MIDDLESBROUGH 1 BURNLEY 2 (FA CUP)
MILTON KEYNES 0 BURNLEY 5
January 6: Christmas officially over at Moorland View. The tree packed away down in the basement, the lights and baubles up in the loft, half of the Christmas cake in the freezer for a rainy day, decorations packed away in boxes, and the final ritual – the last mince pie eaten. The tin was empty. It was a sad, sad sight.
You can keep your Christmas cake, you can stuff your turkey; it is the mince pie, once called minched pies, with a hunk of cheese that is the spirit of Christmas. It is estimated that upwards of 10million are sold each year. I had twelve although to be fair this was not all at once. In olden days they were traditionally much bigger and oblong shaped; clearly a tradition worth reviving.
Mrs T cleaned the lounge, re-plumped the cushions, dusted and polished. I followed with the G-tech, not a crumb left on the floor, the house sparkled. That’s it, done, gone for another year. 11 months to go before I can scoff mince pies again. You wonder what will happen in that time – automatic promotion or top six, or maybe not even top six but just a top ten. Or will this turbulent world end up in smoke? The Middle East is a powder keg; North Korea is developing nuclear weapons, Donald Trump could become the next US President. And even worse, Paul Pogba and Balotelli could return to the Prem.
We used to feel excited on Third Round Day when it was one of the big football days of the year. I met up with ex-groundsman Roy Oldfield again and he was telling me how on Mondays on Cup draw day they would all crowd into his little room to listen to the radio. Any players at the ground, George Bray, Jimmy Holland, the laundry ladies, all of them would squeeze in and gather round. Roy had two rooms; the other was at the end of the Stand where he kept his mower and sundry equipment. His ‘office’ basically just a table, a cupboard and three chairs and on the table were the important things, mugs, teapot, and supplies of tea, coffee and sugar.
Some of the apprentices ate their sandwiches in there. Everybody called in for a brew or was invited including Brian Clough one day when he arrived looking for the secretary, Albert Maddox. He was then the manager at Brighton and Hove Albion after his 6 years at Derby County, was a household name, was never off the TV, and was looking to sign Harry Wilson and Ronnie Welch and was none too pleased there was no-one in the building. He’d heard the sound of Roy’s mower and went out to find him and when Roy saw who it was, did what came naturally to him – he invited him in for a brew.
‘Well, they’ve probably gone to get some lunch,’ said Roy.
‘Lunch,’ answered Clough, ‘I don’t get any bloody lunch,’ whereupon Roy went across the road and got them both pie and chips while Clough sipped on his mug of tea. Eventually Clough did get Wilson and Welch for a reported £70,000 which no doubt Bob Lord thought was good business for two lads on the fringe of things.
When Harry Potts returned to the club for his second spell as manager he too would frequently call in Roy’s little room for a chat and a brew. ‘A lovely man,’ said Roy, ‘I never ever saw or heard him lose his temper.’
If Roy’s bench where he sat during a match had been near the dugouts, that’s when he would certainly have seen Harry lose his rag, and Harry’s head was frequently cut or bruised when he had suddenly jumped up and hit his head on the dugout roof, frequently incensed when a Burnley player was on the wrong end of a brutal tackle.
‘When he came for a brew he would always say: “that’s just how I like it Roy.”
No matter how I made it, if I put sugar in he’d say: “that’s just how I like it Roy.” If I didn’t put sugar in he’d say: “Roy that’s just how I like it.” It didn’t matter if it was strong or weak, milky or hardly any milk, he’d still say, “Roy, lovely brew, that’s just how I like it.”’
Of late Burnley hadn’t been doing too well in the Cup and when Middlesbrough’s name came out of the hat, and to make it worse it was an away game, you could almost hear the resigned sigh of anti-climax.
January transfer-window madness started as well with all the associated rumours and gossip and within days Keane was going to Everton for £19million with next up a £5million bid for Tom Heaton from Swansea City. Agbonlahor was coming here from Aston Villa; Judge was coming from Brentford along with Tarkowski, and from Bournemouth Jann Kermogant was on his way. These were exciting times. And then the big news, it had to happen; the first mention of the elusive Henri Lansbury came on January 5th. The collective groan was heard as far away as Bacup. Jordan Orbita of Reading, Will Keane of Man United on loan at Preston, Slovenian international midfielder Urban Zibert, Paddy O’ Guinness from Sligo; the names came one after the other. Next was Luke Pennell of Milton Keynes, Paddy McNair on loan from Man United (but rebuffed according to The Times), Leon Britton from Swansea on loan…
Onto Friday 8 January: a bid of £2million for Derby’s Craig Bryson accepted… a bid of £3.5million made for Henri Lansbury (aaaarrrgh)… a swoop (love the word) for PNE’s Daniel Johnson… strong favourites to sign Patrick Bamford on loan from Chelsea…
Meanwhile amidst all this transfer exhilaration and anticipation and wondering which name would crop up next (Aiden McGeady of Everton actually), there was a small FA Cup game to play at Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough: where you can still find clubs that say MEN ONLY IN THE SNOOKER ROOM.
It was only the third time the two clubs had met in the Cup and Burnley had won both, in 1913 and 1947, the latter being hugely controversial when on an icebound pitch at Turf Moor, Burnley won a replay on their way to Wembley with a single goal that Middlesbrough disputed for the next two decades and more, with the strong likelihood that anyone up there in their 90s who might just have seen the game, probably is still grumbling about.
Snow on the top of Pendle Hill and it was the first of three away games in the space of seven days involving 1,000 miles of travel so that Sean D had suggested he would need to make changes to ensure that players got enough recovery time between games. Never one to complain about playing games close together, this time the fact that there were three, all involving travel and overnights, was a tad different.
