PNE manager that hit his head so hard on the dugout roof his teeth fell out?                                   Which star legend player mistook Roy for the car park attendant?                                                                                  Which star player had a brew with Roy and told him how Bill Shankly had fattened him up?                                          How many turkeys were given out each Christmas by Bob Lord?                                                                                      What was the mystery of the dead tomatoes?                                                                                                                  Which manager nearly broke Roy’s ribs and when?                                                                                                          Which manager was deliberately locked in the Centre Spot bar overnight?                                                                                                      Which visiting manager was only interested in the racing results when the game ended?

And so to Arsenal and with the passing of Ray Pointer it was a time to remember he scored a hat-trick at Arsenal in 1960 in a 5-2 win. Those were the days and a season when Burnley went to places like Highbury, White Hart Lane, Old Trafford and all the other top sides quite the equal to anybody and in most cases totally superior. Results like this were almost taken for granted so good was that team with Pointer at number 9 running defenders ragged. Blink and he was gone and all a defender saw was the back of him. Blink twice and he had scored. He really was a truly special player. It’s often said it was a disgrace that he never got more England caps; it might well have been because he was a player with a style that really belonged to a future age.

It made the Cup-tie quite a poignant occasion and what was also touching was the number of today’s top players that had twittered their recognition of his talents even though he had preceded them by 50 years. One now ageing player in fact made reference to the time when they had played for the England under-21 team together and Ray had introduced him to the ‘magical qualities of bananas.’ There was a story on a messageboard some while ago by a poster who as a young lad had seen Ray and invited him to watch his team play one Sunday morning never thinking that he actually would. Ray arrived on the bus with his girlfriend to the young lad’s utter astonishment.

There were mixed feelings about this game; disappointment that we hadn’t got a home Cup game, or on the other hand, whatever the result this was a good day out and a nice pay day for the club. Andre Gray was delighted to be there having been an Arsenal supporter as a boy. In the Premier last season the Gunners had won comfortably and you had the feeling that once they had gone a goal up in that game the result was a foregone conclusion. Their win at Turf Moor had been the result of a fluke goal. This time by all accounts Burnley gave them a game.

At Portsmouth there was a minute’s applause for Ray. At the Emirates chants of ‘There’s only one Ray Pointer’ and applause rang round the ground in the 9^th minute. How fitting then that it was when big Sam Vokes in the number 9 shirt headed home Burnley’s equaliser from Darikwa’s superb cross after Arsenal had taken the lead. At 1-1 someone tweeted ‘comfiest seats in the league but nobody’s sitting down.’

Sanchez, returning from Injury scored the Arsenal winner (it had to be him) and Wenger acknowledged that they’d had to dig deep to get the win. Burnley battled away, never crumbled, the 5,500 followers quite magnificent. How do you cope with a player like Sanchez? His is a special talent; it was Burnley’s bad luck that this was the game he made his full comeback after a couple of months out.

Burnley had chances, mainly through Gray, one chance very early on when he had an opportunity to square the ball to Vokes who was screaming for it, but fluffed the chance. So: they returned beaten, albeit with a healthy addition to the bank balance. Beaten by two class goals and an irrepressible Sanchez was the general consensus, but continue to play like that, and they’d be back at the Emirates next season.

The last word can go to Joey B. ‘If it weren’t for the Burnley fans you’d have heard the passing traffic,’ Joey tweeted to Piers Morgan, as we got ready to wait for the transfer window final day SKY pantomime.

24 Remembering Ray Pointer

ARSENAL 2 BURNLEY 1 FA Cup

The thought was still going round my head that the win over Derby was another of those special Turf Moor nights under the floodlights when the place looks and feels like a theatre with the spotlights picking out every bit of drama and everything looking so much brighter and sharper. The tribute to all those who had passed away in 2015 was sobering and respected immaculately; the list including a number of people I knew and several former players. But then the news came that Ray Pointer too had passed away and I’ll bet that more than a few us who saw him play muttered a saddened ‘oh no.’ When he came back to Turf Moor as a Portsmouth player he was given a huge reception filled with respect and love. Supporters remember these things and appreciate returning players who have had a genuine love for Burnley and didn’t leave simply in search of the lure of the lucre.  The great Ray Pointer was just such a player and he has a warm place in our hearts.

