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ROBBIE BLAKE
THE LITTLE MAGICIAN
So Robbie Blake has gone, unable to accept the terms offered to him by the club at the end of season 2009/10 – one year with the option of a second had he appeared in a certain number of games. By and large there was general agreement that what he was offered was appropriate for a player of his age. But, Robbie felt that he deserved a straight two years deal. His name was linked with Hearts and places like Huddersfield where his experience and class might have been well received. Staggeringly he left for Bolton Wanderers and Owen Coyle, tempted by the lure of another year in the Premiership, serving as an impact player coming off the bench.
He surely leaves with our heartfelt thanks for what he has done for Burnley Football Club and the entertainment that he has provided. But that gratitude is tinged with some regret that he had to rejoin the man certain to be despised in and around Burnley for years to come.
Probably it will be season 2008/09 that we will most readily associate with Robbie Blake. It was a wonderful time to be around Turf Moor.
Not since the days of Jimmy McIlroy in the 50s and 60s at Burnley Football Club, have supporters been able to use the word ‘magician’ in their tributes to any Turf Moor footballer. But that is how Robbie Blake was described more than once during season 2008/09, one of the greatest seasons in the club’s history. Demoted to the bench early in the season, with more than a few people wondering if his legs had gone, he came back to enjoy a simply sparkling season, rolling back the years, and demonstrating his full range of talent and skills. The media and the TV pundits drooled over his performances particularly in the Carling Cup games and the Wembley play-off final against Sheffield United. And yet this was a player, by now 33, with self confessed weight problems, and who had been around the block not once, but several times. With just a little more pace Robbie Blake might well have been an England player. But his lack of pace was more than compensated for by his touch, awareness, intelligence, anticipation and passing skills, and all that is before we even mention his shooting and free-kick, dead-ball skills.
He had a number of ou tstanding games during 2008/09, was MOTM on seven occasions, scored some superb goals, and at the end of the season shared the player of the year awards with Brian Jensen. The main Clarets website Claretsmad voted him player of the season over the year. His superlative goal against Reading early on in the Championship decided the game.
One game in particular though provided a platform for the nation to watch his sublime talents and this was in the semi-final Carling Cup game against Tottenham at Turf Moor. The first leg had been lost 1 – 4 but on a wild, wet night, in front of a packed Turf Moor, Burnley clawed their way back to parity with a 3 – 0 score by the end of the 90 minutes. Blake had a foot in each of the goals. He scored the first with a wonderful long-range free-kick, made the second with a darting, weaving run that left Spurs defenders on their backsides in the penalty area, and assisted the third with a floated free-kick into the six-yard box. That Burnley lost in extra time was a travesty and was the result of the rule that only the goals scored in extra-time count double. Spurs scored with Burnley just two minutes away from the Wembley Final. Blake, amongst others was heartbroken and the tears flowed in the dressing room afterwards. But the fact that they had come so close to Wembley on that night arguably whetted their appetite, and increased their desire to make it there in the Championship. This they duly did and in May at the season’s end the tears were those of joy not despair.
Sometimes referred to as the Band of Brothers, this tiny squad funded by one of the division’s smallest budgets, in front of an average crowd of just 13,000, triumphed in the Wembley Play-off Final in what was the season’s outstanding football fairy tale.
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Born in Middlesbrough, Blake began his career with Darlington in the 1994/95 season. Bradford City snapped him up on the strength of his games at Darlington where he scored 21 goals in 68 games. The Bradford offer of £300,000 was accepted by Darlington and Blake played first under manager Chris Kamara and then Paul Jewell scoring eight goals in his first full season.
With Lee Mills he formed an excellent partnership and the 40 goals they scored between them earned Bradford City promotion to the Premiership. Blake scored 16 of those goals and his winner against Wolves in the final game of 1998/99 saw the side finish as runners-up. Bradford City was hardly the most glamorous club in the division and it was a marvellous season for both him and club.
