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BURNLEY BOOKS
THEY COME ALONG JUST LIKE BUSES
Put your hand up if you can remember a time when a new Burnley book was a major event and precious little had ever been published until David Wiseman wrote Up the Clarets in 1973. It was the first Burnley book I ever bought and for that reason I assumed The Reverend Wiseman already to be a senior citizen – don’t ask me why. In fact he wasn’t, it’s only recently that he has assumed this mantle. In the 90s there was a steady trickle of publications and then after promotion in 2000 there was Tim Quelch’s book A Rock and Roll Years History of BFC. For me it’s still one of the best books there is and if stuck on a desert island with just one Burnley book that would be the one I would take. It’s now a difficult book to get hold of even on ebay where you hardly see it.
In 2003, out came Its Burnley Not Barcelona and from then onwards the number of books increased dramatically so that just like waiting for a bus along they come all at once. This year, in between August and Christmas there will be SEVEN new books. It’s good or bad depending on your viewpoint. On the one hand there is a hardcore of readers who enthusiastically collect every book there is; then there are those who simply humph and say: “Hmmm it’s ridiculous.” And on the other hand there are the publishers who groan at the competition. At the end of the day if they don’t sell, the publishers lose money. And the writers – well there’s rarely been any money in writing Burnley books; other than the odd exception, Stan’s book maybe, they just don’t sell enough, and most if not all of us do it for love anyway. As three of us are retired with time on our hands we do it in preference to playing golf or creosoting the garden fence.
So, SEVEN books to choose from then… waddya gonna do. And what are they?
There’s David Wiseman’s Clarets Miscellany a book of fun trivia, anecdotes, the weird, the whacky and the oddball. Next up there’s the Burnley Express Wembley photograph special, glorious memories of a wonderful day. Thirdly there’s Brendan Flood’s little gem of a book about what went on behind the scenes at the club during the last couple of years. Four, there’s Dave Burnley’s book Got To be There, one man’s tale of dedication and determination on the road following the Clarets. At five, due anyday now, is Tim Quelch’s new book about the title win of ‘59/60 and if I know Tim it will be the best one there is on that particular subject. Finally at six and seven come the as yet unpublished books on Jimmy McIlroy, a biography and a scrapbook; the former due in October and the scrapbook anytime after that.
When you think of the books that have been on the shelves for some time; Geoff Crambie’s Greatest Team of Ever book, No Nay Never Vol 2, the Clarets Quiz book, and Clarets Chronicles, then it’s clear there’s an absolute plethora of Burnley books. Add on the ones no longer on the shelves, Harry Potts, Willie Irvine, Stan Ternent etc, then the list grows ever longer.
Anyway, just suppose price is an issue and you could buy just two books at the next home game. A £20 note would get you Brendan Flood’s book (already reviewed on CM) and Dave Burnley’s. I finished the latter just the other day. It stops in 1987 and he is currently catching up and writing part two taking us up to the present. It’s true to say that no other Burnley book has received the same amount of media and Press attention as this one. In terms of coverage it’s knocked all the others into a stuffed hat. It has struck a chord being the story of Everyman and his battles against the odds.
Some people are addicted to sailing yachts around the world, climbing mountains and cliff faces – or just collecting matchboxes. But Dave Burnley is a Burnley nut. You can equate his travels to a kind of pilgrimage. In fact if you look at the words to John Bunyan’s great hymn He who would valiant be; you will see that Dave could have written this greatest of hymns himself. It fits him to a ‘T’.
He who would valiant be, gainst all disaster, let him in constancy follow the master. There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent. His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.
Who so beset him round with dismal stories, do but themselves confound – his strength the more is. No foes shall stay his might, though he with giants fight. He will make good his right – to be a pilgrim.
Bunyan wrote this in 1684 whilst he was in prison. If Dave’s journeys around the land are not a pilgrimage, then nothing is. It might also be argued that following Burnley for the seven years they were in Division Four was in itself a kind of imprisonment.
As the title to the book says, he just has to be there, and this without a car. It’s the ‘little man’ overcoming all obstacles, disasters and discouragement not the least of which is the British transport system. He has battled against everything that the world has to throw at him. To get to the one game he missed at Newcastle he even desperately tried to hire a helicopter when he discovered this re-arranged (several times) game was about to take place.
Just today in the Telegraph Jim White gives it a considerable plug, and you don’t get a mention in the Telegraph easily. What helps too is that Dave is a skilled and articulate writer. It isn’t filled to the brim with foul language and tales of aggro and punchups like some other ‘fan’ books, although there is a section telling us of all the occasions that he has been on the receiving end of a good thump or two. I have to admit I skipped through that bit quickly. But the rest is a fun book. It’s entertaining, some of the stories you just couldn’t make up, and yet they happened. And all the while there are references to games and occasions that we can identify with ourselves. You can well imagine it all being filmable; after all they did a film of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, although I can’t quite see Brad Pitt taking the lead role in a filmed version of Got To Be There.
