Please find enclosed this editorial from the august
organ, 'The Erotic Review', Issue 15, April 1999. Amazing or what - maybe just made up.
Could anyone have invented that?
Anyway, I've been meaning to write for some time as part of my contribution to keep our
worthy organ up. Two things have kept me on the back foot:
1) The very high quality of writing appearing in the mag, which seems hard to cap;
2) Every time I've written before has been the kiss of death to our team's reasonable
streak of form.
I feel fairly safe to offer some thoughts now that this season of contrast is over.
Living now in Aylesbury, I tend to see more away games than home so I get more dross
than most supporters. This season was a bit of an exception. Did we not play better away
from home? I managed to see Colchester, Millwall and Bristol Rovers. Mind you I also saw
Bournemouth and Fulham, which plumbed some depths. But my tale begins at the start of
March.
I'd got myself a part in a new musical called 'Hot Pants' at the Oldham Coliseum,
playing opposite Meg Johnson (Eunice in Coronation Street). We were still rehearsing so I
was delighted to send for a ticket for the Man City game which I couldn't normally have
got to on a Tuesday night. It was a terrible day and I was dreading it being called off
and rearranged after the show had opened.
No problem; game on. 17,000 plus was a touch disappointing but reflected our poor form.
Even so the start was delayed to get everyone in. The match was perhaps my worst ever. Our
creative play wasn't bad but the defence was none existent and it really could have been
ten. I felt utterly humiliated. Their fans' taunts said it all, it had been a kind of cup
final for me as much as I hate to admit it, a sign that we were playing real clubs again.
So what did such a defeat mean for us and for Stan the Man?
I'm a great supporter of all our managers, but I thought there was nowhere for him to
go but out. I thought he'd have to resign and what did that mean? He was going for the
dreaded meeting with the Chairman the next day.
He emerged, as we all know, with the unexpected green light and some defiant words.
Please let us all give credit to Stan and to the Chairman for the no less than heroic
stand they took. How many boards have dared to do the same? The message was, 'I have a job
to do. Burnley's problem in recent times is that too many managers have left too early
leaving the building to start all over again'.
I wasn't convinced.
What happened after that was one of the most impressive turnarounds in Burnley's
history, arguably as good and more significant than Jimmy Mullen's efforts after the
Scarborough defeat that saw off Frank Casper. Two consecutive home defeats 5-0 and 6-0 -
unprecedented, and the next game home to high flying Preston. I finally cracked and tried
to get SKY installed for the match. No chance. So my son and I persuaded the pub to show a
match in which no-one else in Aylesbury was remotely interested. What's more, they were
all desperate to see the re-run of the Lennox Lewis scandal.
Anyway, miraculously, the improvement in form was astounding. I've no idea how he did
it, but the Cook and Cowan loan show looked a winner form the off. At the end of the day,
we still lost - nul points! And to that striker's wonder goal.
There were eleven games to the end of the season. It was worse than the year before and
we all knew it - even the players.
The progress was slow rather than spectacular, a 1-1 draw away at Wrexham (c.f. the six
that Mullen's team opened with at the same venue) then an amazing win over Macclesfield. I
could only hear it on the radio on a Sunday. 2-0 down and coming back to win 4-3 in the
dying seconds. We should have stuffed a team like Macclesfield and could easily have lost,
but hopes were rising. Stan talked of fifty points for salvation. I don't actually like
those kind of reckonings, and in fact the bottom teams played so well this season that a
team went down with fifty points. But, I always say, never mind what the others are doing,
if we're not losing, we're staying up.
No score away to Notts county; this side is looking hard to beat.
Easter Monday, home to Colchester and after we go one down from another brilliant goal,
the fans around me are screaming for Stan's head. The second half is another matter as
Burnley play excellent patient football and win with goals from Johnrose and a great pair
from the blossoming Andy Payton. I felt deliriously happy for some reason and yet
arguably, it wasn't until they had a man sent off for an
idiotic foul that we really began to play.