In the Premiership though, he failed to make an impact, starting just 15 games and with another 12 as substitute; so he was loaned out to Nottingham Forest for three months. “He will bring to the team something we haven’t got at the moment,” said manager Platt, “the ability to score a goal out of nothing. We drew up a short list of players during the summer and he was on that. Robbie has shown in the past he can score goals in this division.” Having been frozen out at Bradford he had done himself no favours when he criticised their chairman, Geoffrey Richards, in the Forest programme.
On his return, to a new manager Jim Jefferies, he insisted he would have no problems fighting for his place. He started 14 games and scored four goals but Bradford were relegated at the end of their second season in the top division.
Nottingham Forest and their manager David Platt would have taken him back permanently but their final bid was rejected.
A few months later in 2001/02 the club received a £1m bid from Burnley and because Bradford were in severe financial trouble they accepted the bid and Blake moved to Turf Moor and new manager Stan Ternent.
He signed a three year contract and at this point Burnley were ambitious and the ITV Digital money deal was enabling them to compete with the top clubs and aim high. But he had a poor start and initially the fans wondered just what was going on with the signing. He featured little in the first few months owing to a hernia injury and the sense of his arrival was questioned. In one game he played Stan Ternent famously likened his performance to someone wearing divers’ boots.
But Blake came good and in season 2003/04 he was the club’s leading scorer with 22 goals in all competitions. It was a tough season though, by then the ITV Digital deal had ended acrimoniously, Burnley were as good as penniless, and though Ternent worked miracles keeping the club in the Championship, albeit only just, he was replaced in the summer by new man Steve Cotterill.
Blake continued to shine, scoring another 13 goals by January, but was unsettled by bids that came from Wigan Athletic and Paul Jewell. Wigan’s final bid was £700,000 but was rejected despite Burnley’s precarious financial state. The whole tone of the dealings left a lot to be desired and accusations flew back and forth that the player had been ‘tapped’ and deliberately unsettled.
Out of the blue, however, came a bid from Steve Bruce and Birmingham City. Burnley accepted the reported bid of £1.25m. To a degree the whole affair left fans with the feeling that they had been deserted and that with the financial limitations at Turf Moor and the best player sold, that the future held little promise.
He made his debut for Birmingham in the FA Cup against Leeds United and was confident he could succeed black in the Premiership.
“Clinton Morrison and Emile Heskey have done fantastically well, but hopefully I can push them for a place. I can play in a few positions, behind the strikers or dropping deep, and that gives the gaffer some selection to think about. I thought if anything a bottom four team in the Premiership would come in for me. But Birmingham, with the quality of players they have, was an even bigger bonus.”
His time at Birmingham was unsuccessful and he played just 11 games and before the year was out he had signed for Leeds United and manager Kevin Blackwell for £800,000. The financial problems that Leeds United had been through are well documented but they remained ambitious and determined to get back into the Premiership and Blackwell saw the signing as an indication that things were on the up at Elland Road. He signed a three year deal.
“It’s a step back in terms of divisions but hopefully I can get back into the Premier League with Leeds. With the quality of players we have got, I’m sure there will be no end of goals going in.”
To a degree he was right and there was a Wembley play-off final against Watford. But it was Watford who won and from that point on Leeds’ financial problems increased. The problem he faced was that he was one of six strikers at Leeds and he failed to become a first-team regular until Blackwell left and new manager Dennis Wise arrived. He managed eight goals in 2006/07 but Leeds were relegated to League One, money problems became even worse, the club filed for administration and there was a ten points deduction. Players had to go and Blake was one of them.
It was Burnley who re-signed him for a bargain fee of just £250,000, Leeds being eager to get him off the wage bill. Steve Cotterill, who admired him enormously, announced that Blake, by now 31, had “unfinished business” at Turf Moor. The club ran a season ticket promotion campaign on the back of the signing. “Don’t miss the chance for a reunion with Robbie Blake; it’s not too late to secure your season ticket.” Burnley still had little money to play around with but the arrival of a new director, Brendan Flood, had resulted in a small increase in available funds. Flood revealed that they had been working on the deal for a few weeks and doing their best to keep it quiet.
