Hope or optimism?
If you had to sum up Burnley's 1999-2000
season in a word, which one would best suffice? Tenacious? Professional? Inspirational?
Pragmatic? It's not an easy choice, for Stan Ternent and his squad displayed all of these
characteristics through the course of the campaign.
Tenacity was never more displayed than when the
team needed late goals to salvage a point or three. Perhaps this is the value with which
Stan has most clearly stamped his impression at the club. Never a man for animated public
displays, Stan's laconic interviews and at times almost wearisome 'we'll just keep
plugging away' manner clearly belied the passion and steel he somehow imbued into the
club. Oxford fans must still be wondering how their team emerged pointless from both games
against Burnley, as they led the Clarets home and away with only minutes remaining. In
both Oxford ties it was the guile of substitute Paul Weller that turned the game, but
other squad members played their part in this notable aspect of Burnley's season - Jepson,
Wright, Payton and Davis all snatching desperately late equalisers and winners. The home
encounter with then-leaders Bristol Rovers also deserves recognition, when 10-man Burnley
battled first to maintain parity, and then to defend three unlikely points after a moment
of genius by Glen Little.
Inspirational is the word that comes to mind
when one thinks about the sheer collective spirit witnessed in the performances at Derby
and Stoke, and on more than one occasion from individuals not shielded by the
unconditional trust of the fans - take a bow Paul Crichton, who proved to be a match
winner.
But perhaps 'professional' and 'pragmatic' hold
the strongest hands as descriptive representatives of the season. Although guilty of
handing the early initiative to the opposition on too many occasions, the Clarets were
rarely outclassed. They were too often insipid, especially away from home, but this was
the case less often when behind and more often when defending a point. And this brings us
to Stan's legendary pragmatism. How often did the Clarets sit back on a lead and lose
their advantage? In the first half of the season, potential winners at Millwall and
Chesterfield were cancelled out in the second-half, and at Wycombe and Reading the team
settled for a point when all three were there for the taking.
It was maybe the draw at Chesterfield - where
Stan came in for his severest criticism of the season - that paved the way for a more
adventurous attitude away from home. A barnstorming finish at Stoke proved that all out
attack could bring more than the odd goal away from home, though the following victory at
Bournemouth was again achieved by a grim defensive struggle. But from that point on, Stan
balanced his natural instinct to defend and preserve with the realisation that away
victories were required in the final half of the season if Burnley were to emerge from the
play-off pack.
However, I doubt whether even the most
optimistic of Clarets would have been prepared to wager that Burnley would win six and
draw two of their last eight away fixtures. Ironically, it was a poor run of home form
that necessitated such heroics away from Turf Moor. Significantly, promotion rivals
Preston and Gillingham both won easily at the Turf, and the four points wrested in total
from Bury and Notts County were secured in injury time, the latter thanks to a superb Ian
Wright strike.
Notwithstanding the correlation between
defensive frailty and the absence of Mitchell Thomas, the victories of Gillingham and
Preston at Turf Moor are the strongest pieces of evidence to suggest that Burnley's final
position was not just. However, the results in the corresponding fixtures at Deepdale and
Priestfield provide ballast for the opposite view. In both cases, the home side could not
overcome the resilience of the Clarets, and herein lies the essence of Burnley's deserved
success. While Gillingham were to succumb to Wrexham, Burnley eked out another away
victory there. While Bristol Rovers sank to defeats at Blackpool and Cardiff, the Clarets
had already earned points at both places. Gradually, relentlessly, purposefully, Burnley
clawed their way towards that second promotion place. In sum: we were the hardest team to
beat when it mattered the most.
Granted, we deserved little at Oxford and were
lucky to win, but even here we can point to seemingly innocuous things as precursors to
the Clarets' ultimate triumph. With a late equaliser in the bag, courtesy of a pin-point
Weller cross and a magnificent Davis header, most of us would have been mightily relieved
to settle for an unlikely point. Not Ian Wright.