‘Having a cup of tea in Middlesbrough before the game,’ Facebooked John S. ‘Suspect it might be the highlight of my day, why do I do it? For another group there was an even bigger highlight with a breakdown and a change of coach.
‘Awful, but somehow 1-1,’ Facebooked Martin B at half-time.
‘First shot on goal after being hammered for 44 minutes,’ reported Les L.
‘Playing rubbish, lucky to be 1-1 at half-time,’ messaged Janice C.
‘How the hell that’s 1-1 I don’t know, should be 5-0 down,’ Laura G tweeted at half-time.
Meanwhile just a couple of miles away from home, Farsley Celtic were winning 4-0 at half-time. I’d actually wondered about taking Joe along but thought no it had dull 1-1 written all over it. Tom Ritchie on the estate here and a big Farsley fan runs a twitter group for us experts who make our weekly predictions. I am currently joint bottom of the group of ten. Even his mum is above me.
Sean D had made changes. In came Darikwa, Ulvestad and Hennings. Barton and Arfield were on the bench. Gray was not in the squad having suffered a broken finger. SD had been true to his word about the need for changes with all the games coming up.
Funny thing tradition: we might only have played Boro just twice in the Cup since 1913 but the habit of beating them continued. Unbelievably, astonishingly, (the words of people there) Burnley scored a second at a ground where no other club had scored for months and went on to win the game. A mis-hit shot by Boyd was latched onto by full-back Ward and he smashed the ball into the net from somewhere over his shoulder. The 1,275 who had braved the rain and spray filled roads went wild. John S and his cup of tea were not the only highlight of the day.
Funny how things work out: Middlesbrough, invincible at home, only conceded two goals at home all season, top of the Division by four points, and they lose in the FA Cup. How predictable is that? It’s just the way football works but few if any Burnley fans could ever have been confident of a win. ‘A real coupon buster,’ said Dyche who said afterwards he had not been pleased at half-time and had a few quiet words, maybe a bit like Tony Soprano, just a word and a stare probably does the trick. Whatever he said or the way he said it, it worked. Everyone was delighted with the result which pre-match seemed about as likely as the new theory that Hitler escaped from his Berlin bunker to Tenerife where he lived ‘til he was 90.
‘Far better second half from Burnley,’ tweeted Chris Boden: ‘Looked more solid and kept Boro at arm’s length, through to fourth round for first time since 2011.’ In fact Burnley could have scored a third but Boyd’s shot was straight at the ‘keeper. Those that were there raved on Twitter or FB over the Ulvestad second-half performance. Heaton, too, was outstanding. But for him Nugent would have scored yet again against Burnley.
Fitting too, and justice, that the Hennings goal in first-half added time was thanks to the time added on for the treatment Darikwa had to receive when his head was clattered in a heavy challenge from defender George Friend. Just sometimes, justice prevails and football has a way of working out OK.
January 12 and MK Dons day: Tarkowski’s name came up again, expressing an interest in joining Burnley it said, and keen to return to his native north-west. ‘But clubs and owners play hardball,’ said Sean D, ‘selling clubs are powerful, people aren’t bothered about debt.’Burnley’s 1000-mile tour of the UK continued on Tuesday with the game at Milton Keynes whilst Swansea, allegedly, were to bid £12.5million for Andre Gray, said the Daily Mail.
Winter seemed to have arrived at last with snow and frost instead of rain. We woke on matchday to the news that Bolton Wanderers are looking to sell their car parks to raise some money; Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch are to get married and Van Gaal was still manager of Man United even after Paul Scholes’s withering comments after their last game.
Mrs T and I were in need of a quiet night having been to see the Quentin Tarantino film ‘The Hateful Eight’ the night before. It’s a 3-hour western, a sort of Agatha Christie slow-burning, who-dunnit (or at least who’s gonna shoot who at the end) with shotguns, six-shooters, close-ups of bloodied faces and exploding heads, cussin’ and glares and glowers, and all set in either a stagecoach for the first bit, and then a fixed scene like a stage set, inside the ice-bound Minnie’s Haberdashery, a sort of Wyoming frontier motel with stagecoaches instead of Cadillacs. With that special Dolby surround-sound we came home deafened but spellbound at the climactic blood-fest and gory hanging. By the end the walls were dripping with blood, the floor covered in entrails, people crawling around groaning, a bit like the Chelsea dressing room no doubt in Mourhino’s final days.
Andre Gray was back in the side; now it was Newcastle United said to be ready to make an audacious bid. However what we thought would be a quiet night snoozing with Sky Sports in the background and maybe a dogged 1-0 win became anything but as the goals thundered in at MK Dons. Five! Did anyone really expect a 5-0 turnover? There was no time at all for dozing off as the goals thundered in keeping us wide awake and Burnley moved up to fourth place. The biggest away win since 1947 said SKY. Result of the night said The Football League. There were a couple of away sixes in ’62 if I remember right but they conceded two in those games as well. The first 5-0 away win since ’47; that’s some achievement with five different players scoring.
Barton scored his first for Burnley robbing a dawdling MK player and then striding on to rifle home an unstoppable shot. The pick of the night was surely Vokes, dummying one player, skipping between two more, galloping on head down for the area, and then coolly slotting past the ‘keeper. Lowton, Gray and Boyd completed the perfect evening to make Burnley now the division’s top scorers.
‘Perfect performance… a brilliant night… ran them ragged… clinically put to the sword… a delirious second-half…’ were just a few of the comments on one of those nights that comes along if you’re lucky, just once every 70 years.