Then it was Oldham away. This was bliss for me. Generally speaking, working in the
theatre, you can't get to see any matches because you work in the evenings and Saturday
matinees. I couldn't believe it when I discovered that we didn't have a matinee. I drove
from my mother's in Colne where I was staying, parked at the theatre, walked to the ground
and was able to stroll to work after, arriving before anybody. The game itself was the
least impressive of the ones I managed to see. Still, 1-1 and five without defeat. About
now, Stan mentioned the unbeaten in eleven dream scenario.
Away to Blackpool - no chance of me being there but listening in the most ridiculous of
circumstances. I was rushing off stage to glue my head to a radio that couldn't quite get
Radio Lancashire but it was in there somewhere beneath a Spanish league game. Somehow I
never thought we'd lose and I faintly heard that a wonder goal from Andy had broken the
deadlock. with Little sealing the issue.
No score home to Bournemouth. I so wanted to smash them after what they did to us. All
I saw was a miss of diabolical proportions from Stevie Davis on the ITV goals special
show. Stan forgave him. I wondered if he'd forgive himself at the loss of two points.
Then it was Stoke. Two of my best friends support Stoke. My son was in college at Stoke
for the last three years. I've paid my respects to the silent new stadium at Stoke,
wandering alone around the newly finished building. I'd been looking forward to this one
almost as much as the City game. But now the boot was almost on the other metaphorical
foot, was it not? Problem; could I get back to Oldham by 6.30 vocal warm-up time? As I
travelled North from Aylesbury the week before, I timed the journey from the ground to the
theatre - with no traffic and a following wind I could just do it.
I was on the ground in good time along with 13,000 others but only the Claret following
was there with confidence. A fabulous result. We just looked so good. Ally Pickering's
goal was the best I've seen for a long time. The ball swung in from a free kick on the
left, maybe a defensive flick out to the right corner of the box and a swing of an
inspired boot saw the ball flash into the far left corner. It was so improbable, I was up
applauding a great effort when I realised the bloody thing was in the net. Stoke were not
bad, believe me, both teams playing good football on the ground, but this was our day.
Andy scored with his last kick of the season before going off injured. Stoke got one back
but we were exploiting the gaps they had had to leave and Glen started to weave his magic.
A messy run on the left, the ball goes out and we all know it, except the linesman, so the
ref says play on. Glen does so and waltzes into the middle, taking forever, before tucking
home. Now we must win. Cookie misses a few sitters. Poor boy, he's trying so hard, has
curbed his bookable tendencies; it just hasn't been going for him. Next time through, Glen
says alright boy, I'll just have to do it on my own and he does with a beautifully placed
bent shot into the left corner.
Bliss. Fifty points achieved. The players celebrate in front of us with hugs all round
and grateful appreciation to the crowd. I still can't quite reconcile the fact that most
of these delirious fans were baying for their blood a few short weeks ago, but then my
response to bad results is usually just deep depression, not hatred or blame for the boys
out there in the shirts, because I'm one of the few people who don't believe that players
don't try.
Now I had to go to the Fulham game which had been struck off my list for a long time.
I treated myself to a train journey this time, being heartily sick of travelling up and
down to Oldham for the duration of the play which had now finished. Milton Keynes to
Burnley, £29, not bad - better if I'd got in earlier for a mega duper double burger
saver. Maybe next time.
Not the most enjoyable of games for me. Don't know why. I thought they were better than
us territorially, but they never looked like scoring whereas we looked dangerous. And boy
were we dangerous. Without being dirty (I don't think we were) I witnessed the astonishing
sight in modem football of Fulham being reduced to ten men because all three subs had been
used to cover injured players and then, yet another was carried off. After that, a
dismissal for foul play reduced them to nine men. Anyway, Rocket Ron scored a fine goal to
give us all three points and I journeyed home amongst the jovial Fulham fans in the way
that we all know is possible and gratifying among decent people.