“With strikers, once it gets mooted that they may be on the move, it invites others to join in the hunt. Being able to keep it under wraps is therefore vital; otherwise you get competitive bids coming and the price spirals. Robbie is a proven entertainer and one of the top strikers in the Championship and we know he is always going to score goals. But the really important factor is that he is happy and keen to play for Burnley.”
The truth, as well we know, is that footballers in this day and age follow the money as a general rule, but that said, there is an element of truth in the observation that Turf Moor may well have been his ‘spiritual home’ as pundit Peter Beagrie described it. After his return in July 2007, notwithstanding the occasional dip in form, he blossomed so that in 2008/09 he was certainly one of that small band of brothers who flourished, entertained and provided an outstanding season beyond the wildest dreams of any Burnley supporter.
His return in 2007 was a popular one; the Turf Moor fans are loyal to their favourites and his return debut in August saw a 2 – 1 win over West Bromwich Albion. Steve Cotterill had faith in him but eventually he too was replaced as manager as wins and entertainment dried up.
In came Owen Coyle from Scotland. Encouraged by Coyle’s brand of football philosophy and style; the same players who under Cotterill had set a club record of 19 games without a win, then proceeded to play, to entertain, to attack, and to blossom. Nine of them, including Robbie Blake formed the team that started the game at Wembley in May 2009 and won promotion to the Premiership.
This is not to say that all was sweetness and light between the manager and Blake early in that season when Blake was demoted to the bench. “I had a little sulk,” said Blake albeit with a cheeky grin on his face. Nevertheless he appeared in every one of Burnley’s 61 games, a tremendous achievement and only one of two players at the club to do so. If anyone had said to him at the beginning of the season that he would play 61 games he would have shook his head no doubt in disbelief. Only Manchester United played more games than Burnley with a squad of players twice as big. The scale of Burnley’s and Blake’s achievement was truly monumental for although they had a squad of 23, small enough in itself, an even smaller number of just 18 players, week in week out, played the vast majority of the games.
It was at the time he signed for Birmingham City, when he was 28, that Blake made a prophetic statement. “I feel I’m the type of player who will improve with age so you never give up hope of getting back into the Premiership.” To say he improved with age was indeed an understatement.
A list of his magic moments during the promotion season would begin with his home goal against Reading when he received a pass on the edge of the box and with pure guile threaded a low shot into the corner of the goal. A perfect, long-distance free-kick strike away at Preston was a trademark goal. A goal at Coventry during the win was class but his celebration has entered folklore at the club.
Apparently well known for his failure to win at poker on the team coach, even when possessing a winning hand, a ‘bad-beat-bob’ hand, he was presented by Clarke Carlisle before the Coventry game with a commemorative pair of red underpants inscribed with ‘bad beat bob’ on the rear. After his Coventry strike in his glee he lowered his shorts and revealed the briefs to the delight of the Burnley crowd. The club shop cashed in of course and sold hundreds. Director Brendan Flood in his elation after the win at Chelsea wore a pair over his trousers into the Chelsea directors’ room. He was asked to remove them. The briefs took a bow again at Wembley when after an on-pitch interview he skipped over to the Burnley fans, and revealed them to the utter delight of the crowd as he danced across the turf. The studio pundits were in hysterics.
Perhaps it was the game at Plymouth when the belief really took hold that the play-offs were achievable. Again it was a superb Blake strike that decided the game when he half-volleyed the ball as it came to him 18 yards out and lashed it home. Another superb strike came at QPR just a few days after Chelsea had been disposed of.
But if there is one truly memorable free kick that still lives in the memory it is a goal that he scored against Preston North End at Turf Moor from 30 yards out and wide of the penalty area. With minimal back-lift he struck a shot of such power and accuracy that it arrowed into the top right corner of the net before anyone could blink. The ground was stunned and for a brief moment there was a sort of stunned silence until the sheer magnificence of this goal registered.