At this point I'll admit that I was sceptical
about Wright for the simple reason that self-consciously high profile footballers rarely
fit the bill at Turf Moor; I'm thinking primarily here of Steve Daley, Dennis Tueart, Paul
Stewart and Chris Waddle - and there are probably further examples. But I had reckoned
without Wright's intense pride in his own performance and in his instinctive willingness
to give all to the cause. At around 5 o'clock that day at Oxford, a misplaced cross-field
pass to the wing looked like the end of Burnley's last attack of the game. However, like a
young sub trying to impress the gaffer, Wright set off on a lost cause. After a 30 yard
sprint, he reached the ball with what must have been inches to spare, and then pinged over
a cross which Weller nonchalantly nodded across the keeper and into the far corner of the
net.
This moment encapsulated what Ternent's Burnley
have been about this season. One celebrated definition of a professional is someone who
can produce their best work even when they don't feel like it. After such a terrible
display in the pouring rain, I can think of recent Burnley sides who would have wanted
nothing but the final whistle and the warmth of the dressing room. That day at Oxford, the
Clarets were professional enough to keep going and to produce the required moments of
skill to win the game.
It's also worth dwelling for a paragraph on the
Paul Weller saga. All Clarets know that here is a lad blessed with an above-average
footballing brain, and skills to go with it. Having been the recipient of some admiring
reviews in the early stages of his first-team career, he perhaps started to focus too much
on his own press and too little on his game. The abortive move to West Ham was
well-publicised and is best forgotten, save for the apt comment on a Hammers bulletin
board that said "The only time I want to see Paul Weller playing at Upton Park is in
a Jam reunion." His recent transfer request was arguably ill-considered and was not
taken well by the fans, but Stan served both player and club well with a considered
approach that has convinced Weller that his future lies at the Turf. It will be
interesting to see if Weller flowers at a higher level of football in the same way that
the First Division liberated the talent of Adie Randall.
I'm sure that other writers in the magazine have
put enough ink to paper to thoroughly describe the events of Scunthorpe. I'm sure I won't
be the first to point out the surreal experience of both celebrating on the pitch and yet
not being able to take in the reality of the situation. Hadn't we hoped for this moment?
Of course we had. But neither hopes nor expectations even begin to prepare you for the
head-shaking bewilderment of actual achievement. You think it will be a time for joyous
babble where conversation was meaningless and half-baked and yet uproariously funny. It
was nothing like that. Dazed and confused better describes my state.
Next thing, I developed a paper fetish. I just
wanted to see some neutral, official evidence that what I had witnessed had been part of
the material world and not some extraordinary phenomenon of mass hysteria. An Observer was
purchased at Liverpool St Station, and on the Shenfield train to Forest Gate, I scanned
the final Second Division league table with an absurd sense of relief. We were
there…in second place…in an automatic promotion spot…Gillingham safely
tucked in third…they can't get us now…oh, Blackpool went down. Aaah…
Incidentally, the Observer was clearly biased
towards Gillingham, stating that the football gods had been "unfair" and that
Burnley had "stolen the big prize." And I hope that the Ed Jones who reported on
the Burnley game for the Observer isn't the same Ed Jones who used to play bass in the
Tansads and slagged off my band's demo in the Wigan Reporter. If it is you, Ed, then I'd
like everyone to know that the Verve blew you off the stage at the Pier, and the bloke
from Virgin would have been mad if he'd have signed you and not them.
Anyhow, I digress, though I feel better. In that
same Observer were previews of the First Division games to be played on the Sunday, and
some enterprising hack had constructed a half-page article by the expedient of phoning the
football correspondent of each relevant local paper and extracting a quote. Nice work if
you can get it. However, these quotes were illuminating in the sense that they revealed
how many of these correspondents regarded their club's survival as a tangible achievement.
I shall now, in the best traditions of newspaper journalism, construct a paragraph or two
from other people's work.
According to Keith Lodge, Barnsley were a
"team of strugglers" without Dave Bassett. Bill Young judged that Portsmouth had
"defied expectations" by finishing a few places above the relegation zone.
