The Longside Reference

History With Mr. T.
A ROBBIE FREE KICK

     It was Robbie Blake’s stupendous free-kick goal at The Turf against Preston that set me thinking. In over 40 years of watching Burnley it’s the best I’ve seen. I could mention a Frank Casper rocket goal at Wolves in the early 70s, but that was only a 20 yard shot and I could mention the thunderous goal by Ole Gunnar Solskaer for Man U in the League Cup tie at the Turf, but that was from only 15 yards or so, but nothing has ever matched the 35 yard (some say 45 yards and his biggest fans say 55) shot by the blessed Robbie on 11th December 2004. I stood there open mouthed, the roar wouldn’t come out, larynx temporarily out of action, brain just numbed by the sheer stunning wonder of the thing. 

     It’s difficult to say where it ranks in the great scale of greatest goals of all time because all goals are so different. What you have to say is that it is certainly one of the greatest deadball kicks of all time. If you are looking at free-kick routines then you’d have to say the Adamson designed Charity Shield routine where Waldron appears totally unmarked like a ghost in acres of space to head home after the rest of the team have bamboozled the hapless Man City defence with their bewildering decoy runs. I didn’t see the Little free kick routine at Coventry but I’m told that was a gem as well.

     Greatest goals? Tommy Cummings? My father saw this one where he went the length of the field and then hit a wonderful shot into the net and for a centre half to do this in the 50s was unheard of. Those of us around long enough have seen Connelly rocket shots from 20 yards after he has cut inside from the wing, we saw goals in the 8 – 0 win over Nottingham Forest many years ago of which some were pure passing and interplay poetry. We have seen dramatic last minute winners like the scruffy messy untidy Moore header in the game at Bradford when a win was desperately needed to escape the dreaded word relegation – how do you rate goals like that one then where it’s the sheer drama of the thing that elevates it into the super-goal bracket.

     No, where great goals are concerned there’s just something about the perfect deadball strike that stays in the memory longer than the others. Maybe it’s the technical excellence, the professional accomplishment, foot and ball connect just flawlessly, angle of boot is perfect, there’s probably someone out there who can work out a mathematical formula for all this. Not me I hasten to add – history is my thing which brings me back to what I started mentally doodling about in the first place, because the truth is, and here’s the history bit, that free kick would never have been given in the first place in the olden days.

     What a namby pamby game we watch today and it’s only old codgers like me who can remember the brutality and crunching leg-breaker tackles of the physical side of the game that existed all those years ago in the 60s and before. The 70s were tasty as well and if you ever see a video of the Chelsea Leeds Cup Final replay at Old Trafford you’ll get the picture. But it was whilst spending hours and hours in Burnley library trawling through the seasons that coincided with Willie Irvine’s era that all these memories came back.   

      Those blokes used to come off the field black and blue from head to foot. There was the away game at Newcastle one year, 65, or 66, somewhere around there, and not a Burnley player wasn’t just about crocked by the ferocity and relentlessness of Newcastle’s body shattering tackling. Half the team had to be helped to walk to the coach. Such was the colour of Gordon Harris that he was pictured in the Burnley Express completely in the buff (but posing tastefully) showing off the horrendous bruising that had turned him blue. Both Bob Lord and Harry Potts were so incensed by Newcastle in this game their complaints were long and loud. Harry was so incensed after a game at the Turf against Revie’s Leeds United (ah dear old Leeds) that he challenged Revie to a TV debate. For two consecutive seasons at the Turf, Leeds elevated the trip, knee high tackle, lunge, bodycheck, elbow, and provocative behaviour, to a new level never seen before. Revie’s reply to Harry was an instant refusal saying that it would only serve to drag the game down further. You’ll no doubt not be surprised to hear that the two worst Leeds culprits were Hunter and Bremner. In a game at Everton both teams had to be taken off the field to calm down. Guess who was the away team? Yes, Leeds, who else?

     The point of all this is simply to say that in order to get a free kick in those halcyon days you really did have to do something outrageous, and to be booked you had almost to commit murder. To be sent off, yes you did have to commit murder. Clearly then if we turn the clock back to the 60s little Robbie would never have got his free kick, and I strongly suspect possibly wouldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes in any game after he had been kicked up in the air by the likes of Roy Hartle or Tommy Banks several times. Such is the level of protection given to players these days by whistle happy referees players like Robbie can happily ply their tricky trade and earn countless free kicks by merely falling over after a gentle nudge. Strange though how some players like Robbie have mastered this art of gaining free kicks, whilst others like the hapless Ian Moore earn short shrift from eagle eyed referees. Who was the other one ah yes Papadopoulos. Now he was class and must be the only player I have seen to be knocked over 3 yards outside the penalty box but land 3 yards inside it AND get the penalty.

     Was it Burnley’s own Harold Mather who was famed for his ability ‘to show his winger the touchline’ which was simply a nice way of saying kick him into row Z of the nearest stand. Was it season 66/67 at Burnley when there was a total of 5 broken legs through the season one of them being Willie Irvine’s. That one came in an FA Cup replay at Everton where such was the level of stick dished out by Everton that after the game Bob Lord’s complaints in the boardroom led to him being asked to leave. He did so and vowed never to set foot in the place again. 

     Don’t let me give you any impression that it was just the games I have mentioned. This level of rough stuff came in every game, it was part of it, protection was minimal, and in report after report as you plod through all these old Expresses you read of it happening in game after game. It was a rare game when it didn’t. And we haven’t even mentioned the fairs Cup game in Naples. It wasn’t a game, it was war with a football and it continued afterwards as Blacklaw fought off a posse of ten Naples stewards hurling some of them down the stairs of the moat. Witnesses can still remember him: “OK if you’re gonna get me, I’m taking six of you bastards with me.”

     It must have been some sight down in the corridor as ten Burnley players held on to his legs on one side of the dressing room door, and ten Naples stewards held on to his arms on the other side of the door each of them trying to drag him in or out as the case may be. Only the appearance of the police with guns brought it to an end as he was marched away until the Naples President intervened and returned him to Harry’s welcoming arms.

     In truth the modern game drives me crazy. I groan when the whistle blows for the slightest contact. Seriously, Robbie would never have been awarded that free kick 40 years ago. Somewhere there’s a happy medium between the mustn’t-touch game of today and the break-his-leg game of the 60s. Nobody has a shred of respect today for a player like Kevin Muscat but you’ll get the gist of what I’m saying when I say that Muscat all those years ago would have been a pussycat.    

Dave Thomas 2006