If one game defined Robbie Blake’s career at Burnley it was the Carling Cup game against Tottenham Hotspurs at Turf Moor on
Over the years, Burnley versus Spurs games had always been special. There were the games of the early sixties when McIlroy and Adamson pitted their skills against those of Blanchflower, Mackay and Greaves et al. In 1984 Second Division Burnley went to White Hart Lane and won 4 – 1 in the Milk Cup as it was then known, to provide a massive upset. And then during Stan Ternent’s tenancy Burnley, then a Championship side, had beaten Spurs 2 – 1 at Turf Moor in the Carling Cup to provide another upset, reminding the fans of what life was once like at Turf Moor in the glory days.
Spurs arrived at Burnley for this 2009 semi-final game in no great shape. Harry Redknapp had done a reasonable job in bringing some semblance of stability and recovery to a side that had done really badly until his arrival. The first part of their season had been dreadful. The possibility of relegation was quite clearly there the way things were going. Somehow they had won the first leg of the tie 4 – 1 and the Burnley team and supporters who were there still wonder how. The first 45 minutes of that game had been a showcase for all that was good about Burnley with one-touch passing, slick moves, speed and acceleration and they certainly deserved to go in at half-time at least 2 – 0 up. Robbie Blake sent a glancing header half an inch wide. Had that gone in to make the score 2 – 0 it was reasonable to assume Burnley would have gone on to win the game. As it was, the one goal they scored was buried beneath the four goals that Tottenham scored in a 20 minute second-half spell.
When they arrived in Burnley for the second game the pundits agreed that they had the game in the bag with their healthy three-goal cushion. It seemed hardly possible that a small Championship side could overturn such a lead against a side containing the multi-million pound stars that Tottenham had assembled. But in atrocious conditions with cold, swirling rain that battered the ground, in front of almost 20,000 soaked people and millions more on TV that is exactly what happened on a night of drama, excitement, passion, pride and then ultimate heartbreaking disappointment.
In a game like this, three goals down, the classic game plan is usually to bag an early goal, get one more to set up a charge for the finishing line, and then a late winner to give the opposition no time to come back. Burnley did this by the book, and did exactly that to level the overall score.
Harry Redknapp handed the Clarets some hope by including a rookie goalkeeper and the young lad, who had already tipped away a goal-bound back-pass, had not one clue about Blake’s free-kick taking ability. In the 34th minute he curled a wonderful dead-ball kick from 30 yards, wide of the defensive wall, and into the net at the near post. The Spurs defence and the Burnley players mostly at the far post presumed that was where a hopeful cross would go. Not so: the magnificent free-kick with a low trajectory curled its way in and the jubilation was simply immense. Game on.
At half-time the topic of conversation was simple; could Burnley get a second whilst at the same time keeping out the talents of Defoe, Modric and Pavlyochenko. Hybrid side this might have been, but it still contained some impressive players. In truth other than an occasional attempt on goal they hardly seemed interested and Burnley ran the game. The second goal was no surprise.
Blake again: another moment of brilliance. He received the ball someway out on the left-wing. He weaved his way this way and that, twisting, turning, changing direction, cutting in, cutting out, leaving Gunter flat on his backside, leaving Bentley flat on his backside before firing across a fast, low ball that McCann pounced on at the far post to fire home. The creation of this goal alone was worth the entrance money. This was skill, flair, dazzling footwork, a man on top of his game, and it left all of us open-mouthed. In a word it was stunning.
2 – 0: Was it really possible that Burnley could do the impossible? Burnley pressed even harder and with nine minutes to go Coyle brought on the young fresh-legged Rodriguez. Now it was all out attack. Nerves were close to breaking point when suddenly Pavlyuchenko was clear but missed the target. Four minutes to go, death or glory, you just sensed that something was going to happen. It was one of those nights.
And then: a free kick way out on the left. Of course it was Blake who took it and the kick, the flight, the trajectory was perfect. The young goalkeeper dropped the ball and it was Rodriguez who immediately lobbed the ball into the net. The tumult that followed was like nothing ever witness before at Turf Moor and that includes European nights in the sixties against Reims and Hamburg. Some people really thought that Burnley had won the tie but alas when the euphoria died down there was the realisation that there was now 30 minutes of extra time.