In his prime there were no other centre-forwards quite like him. He came to prominence when the typical English CF was just a muscular battering ram with a forehead made of stone whose job was to steamroller opponents in just one area of the pitch and get up to the high balls. And then Ray came along, a touch of glamour in a grey Burnley, a slight, will-of-the-wisp figure with wonderful blonde hair, lightening sharp, quick as a whippet, and a new style centre-forward that didn’t just plod up and down the middle of the pitch like a leviathan, but covered every inch of the opponents half, chased, harried and in modern parlance ‘pressed.’ And whilst doing that he scored goals, chasing lost causes or nipping into positions unseen because he was so quick. He latched onto Jimmy Mac passes or headed home crosses from either Pilkington or Connelly, none better than one goal in particular a bullet header in the 2-0 win over Spurs at Turf Moor in the title season. And brave too: he once clattered into the Cricket Field Stand and was carried off. You assumed he was on his way to Casualty.  But out he came again with his head swathed in bandages and carried on. He was a wonderful, wonderful player, played three times for England; he would be worth millions in today’s money, and remains a genuine Burnley legend when the word is bandied about so much these days, it is almost meaningless.

I only ever met him once and that was in October 2006 at a club dinner and he was 70. He looked about half that, still slim, lithe, athletic and blonde. We all knew of his Burnley goal scoring exploits but when he left he just carried on scoring. Even in a short stay at Bury he scored 17 goals in just 19 appearances and then Jimmy Hill snapped him up and took him to Coventry where 11 more took his tally to 28 for the season. Bob Lord always said he only sold players that were past their best but I think we all know that in many cases this was just spin to appease unhappy supporters.

His memories of the ’62 Cup Final were interesting and he said what others of the side said, that it was a flat occasion when they just weren’t up for it. Of course they were all disappointed that they had lost, as much for the supporters as for themselves. But, he added, it was a rare occasion when they worried about the opposition, they weren’t their ‘normal’ selves and the occasion he thinks did get to them. Towards the end of that season he said they had lost their feeling of invincibility and it had been replaced by self-doubt. It was the season when the double was a real possibility and the goals were going in as if they were playing pinball, but over the last 10 games of the season it all faded away.

Of the goals he scored he remembered that it was rare to score from a long-range shot. ‘You can’t really expect to beat the goalkeeper from outside the penalty area. You’re pretty lucky if you do.’ He played in age when the ball was heavy, there was little if any dip and swerve, when grounds were mudbaths. You wonder just how many he would have scored today with his speed of foot and thought and perfect pitches. I can’t help thinking he would have been the type of player to score every week in a slick, free-flowing side like Manchester City or Arsenal.  If the traditional centre forward of the time was a bludgeon like Bobby Smith, then Ray was the rapier like Aguero.

There have been all kinds of theories as to why Burnley faded in that Cup Final season. Was it because they had simply run out of steam, their legs had gone, or was it because they lacked what we might call ‘swagger’ so that when they met the millionaires of Tottenham feelings of inferiority crept in. Did the feelings of doubt stem from the ‘small town’ mentality, or was it simply that Jimmy Mac was never fully fit over the final games; in fact he missed several of them. Whatever it was, they enjoyed themselves far more at the evening banquet than they did in the game itself, as if they were relieved it was all out of the way.

If you happen to have one, there is a big chapter about him in No Nay Never Volume Two with an extensive interview with him that Tim Quelch conducted some years ago. When I re-read it, it struck me that the descriptions of him were so ‘modern’ and that he would have fitted into the current Burnley side so easily with his incredible work ethic, as he switched positions, dropping back into his own half to pick up the ball, harrying the opposition attack, working so hard to regain possession, roaming all over the opposition half. The most iconic picture of him is of a moment when he didn’t score and he is standing in the goalmouth, knees slightly bent, at Manchester City when the title was won, arms wide across and looking in jubilation and triumph as Pilkington’s shot goes over the line. He was only 5’ 9” and weighed a mere 10 stones. Small in stature he might have been but he was a giant on a football field.

It was intriguing to read that Joey B keeps a diary. Good for him I thought, I bet not too many footballers do that. But Joey is different and if he thinks that Burnley FC is smarter than the average bear, then Joey B too is smarter than the average footballer methinks. The Derby game was another when he ran the show to the point of exhaustion as Burnley gained the ascendancy.

You can’t beat keeping a diary for getting rid of angst and stress or at least that’s what was clear many years ago when after a day’s slog headmastering I came home most days in a strop about other folks, or days when nothing went right, or some parent had come in complaining.  Don’t get me wrong there were good days too and they got jotted down as well, but today when I look at these ancient page-a-day tomes it’s clear they were essentially a way of getting de-stressed. It seems Joey sees them in a similar light.