Mid-table QPR had "over-achieved" in the opinion of Mike Hartwell, and Scott
McLeod of the Liverpool Echo thought that Tranmere had performed "beyond
expectations", using as evidence John Aldridge's pre-season statement that he would
settle for fourth bottom. As for Port Vale, Derek Davis contended that their relegation
was "disappointing but inevitable."
Raj Johal of the South London Press hailed Steve
Coppell as "manager of the year for what he achieved with some old hands and a crop
of reserve team youngsters." Coppell, who guided Palace to the old First Division and
the 1990 F.A. Cup Final, had achieved survival - nothing more or less than that. Guy
Nelson, who thought that Stockport's season had been a "mission accomplished,"
had an encouraging prediction: "This season was tough but next season will be even
tougher." Here's hoping.
Will Hughes of the Crewe Chronicle concluded
that "Crewe are punching above their weight" and that survival would be "a
marvellous achievement." Stuart Rowson of the Grimsby Evening Telegraph considered
that "Grimsby have achieved the impossible - survival." Not surprisingly, the
men (not a female correspondent in sight) who followed Swindon and Walsall had sympathy
for their clubs, the latter arguing, "That they still have a chance to stay up is
quite an achievement." Brian Halford of the Birmingham Post stated that Birmingham
City had "exceeded expectations" and even Gordon Sharrock of the Bolton Evening
News argued that Bolton had done "a good job in the circumstances." What
circumstances? They'd sold Per Frandsen, resulting in a Colin Todd flounce-out. Hardly the
ingredients of a crisis, even if the solution required the illegal poaching of another
club's manager.
In all, thirteen of the twenty-four journalists
claimed that their team had surpassed what could be reasonably expected of them, and nine
of these were describing teams in the mid or lower half of the table. If we marginalise
the possibility that some of these hacks were merely being diplomatic so as not to ruin
professional relationships, what can we make of such a set of modest claims?
Although we've tired of hearing how Wimbledon's
peasants against aristocrats mentality fuelled their long run in the Premiership, I
suspect that something similar is behind the attitude of many of these journalists. It's
an accepted truth that real achievements often require unrealistic expectations to get the
process moving, and that nothing arouses the human instinct to fight for a cause more than
a collective challenge of 'them' against 'us' - a fundamentally political relationship.
But there is nothing in this particular rule book that says the unrealistic expectation
has to be objectively unrealistic. One can always find reasons to convince oneself that
your righteous place is on the undercard rather than top of the bill. Here lies the basis
for these claims that so many teams achieved simply by staying up.
Burnley fans know more than most that past
achievements count for nothing, but even so it's difficult to see how the likes of
Barnsley and Bolton could have harboured pessimistic thoughts. Birmingham have experienced
lower division football in recent years, but thanks to one of Britain's leading
pornographers now have a very solid foundation at St Andrews. To be fair to Port Vale and
Crystal Palace, both clubs have been through the mill recently but then again both have
been First Division play-off contenders in recent years.
All those involved at Crewe continue to
perpetuate the myth that their club over-achieves, but this is a nonsense when one
considers their admirable youth system. Here is a club whose youngsters regularly win
youth leagues and reach the latter stages of national cup competitions. Crewe are always
well represented in home nation youth, under-18 and under-21 teams. This season their
under-18's lost narrowly to Arsenal in the final of the F.A. Under-18's Cup, and first
team graduates of the Crewe academy rarely leave Gresty Road for less than a six-figure
sum. All in all, this is a club who should rightly see their place as being in the top
half of the Football League.
Of all the clubs listed above, only Stockport
can perhaps justify the claim that they have done well just to survive, having been
perpetual lower league strugglers before the arrival of Dave Jones. (Then again, it would
be interesting to take a look at Guy Nelson's Christmas editorial when Stockport were
lying in a play-off place. I bet he didn't predict the winless streak that took them to
the edge of the relegation battle.) As for the rest of them, there is plenty of evidence
to suggest that the downplaying of expectation was as much a defence mechanism against
underachievement as it was a source of motivation and fight. Depending on your point of
view, this is either sensible - since such a tactic can easily produce the required result
- or transparently false.