One game to go. No tickets at Burnley. No problem, I'll ring Northants and get one of
theirs. Oh no you won't! I tried every bit of subterfuge but they wouldn't let me have
one. I went to the ground early to blag one. Ran all over the place trying to find away
fans with clues about spares. Nothing. I walked up onto the North bank, reconciled to
watching two thirds of the pitch from outside and then it started to rain. I sheltered by
a portacabin for twenty minutes next to a guy. Neither of us spoke until I suddenly
realised he was trying to sell a ticket. I bought it with a drink for himself and got into
the ground in the thick of their lot. Not nice, I tell you. You have to try and applaud at
the same time as them whilst knowing you're applauding our defence not their attack.
For me, this was a very satisfying result. They had relegation to fight off; we were
safe. We could easily have forfeited the eleven match run. Stan had let Steve Davis have
his operation because the result didn't matter. And yet we played quality football on a
terrible, suddenly water-logged, pitch. Smudger Smith came on to a great sympathetic cheer
after his long recuperation and played lovely football as did Glen and young Maylett. Here
was much for next season, then I remembered, my favourite Paul Weller and what we might be
like if all guns started blazing. We were one nil down. I had to applaud with the
Northants fans. We scored from the spot. I said nothing. We were two one down. I clapped.
Then Andrew Cooke picked up the ball outside the box on the left and ran along the edge of
the area past two or three defenders before blasting a scorcher into the top right corner
for 2-2 with two minutes to go. Northampton were down.
I sat on my hands and said nothing, but tears in my eyes said plenty - for Andy C, for
me and my beloved Burnley FC - after 45 years of support, they mean more to me than ever.
Will someone please explain?
Andrew Bolton
April-May 1999
Diary of a sex fiend
Our incomparable, blonde and petite editorial assistant, Annie Blinkhorn, as fine a
lassie as ever carried a pair of handcuffs in her tote bag - was recently travelling on a
train between Preston and Blackburn. This may seem a somewhat recherché thing to do in
these troubled times, but if pressed she will admit to having, come from the North.
Nothing wrong with that of course. I feel about the North much as I feel about the working
classes; a very nice place to come from but you wouldn't want to live there.
Anyway, Annie's carriage was suddenly invaded by a gang of youths dressed in whatever
they wear now that the fleece has gone the way of the shell suit. One them gallantly
offered her his half-drunk can of Newkie Brown, explaining that he had already "had a
skinful," and if he had any more he would "throw up." Annie graciously
accepted and asked what the lads were about to do. They explained that they were all
Burnley FC fans and had been on their way to Wigan but the match had been rained off.
"Why are you going to Blackburn, then?" asked our Annie. "To start a
fight," said the beery fellow, "We fookin' 'ate Blackburn."
One of the marginally-less-plastered lads then asked our girl where she was from, to
which she replied, in her noticeably Lancastrian accent, "London," a response
which was greeted with the customary masturbatory wrist action and cries of
"Poof," or its female equivalent. And then they asked her what she did.
Now, I am a fearless man, but I have to admit to a slack-jawed admiration for Annie's
considered response, which had about it the sort of thing that the military describe in
citations for the VC as "a complete disregard for her personal safety." Proudly
pulling out copies of 'The Erotic Review', she offered them around and explained that she
worked for this very organ. She then calculated that the atmosphere could develop in one
of two ways. There would either ensue that foot-shuffling, toe-curling silence with which
young men greet any discussion of sex, or they might turn on her. A disagreeable prospect
either way, but as it happened she was wrong on both counts. After a careful scrutiny, one
of the footie supporters raised his gaze and, with a look of ineffable awe upon his spotty
visage, spoke. "This isn't porn," he said, "this is fookin' art."
I am proud to say that I do not know anything about football, nor anyone who plays the
game. But henceforth I will not hear a bad word about that fine clique of aesthetes who
make up the Burnley FC Supporters Club.
