Do you ever think: who would I want to support if SAFC didn’t exist? Personally Burnley would be high up on my list. A great club with a strong sense that the club is the supporters. I’ve always liked visiting there. Unfortunately it is not the best for away fan friendly pubs. Last year we were in the Cricket Cub next to the ground in the sun. This year we went up the hill to the Queen Vic. It’s one of those bliddy chain pubs that I hate with crap plastic food and a whacky jacky fun warehouse for bairns (they wouldn’t let me in the ball pool – bastids!). To add insult to injury they had no Guinness (only Murphy’s – eurgh!) and the bitter (using the term loosely) was Boddington’s and John Smith’s, both of which are crap. They did of course have a selection of lagers for the under 18s and the ladies but who cares. Anyway the company was canny at least.
Into the ground and a good turnout from the red and white army, who were in quite magnificent voice. Despite saying we had allocated seats the whole thing was thrown into turmoil by most people being told that it was unallocated seating. The confusion simply helped the atmosphere and I was able to spend the whole match standing up at the back, singing pretty much from beginning to end. That’s what an away game should be like.
Tubby was back so we started with an attacking looking line-up of Lawrence on one side and Sean on the other. Elliott was out but, to be honest, provided he is OK, I didn’t think it was too bad a thing him having a rest. Mick brought in Bridges, which was very encouraging.
I don’t know what it looked like on Sky (haven’t watched the video) but I thought we were well and truly in control in the first half. Myrhe really wasn’t being troubled, we were controlling the midfield and we managed to get a goal. Another superb Tubby corner, which got knocked on to Stew on the left side of the box. He powered in a shot, which pinged up into the air, and Lawrence headed in from close range. We sang “We are top of the league”. The superstitious cried “no, don’t sing that”. Honest lads, singing it doesn’t jinx us at all. Right near the end of the first half one of their players seemed to scoop the ball off the line. An exchange of texts with my sister confirmed that she thought the same watching on the telly. So we spent half-time whinging how we should have been two up and they should have been down to ten men.
Second half was a mixture of Burnley stepping up their game and us dropping back a bit to hold the game. Myrhe had to make one stunning save down to his right but otherwise (subject to one point I’ll come to) really wasn’t being troubled. Tubby was taken off for Welsh (tactical I assume). Worryingly Bridges was looking tired from about 10 minutes into the second half and was eventually replaced by Brown. At only one goal up there is always a risk it could go pear shape. And then they brought on Ade Akinbiyi, who had been an injury doubt until late on before the game. In the pub before had we had said there were three types of player who always scored against us: (1) Players who had been late injury doubts; (2) Big black centre forwards; and (3) Ade Akinbiyi. As Ade Akinbiyi fell into all three camps he was a cert to score. And so the ball came over to Ade standing free in the box. Fortunately, although he scores against us, he is crap. So he totally misjudged his jump and plopped the ball straight into Myrhe’s hands. After that Ade found the one sure antidote to Ade scoring – Ade being sent off. The ball was running out and Ringo was sheltering it from Ade. Ade then got out a machete and started chopping it into Ringo’s back. In case the ref hadn’t seen that, he then picked up a sledgehammer and started whacking it into Ringo’s head followed by deploying WMDs to his neck. Strangely the ref spotted this and sent poor Ade off. As a nice touch the tunnel at Turf Moor is at the away end and so we were able to offer Ade our fond farewells.
Coming towards the end and the ball was coming to Jeff in the opposition box. As he went to kick it one of the defenders came charging in to him. A clear-cut penalty (most other (inferior) commentators seem to have misunderstood what happened) but the ref played on (disgracefully he didn’t book the Burnley player afterwards mind). The ball came down to the popgun wizard who played it casually along the line for Stew to run in and nick it into the net. Oh happy us.
The end saw Steve Cotterill get a good round of applause from the away fans. Perhaps we can start healing from the psychological scar of that 19-point season.
Back off to the Queen Vic for a celebratory drink and then a late drive home (through a freakishly totally snow covered M6 Toll for about 10-15 miles), happily singing “We are top of the league”. As I type this we no longer are but I’d happily concede the league to Wigan to see Ipswich fall further away.
The Crewe game has been sold out for almost a week and people are getting worried about getting applications accepted for games like QPR and West Ham. Are happy days here again? Updates on that to follow here soon.