So how do we tackle these issues for the
forthcoming season, for there is undoubtedly a heightened sense of expectation among all
Clarets, whether or not this stands up to scrutiny in the cold light of day. Furthermore,
these expectations have been openly fostered by the club's leaders. "We feel that
Watford have offered a model for us to follow," were Barry Kilby's words when asked
of his vision for the future under his chairmanship, which we now have to interpret as
meaning that he expects the club to be more than 'merely' making up First Division
numbers.
However, it could be that an appreciation
between hope and optimism might serve us better this season. The atmosphere around the
club and it's supporters is one of optimism, and yet optimism by its very nature has
certain preconditions - the most important of which is the rejection of a heroic
conception of life.
A Christian believes that the forces of good and
evil wage a constant and mighty struggle for man's soul, and communism used to endow
everyday actions with the same kind of cosmic significance. George Orwell, writing in
1940, famously said the same thing about fascism, making the point that Western liberal
democracies like the UK optimistically assume that people desire nothing beyond
"ease, security and the avoidance of pain." (We all know that supporting a club
like Burnley usually has nothing to do with any of these things.) Orwell went on to argue
that Hitler instead declared to the people of Germany, "I offer you struggle, danger
and death," and as a result found the whole nation flung at his feet.
The problem with optimism is that it drains
people of desire and a willingness to sacrifice by making them expect comfort and
happiness by right. It encourages what Lewis Mumford called a state of "hilarious
anesthesia". Such a state might be OK if you're thinking of supporting Man Utd or
Rangers, but not Burnley. It makes you wonder about all the families who have bought
season tickets for the first time, taking advantage of the excellent concessions offered
by the club. Have they been taken in by the optimism generated by that fantastic run-in to
the season? Are they prepared for a season of shredded nerves, disappointment and
frustration? I'm afraid it might be the case that even long-standing Clarets, as aware as
any about the essentially heroic nature of life as a dedicated worshipper of a football
team, expect more than we have a right to.
Because, you see, the problem with optimism is
not that it merely invites the assumption of progress and therefore good times ahead, but
that it weakens the spirit of sacrifice. Even more problematic is that optimism provides
us with no effective antidote to despair. If we can see no further than the possibility of
success, how do we even begin to cope with the idea of failure?
Ironically, optimism and progress appeal to us
so much because of the fear that without it we would have no hope, but it is the very idea
of hope itself which we should embrace. Hope demands no belief in optimism or need of
progress. It demands simply a belief in justice: a conviction that the fiendish will
suffer, that wrongs will be made right, that the underlying order of things will not be
ignored. In other words, that Glenn Roeder will suffer, that we will win at Oakwell and
that fortune will ensure one of England's great clubs will begin the haul back to
greatness.
For hope rests on confidence not so much in the
future but in the past. It derives from early and distant memories both living and passed
down - no doubt distorted, overlaid with later memories and thus unreliable - in which the
experience of pride and contentment was so strong that subsequent disillusionment cannot
erase it. Such experience leaves as its residue the unshakeable conviction, not that the
past was better than the present, but that a trust in life is never completely misplaced,
even though it is never completely justified either and is therefore destined ultimately
to disappoint. To be sure, the arrow of time points forwards, not backwards. But there's
nothing wrong with the archer looking over his shoulder for guidance on where to aim.
If we approach the following season with hope,
we are at least prepared for the worst. Our trust in life would not be worth much if it
had not survived manifold disappointments in the past, while the knowledge that we will be
disappointed in the future demonstrates the continuing need for hope. When I briefly
interviewed Frank Teasdale last year, he told me that until it actually happened he didn't
think we would go down in 1995, though he couldn't tell me the reason why. A blind faith
that things will somehow work out in our favour is a poor substitute for a state of mind
that can remain hopeful even when things don't.
Phil Whalley
July
2000
Links - Season reviews from Cozzo, Firmo,
Hego, Tim Quelch and Igor Wowk