“Keep playing the way you are and you’re there,” Alex Ferguson texted Alastair Campbell.
Those minutes were agony for all Burnley fans. They ticked down slowly, agonisingly. The wet, heavy pitch, boggy pitch now counted against Burnley who had run themselves into a state of exhaustion. Paterson was dead on his feet and was replaced by Akinbiyi, Eagles could hardly move. But Blake was still working like a Trojan to defend deep in his own half. Spurs who had done so little and hardly broken sweat all night did even less in the first period of extra time.
But, in the second period, the fatigue that the Burnley players felt was like a deep pit and with the fans whistling and screaming for the final whistle, believing that Wembley was within touching distance, Spurs made a foray into the Burnley half. The ball was squared across the penalty area and suddenly Pavlyuchenko had the ball in the net with just two minutes to go. The curtain of silence that fell from three sides of the ground was instant, one of stunned shock and heartbroken disbelief. Jensen had in fact got a touch to the Russian’s perfectly placed shot. Then on the stroke of full time insult was added to injury when the invisible Defoe who had been appalling all night, advanced on goal and finished clinically.
The ovation that rained down from the stands on Blake and the Burnley players was no consolation to them. They had been heroes and had deserved to win, but for some there was the clear feeling that this game was the last chance they would have of playing at the new Wembley in a Cup Final. Sometimes the football gods decree that heroics will count for nothing. Heads drooped, shoulders slumped, some sat down in disbelief, and some were clearly in tears. No one deserved to win more than Blake but life and football is cruel. If only we could have said to them, “Don’t worry you will win the Championship play-off at Wembley in May.”
After the game Blake was inconsolable.
“I don’t think you can think of being proud at the moment, it’s just sheer devastation. We’ve come so close to the final of a major competition. The lads have turned in an outstanding performance and I can’t put it into words, we’re just devastated. It was an unbelievable performance, you couldn’t have written it to be honest. Everybody made a contribution to the game and we deserved to go through, but that’s the way it goes and we’ll just have to take it on the chin. You look at the run we’ve had and we haven’t been lucky, it’s all deserved and if anything, we were unlucky down at their place. We didn’t deserve to be 4 – 1 down. Yes we can be proud, but at the moment it’s devastating.
“They have fantastic players and it was a great finish from Pavlyochenko. Brian was unlucky he didn’t manage to keep that one out, he can’t keep them all out. He got a good hand to it but it was just a sickener. To get done in that way at the end, it’s cruel. We’ve beaten them 3 – 0 over 90 minutes but with the rules, not having away goals counting after 90 minutes, it’s just so frustrating. To come so far and get so close, to get the three goals and then concede with 27 minutes gone in extra-time, it was a sucker-punch. To beat them 3 – 0 in 90 minutes took a lot out of us, and we tried to play it out and keep the ball in their half, but they punished us at the end.
“It was a great feeling, my goal. Grezza said, ‘The keeper’s well over there; have a go’. I gave him the eyes, he stepped a yard and there was enough power on it to make sure it went in. It was a great feeling but I’m devastated now. I’m not thinking ‘what a goal’; I’m just gutted about the result.
“The fans were amazing; they really were our twelfth man. I’m sure the players are proud of the fans and the fans are proud of the players and the way they performed. It’s just so disappointing, so many Burnley fans in the wet and the wind. It’s just one of those things.”
Owen Coyle tried to put the emotions we all felt into words:
“The lads have shown tonight that when they get to the levels we’ve set, we’re a good side. So there’s a lot to take from that. There’s disappointment but I’ve been there as a player and a manager and you go again. They must have the mental strength to go along with their ability to bounce back. We have that disappointment but they can go out with their heads held high because some of the play was magnificent. There’s no doubt it was very cruel on us but that’s why we all love football. Hopefully further down the line it will work for us. But I couldn’t have asked any more of these players. We’re a Championship club so to recover that deficit and look the team in charge, I think it has in essence, been a wonderful night for Burnley Football Club. The fans have turned out and shown what the club is all about. The atmosphere was unbelievable tonight, that’s what I want as a manager and it’s what I want on a game to game basis. It’s not always going to be possible but the fans played their part. They were magnificent and roared us on from the start.