For years I’d heard the name ‘Dave Burnley’ and wondered who he was. Sometimes at an away game I’d hear someone say to a neighbour “ooh look there’s Dave Burnley,” and I’d peer around and wonder who the hell it was. Not until he was interviewed on TV in America during the 2008 pre season tour did I see a face. And now it’s de rigeur to feature him in any programme about Burnley.
So many journeys, events and incidents fill the pages of the book. I think the story that stands out for me is an away game where Burnley have lost and played so badly, and showed such little effort, that he waits until they have all trooped off after the game, then bides his time, goes down the tunnel, barges into the dressing room, stands toe to toe with big Vince Overson, and tells them what he thinks in no uncertain terms. I guess that after some games that’s something we’d all love to do if the occasion demanded. On that day he probably represented all of us.
For sure Dave seems to have all his employers well-trained. If there’s a game, they know he won’t be in for work, but they know he’ll work an extra shift and make up the time. I loved the story of how he always told one employer he had to go to a funeral, an aunt had died. Trouble is he used it several times and one day the game was postponed because of the weather. “Hello Dave,” says the boss, “funeral postponed because of the waterlogged pitch was it?”
The contrast between Dave Burnley and Brendan Flood is of course immense; the contrast between their books equally so. One is the insider, one is the outsider. One lives in the exclusive well-heeled world of the boardroom and enjoys all the trappings, fine dining, status and comforts it brings. The other has spent years, in blunt terms, slumming it and sleeping rough; although today his travels seem a little more civilised and comfortable with a network of friends to provide lifts and an income above subsistence level that enables him to eat as well as drink – the latter a large part of his life, enabling him to numb the pain of another Burnley defeat. (And for every pub he visits he finds the time to write notes about it.) Twice he has developed pneumonia as a result of sleeping out in all weathers. His doctor warned him in no uncertain terms that sleeping out must stop.
At some stage he will have to miss a game (other than the one at Newcastle years ago in the 70s). There will be some reason that stops him getting there, and you do have to worry for his mental health when this eventually happens, as surely it must. His love for Burnley Football Club is both a passion and an obsession. There’s nothing wrong with passion, but obsession can become dangerous and harmful. If the clues in the book are anything to go by, when the day comes he cannot make the next game, he’ll lock himself in his room for six weeks and cry uncontrollably. When he finally emerges he’ll hit the bottle. And if nothing else happens to stop him travelling, then one day it will just be old age as time catches up with him.
Not even pre season games in the USA stopped him. But had Burnley not reached the play-offs last season then there was an invitation for the club to go to Australia. One doubts that even that mammoth trip and all the expense would have stopped him. The irony now is that he has assumed a kind of celebrity status; TV channels seek him out, cameras zoom in on him during games, Burnley documentaries home in on him, newspapers feature him. And, it looks like Alastair Campbell has taken him under his wing. At what point will he be offered a seat in the Bob Lord VIP area? A seat in the House of Lords as it were, a reward for the years spent sleeping rough on the back benches of parks, bus stations and empty buildings.
The book ends with a long feature on the Orient game of ’87. If the whole thing was fiction, a novel; then the climactic Orient ending could not be more dramatic. Lose this game and it was the trapdoor to the non-league scene. He was convinced the club would have disappeared totally, but in truth I do know of one person who would have stepped in to keep the club alive. Whilst we stood there watching, praying, and hoping, Dave Burnley reveals that he had plans to force an abandonment of the game if the team were losing and the end seemed near. He planned to run onto the pitch and chain himself to one of the goalposts – the Emily Pankhurst of Turf Moor.
There’s so much to enjoy all the way through the book. Picture the scene when Dave tells his disinterested dad he is going to change his name from Beeston to Burnley. What about the day he hitch-hiked to Carlisle dressed as an Arab sheik? Just reading it, I laughed out loud. Or the game Burnley played against the waiters in Magaluff, because they couldn’t find anyone else to play. Dave was there (sleeping rough of course) and to his astonishment took part in the game as a sub. Afterwards the players had a whip round for him when they learned of his plight dossing in an abandoned hotel. It was the only time he went home with more money than he set out with.
Another book then to add to the collection; 380 pages for a tenner, not only is it a good read, but it’s a bargain as well. Volume two will take us up the present. It should be a gud’n. And for those of us who buy every Burnley book – it’s time to get a bigger bookcase.
Dave Thomas 29th August 2009
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