Burnley 3 City 0
It was Friday night, and I was looking forward to the match at Burnley the following day. I just had a couple of things to check out on the Internet … the times of the local trains and confirming the easiest walk from Burnley Central to the ground. I knew the way from Burnley Manchester Road station to the ground as I'd done that a few years ago, but I couldn't quite remember the way from Central station. I'd only used that station once before, and that was 30 years ago near the end of the 1979-80 season.
I thought I'd treat myself to a bottle of beer whilst finalising my plans, so I popped downstairs to open a bottle of Buckden's Pale Ale. If I'd taken the trouble to read the label more closely I would have noticed that it said it was "bottle conditioned beer, and as such contains yeast for a second fermentation in the bottle. This allows the full flavours to emerge with a natural effervescence". Natural effervescence! I'll say. When I opened it, the whole thing just "blew up in my face" and absolutely drenched me. It wasn't the best start to my weekend's football preparations. Not that I'm superstitious, you understand …
Saturday came, and for a change it was a nice day up here in the North West. It seemed like the first good day for a couple of months – to be precise, since a hosepipe ban had been introduced in these parts. Anyway me and a friend caught the local train to Burnley, courtesy of a cheap "Northern Duo" day return. This helped recoup a few pennies from the slightly exotic ticket price…..
Now don't get me wrong, I like my visits to the smaller Lancashire grounds. But £26 seemed a bit steep for the pleasure of sitting on a 1969 wooden seat. Although I must confess we did have an excellent view of the game. We moved 50 yards to the left of our allocated seat, and just sat directly behind the goal (from where incidentally, you can see that the opposite stand is a few yards out of alignment with the pitch. It's funny the things you notice, before the game starts).
Both sets of fans were in good voice, and City started the match brightly. We were all over them for the first 30 seconds, and had a good chance to score after a move down the left wing. That's about as good as it got all day. After that, it was all very fast and frenetic, with Burnley generally on top – but without having too many obvious chances. City couldn't really get any sustained passing going, and our cause wasn't helped when Chris Weale had to go off injured.
The first comedy moment came near the end of the first half, when we took a free kick down the middle and it hit one of our players (who wasn't even looking) smack on the back. The irony of that moment returned in stoppage time. Just when it looked like it would be 0-0 at the interval, a long range shot from Burnley took a wicked deflection off the back of one of our defenders. Substitute goalie Conrad Logan had a "that'll be the ball then" moment as it wickedly curled past him and spun-in off the far post. In fairness, there probably wasn't much he could have done about it.
City started the second half with purpose, and had a good 10 minute spell pushing Burnley back down the left flank. We couldn't get anything from the resulting corners, and paid the price.
In the 62nd minute, Burnley went up-field. The cross from the left didn't seem too dangerous but Iwelumo was too big/strong/good and the ball ended up in the back of the net. I wondered if Weale might have got a hand to it, but I'm probably being a bit unfair to Logan. It seemed a bit harsh, as we'd just our best spell in the match.
We didn't have too much longer to wait, before being put out of our misery. A neat 1-2 on the outside of our box … theatrical dive … referee buys it … Alexander steps up to take it … that'll be 3-0 then. After that, we huffed and puffed but the game was up.
The second comedy moment duly arrived when an irate City fan ran on the pitch, dug up the corner flag, ran up to their goalie and waved it at him. Jensen decided not to intercept him … or should that be "Interceptor"?. The stewards carted him off to await his fate, which will presumably be a hefty fine, to add to the £26 already wasted.
A few City fans gave the players a bit of stick when they came off, which was probably as much due to position of the tunnel being at the away end, rather than any deep disgust at the performance. For a visiting player, Turf Moor is a good ground to win away at. It's not such a clever ground to get stuffed 3-0 at.
In truth, the 3-0 score line was a bit harsh. Burnley looked better than City for half an hour, but we seemed to have weathered the storm and it looked like we would be going in level at the interval. Even after the freak deflected goal, we came out strongly in the 2nd half, but got caught by a sucker punch. And the penalty looked very dodgy to me. I didn't think we were quite that bad. In a 28 minute period, the game just "blew up in our face". Now where have I heard that before?
We called in at excellent Bridge Bier Huis pub on the way back to the station for a quick beer. The TV in the corner showed a league table with us at the bottom. I don't think it was quite supposed to be like this after 3 games. A long way to go, don't panic!
City – Weale – Neilson, Moreno, Hobbs, Berner – King, Oakley, Wellens – Campbell, Howard, N'Guessan Subs – Morrison, Gallagher, Logan (for Weale, 43), Kennedy, Lamey (for Neilson, 56), Moussa (for Oakley, 80), Crncic
Burnley – Jensen , Alexander, Fox, Carlisle, Marney, Iwelumo, Paterson, Elliott, Mears, Bikey, Wallace Subs – Cork (for Marney, 66), McDonald, Cort, Rodriguez, Thompson (for Iwelumo, 70), Eagles (for Eagles, 66), Grant
Scorers: Wallace 45, Iwelumo 62, Alexander (pen) 74
Booked: Marney, Wallace
Attendance: 15516
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation