The Longside Reference

Blind Stupid and Desperate 1.
Season 2004/05

     Do you know I can’t remember how many points we got by the end of last season at Burnley? Was it the magic 60 or just a few less? It tells you one thing. If it was not a season to forget, then it was certainly a season that when all is taken into account there was no great need to remember. We survived and there in a nutshell is the end of the story.

     However, as a compulsive scribbler even a story that has a quick end has various events leading up to it – so here we go.

     Yesterday’s man, Stan Ternent you may remember, or maybe not, was replaced by the up and coming Steve Cotterill – he who hadn’t lasted long at Stoke and then hadn’t lasted long at Sunderland and had then kept his hand (or feet I suppose) in at Leicester doing a bit of coaching. Burnley chairman Barry Kilby clearly thought that Steve would last longer at Turf Moor and handed him the keys to the front gates and the kitchen at Turf Moor and a three-year contract. Barry, mindful of our lack of money didn’t hand him much of a budget though. Steve took what he had and spent it wisely on quality rather than quantity, McGreal, Sinclair, Duff and Coyne and then with a very small squad set about staying in Division One – I still refuse to give it that ridiculous title Championship. 

         The Ternent regime of shouting, hitting his players (read his book) was replaced by something more scientific and thoughtful so that goalkeepers were coached to dive about and make more saves than ever before and full backs like Camara were coached to cross the ball more accurately. Steve, once he located the kitchens, even introduced team breakfasts and lunches, proper diet essential, but this being Burnley the cost was taken from the players wages (allegedly) We, the ever loyal supporter knew that something new and better had arrived when we discovered that the summer training tour would be to Austria and not the ghastly Isle of Man. Not quite the Champions League obviously but we can dream. We were after all, back in Europe after a long absence.

     Of course he inherited the diamond that was Blake and the nugget that was Chaplow and for a while yes Blake single-handedly won us a string of games and nobody else ever seemed to score. But sadly that well known jolly scouser Paul Jewell of the JJB unsettled our Robbie with blatant poaching, undermined his loyalty to the Burnley wage packet (considerable) and the unhappy Blake went ironically not to Wigan but Birmingham where basically he languished on the bench but picked up one presumes an even bigger pay packet so at a guess he was happy enough. And then of course Chaplow was sold to West Brom but he too hardly got a full game there but such is football.

     Thus in mid season Burnley picked up quite a bit of unexpected loot plus we beat the European Champions Liverpool (I think I’ll write that again) we beat the European Champions Liverpool in the FA Cup and that earned some more loot and then the Blackburn games earned yet more loot – but somehow don’t ask me how we are still crying poverty and sold the ground to a property group (hmmmm) but our chairman, his holy goodliness Saint Barry, owns the property group so that’s all right then (I think).

     So onward we went and ground out a few results and draws and wins and kept many clean sheets and we the fans nodded off during a few end of season games when basically what we watched would be classed as effective, functional and efficient which is a polite way of saying it was crapbutgotusafewpoints and a mid table position which we’d all have settled for at the beginning of the season when we knew how small the squad was; and if you’d said to us then that Blake and Chaplow would be sold in mid term we’d have said yer must be joking God ‘elp us that’s the end of us then.

     So credit to Cotterill then, gawd knows how he did it but he did. Well actually we do know how he did it, he got on loan one centre half by the name of Cahill from Villa and this 18-year-old lad then proceeded to win man of the match in game after game and if he maintains the progress he made at Burnley he’ll play for England one day. He and McGreal together were just outstanding. Then our man Steve went back to Stoke and bought man mountain Akinbyi who actually shorn of his dreadlocks didn’t look quite so big and terrifying and looks like the proverbial bloke next door. His debut was rather special. He came with an injury so it was a while before we saw him in action. Towards the end of the Sunderland game on he came as sub and lasted a couple of minutes before he was sent off for head butting a Sunderland player. We were all quite stunned and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, I elected to laugh it was so absurd. Anyway he was very sorry afterwards and apparently went round the whole club, tea ladies and all, apologising – so that’s all right then. And Cotts was very impressed when he apologised to his teammates in the dressing room afterwards. And somewhere along the line in atonement he chopped off the dreaded dreadlocks and we all worried that like Samson he’d lose all his strength but no, we were all impressed when he scored 4 goals (or was it 5) by the season’s end and helped cement our place in the Cha… Division  One.

     But God we saw some crap in 2004/05, sorry Steve, sorry Barry, it has to be said, but we know it was all in the cause of survival and it obviously worked otherwise Matt at Watford wouldn’t have asked me to write this piece for the Watford website, and things can only get better.

     But, lets end by remembering that glorious night we beat the European Champions 1 – 0, and to be honest we outplayed them. Benitez thought he could put a few reserves in but he still had two thirds of his first team out on the field and we ended up show boating and making fun of them and it truly was one of those great Turf Moor nights when the roof comes off. When Traore scored that ridiculous own goal you could never ever have imagined that this lot would go on to win the Champions League and win my neighbour over £7000 when at halftime, losing 3 – 0 and with the odds at 350 to 1 she put an internet bet on.  And then Blackburn the old enemy came and just one touch of class won them the reply when it was all even at 1 – 1 and really was anybody’s game.

     So, all in all, we are satisfied because we know that SC is taking this club by the scruff of the neck and changing things, and laying down foundations at the training ground, and investing money in new pitches, building up a good back room staff and such like. And rumour has it we have one or two good young uns coming through so who knows next season might just see better things… so more of that later. Tell you one last thing though I might not have mentioned thus far – we beat the European Champions in the FA Cup…the European Champions… bloody hell.

Dave Thomas. June 2005