He’s wrong on one thing though, seeing them as something that isn’t a male thing to do. But he’s 100% right about something else; that they are a way of reflecting and sorting out in your mind what is rational and what isn’t, and indeed who is sane when things around you are all going crazy. They are a coping mechanism for when things go out of kilter and the act of simply writing them down gets things out of your head and acts as a straightener. That, plus walking our Golden Retriever whatever the weather every night for 10 years and more when I was a Head, certainly kept me sane.

‘They’re almost like Old and New Testament,’ he says. His career can be parcelled up into different phases. The New Testament is the now, happy at Burnley, committed to the club and a staunch supporter of all that Sean Dyche stands for.’

I went to see Roy Oldfield again the former Burnley groundsman and a few more tales of the Turf came out including Ray Pointer with whom he shared a brew many a time when Ray was back as a coach in the late 70s.

Roy was another one who kept a diary, except this was a practical day-to-day diary of everything he did to keep the pitch at Turf Moor in playable condition and as perfect as he could manage considering how basic his equipment was. Mrs T keeps a garden diary and I used to keep a steam train diary in the days when I chased stream trains all over Yorkshire with a camera. Roy’s diaries give an insight into all kinds of things:

Which was the visiting manager that thought using the floodlights would thaw out the pitch?                                                                     Who told the apprentices one winter to throw buckets of hot water onto a frozen pitch melt it?    Who was the PNE manager that hit his head so hard on the dugout roof his teeth fell out?                                   Which star legend player mistook Roy for the car park attendant?                                                                                  Which star player had a brew with Roy and told him how Bill Shankly had fattened him up?                                          How many turkeys were given out each Christmas by Bob Lord?                                                                                      What was the mystery of the dead tomatoes?                                                                                                                  Which manager nearly broke Roy’s ribs and when?                                                                                                          Which manager was deliberately locked in the Centre Spot bar overnight?                                                                                                      Which visiting manager was only interested in the racing results when the game ended?

And so to Arsenal and with the passing of Ray Pointer it was a time to remember he scored a hat-trick at Arsenal in 1960 in a 5-2 win. Those were the days and a season when Burnley went to places like Highbury, White Hart Lane, Old Trafford and all the other top sides quite the equal to anybody and in most cases totally superior. Results like this were almost taken for granted so good was that team with Pointer at number 9 running defenders ragged. Blink and he was gone and all a defender saw was the back of him. Blink twice and he had scored. He really was a truly special player. It’s often said it was a disgrace that he never got more England caps; it might well have been because he was a player with a style that really belonged to a future age.

It made the Cup-tie quite a poignant occasion and what was also touching was the number of today’s top players that had twittered their recognition of his talents even though he had preceded them by 50 years. One now ageing player in fact made reference to the time when they had played for the England under-21 team together and Ray had introduced him to the ‘magical qualities of bananas.’ There was a story on a messageboard some while ago by a poster who as a young lad had seen Ray and invited him to watch his team play one Sunday morning never thinking that he actually would. Ray arrived on the bus with his girlfriend to the young lad’s utter astonishment.

There were mixed feelings about this game; disappointment that we hadn’t got a home Cup game, or on the other hand, whatever the result this was a good day out and a nice pay day for the club. Andre Gray was delighted to be there having been an Arsenal supporter as a boy. In the Premier last season the Gunners had won comfortably and you had the feeling that once they had gone a goal up in that game the result was a foregone conclusion. Their win at Turf Moor had been the result of a fluke goal. This time by all accounts Burnley gave them a game.

At Portsmouth there was a minute’s applause for Ray. At the Emirates chants of ‘There’s only one Ray Pointer’ and applause rang round the ground in the 9^th minute. How fitting then that it was when big Sam Vokes in the number 9 shirt headed home Burnley’s equaliser from Darikwa’s superb cross after Arsenal had taken the lead. At 1-1 someone tweeted ‘comfiest seats in the league but nobody’s sitting down.’

Sanchez, returning from Injury scored the Arsenal winner (it had to be him) and Wenger acknowledged that they’d had to dig deep to get the win. Burnley battled away, never crumbled, the 5,500 followers quite magnificent. How do you cope with a player like Sanchez? His is a special talent; it was Burnley’s bad luck that this was the game he made his full comeback after a couple of months out.

Burnley had chances, mainly through Gray, one chance very early on when he had an opportunity to square the ball to Vokes who was screaming for it, but fluffed the chance. So: they returned beaten, albeit with a healthy addition to the bank balance. Beaten by two class goals and an irrepressible Sanchez was the general consensus, but continue to play like that, and they’d be back at the Emirates next season.

The last word can go to Joey B. ‘If it weren’t for the Burnley fans you’d have heard the passing traffic,’ Joey tweeted to Piers Morgan, as we got ready to wait for the transfer window final day SKY pantomime.