“When you analyse both legs, I think we were the better side. But you don’t always get what you deserve in football and that’s what happened tonight. We were two minutes away from going to that Final but they were terrific finishes from their two lads at the end. I think at that point our lads were out on their legs, if you think about the amount of games they’ve played and what they gave tonight. I really couldn’t be any more proud of the lads and what they offered. I couldn’t have asked any more of them individually and collectively. I asked them to go out and reach a standard tonight and not to have any regrets. The only regret is that we’ve not reached the Final. It’s important that we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down now. We’ve got a massive game on Saturday against West Brom, because we’d love to have an FA Cup run now lime we’ve had in the Carling Cup.
“They’re such a grounded group of players who want to do their best for the club and they’ll be hurting, but we’ll look to use it as a motivation to drive us on.
“It would have been nice to have had that gala day at Wembley and I really believe we could have made a game of it, but it’s not to be.”
“We need to climb Everest,” Coyle had said before the game. They so very nearly did. The Press unanimously praised Burnley to the skies and there wasn’t one reporter that didn’t say Tottenham should be thoroughly embarrassed by their win.
Henry Winter in The Telegraph wrote some memorable lines. His final one: “The tears began to flow for Burnley but really their eyes should glisten with pride.”
Alan Pattullo in The Scotsman wrote that Owen Coyle must have felt that his heart had been ripped from his chest when Pavlyuchenko scored.
“Robbie Blake was the star of the night, the best player on the park,” said the Daily Mirror.
Afterwards Harry Redknapp, totally discomfited, said this had been the most uncomfortable night of his football life and that after the third goals went in he thought they were dead and buried.
“It would have been a nightmare if we’d lost,” said Jermain Defoe, “and it would have been difficult to recover.”
Radio phone-ins after the game were filled with Spurs supporters wondering how on earth they had won, and saying that their overpaid, spoilt, pampered superstars had deserve to lose. Turf Moor on the night of the game opened its doors as the Theatre of Dreams. It closed them as the Theatre of Broken Hearts.
There was only one season in the Premiership with Burnley but two goals will be imprinted in Burnley minds for years to come. Blake’s goal that beat Manchester United was utterly sublime; a volley of such accuracy and power that it almost broke the net. That it was captured by SKY cameras during the live transmission of the game made it all the better. This was a goal and result of such significance that they flashed round the world. If just one goal put Burnley on the international map from New York to the Far East, then this was it.
The goal against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park put Burnley into a 1 – 0 lead. Taking the ball from just inside the Blackburn half he made ground and then let fly from distance with a shot that had the Burnley crowd roaring with joy and elation. It was a goal good enough to win any game but alas Blackburn went on to win 3 – 2.
Making a total of nearly 250 appearances for Burnley, Robbie Blake goes down in Burnley history as a player who made a real and lasting contribution to the club. At his best there were certain moments when he really was the nearest thing to Jimmy McIlroy that some supporters might have seen. He was, in fact, one of the few modern players that Jimmy actually enjoyed watching.
All good things must come to an end, as the saying goes, and it is one of the great sadnesses of football that truly accomplished players grow older. Time takes its toll and they are caught in possession more and more often. Though the head may be willing, the legs simply will not function quite as fast. For some, the waist becomes a little thicker; it becomes harder to stay fit.
Thus, they have to depart – either to retirement or another club. That moment came for the wonderful Robbie Blake in the summer of 2010. Some players are forever welcomed back at Turf Moor. If they step onto the pitch in the colours of a new club they are applauded with affection and appreciation. Robbie Blake will undoubtedly be one of them and football’s law of the ex being what it is, he will score with a trademark free-kick or a blinding volley. I have a hunch that this too will be applauded and we fans will mutter, “Oh why did we let him go – and of all places to Bolton Wanderers?”
Dave Thomas.
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