Firebrace texted me at lunchtime to tell me that he didn’t fancy the cross-Pennine frosty route home that would have followed the game and would not be joining me at the game.  

I can’t blame him for that as I’ve found myself in trouble trying the same route when I was at Leeds Uni in the early nineties – not a nice place to get stuck. That, coupled with QPR’s form of late was probably a good enough reason. I’ll let you decide which was the real reason though…  

I was staying at a Premier Lodge about half a mile from Turf Moor and arrived there at 5:30pm. Sufficient time for a bath, to check in with the family and, most importantly, sink at least four pints (and a curry) to steel myself for the disastrous Rangers display that all of us fully expected.  

Whilst in the pub, I texted Varc, Tom and E17 in the hope that they would forward me good team news regarding the back four (i.e. that all except Stewpeas had been dropped). Unfortunately, E17 called me back to tell me that not only were the Fantastic Four still playing together, but Buzz Lightyear had contracted a ‘dead leg’ and wouldn’t be playing. WHY? If I got a dead leg as a kid, I was told to rub it and get on with it – why is Buzz’s leg so special? Had it actually died? 

I had to relay this to someone, so I met up with three Rangers fans, who were good company on the walk down to the ground, but I can’t remember their names – pesky beer! Good lads although their messageboards of choice were rivals (as was) and dotorg.org. Hopefully, they will be checking our board after I told them I’d be doing this for you lot.

I like Turf Moor in a kind of Subbuteo way. It consists of four single tier stands , impressive and compact, but strangely atmosphere-free and distant; like the stadia we constructed back in our Subbuteo playing days (or was that just me?). 

The Burnley fans, as many home fans are (including ours these days…), were not loud, but, aside from the last twenty minutes or so, neither were the 2-300 Rangers fans who made the journey up from London. I say made the journey, but Tony, who I sat with was from Leeds, Dave Thomas and his MancR compatriots obviously didn’t have far to travel and the family that sat behind me for the first half clearly did not travel far judging from their accents.  

So Lee Camp had the Fantastic Four in front of him – Bob Malcolm (Ben Grimm - The Thing), Damion Stewart (Reed Richards - Mr Fantastic), Zesh Rehman (Suzie Storm – Ms. Invisible (!)) and Chris Barker (Doh – there is no way I can call him the Human Torch; still, three out of four aint bad…). 

In midfield, Scott ‘commitment’ Sinclair lined up on the left, Gareth Ainsworth had the chance to prove he can make a difference by lining up on the right and Adam Bolder and Mikele Leigertwood were in the middle. Up top, Super Dex had been overlooked in favour of Mr. Translator, Marc Nygaard and Rowan Vine.  

The first half was pretty uneventful to be honest and I recall only two shots; one either end being on target. Alan Mahon, the Burnley midfielder did, however, hit the post with a twenty-five yard effort after we failed to close him down, which was probably the closest either team came to a goal.  

In line with my previous experience of watching Rangers over the last three or four years, we weren’t really troubled, but we didn’t really threaten either. The main memory I have was the bizarre tactic of getting our right winger (Ains) to mark their left winger whilst our ‘full back’ (the statue of Bob Malcolm) stood, marking no-one, about five yards from the angle of the right side of the penalty area. Consequently, their full back was having a field day over-lapping; luckily, for us, he seemed incapable of capitalising on this strange set-up.  

After the game, I discussed this with E17, who told me that firebrace also noticed that Rowly was doing this on Saturday (v Scunthorpe). It is a strange tactic and I can honestly say it frightened the hell out of me, but what do I know?  

Of the fantastic four, Chris Barker put a good shift in during the first half, but Burnley were strangely poor to be honest. 

The second half was a different story in many ways. Whilst the pace of the first half was quite slow, the second half was much more frantic. In the first half, I can’t recall us stringing together any more than three consecutive passes. The fantastic four were mainly culpable for this with their unnecessary hoofs, in particularly Zesh Rehman, who has so clearly lost any semblance of confidence that he had when he first got here. I suspect that he has been told to put his foot or head through the ball instead of f’ing around with it.  

However, there were periods in the second half, where we looked like we could keep possession. No team exerted any sustained pressure on the other in the early stages of the second half and it was a bit end to end until a run from the previously un-interested Scott Sinclair resulted in a corner in the 60th minute. 

Immediately previous to this, Clark-aholic Carlisle had to leave the fray following an injury and the comments from the Rangers faithful as he walked in front of us were singly themed, as you’d expect. 

Sinclair took the corner himself and, straight from the QPR school of defending set pieces, the remaining Burnley defence went walk about leaving super Damion Stewart completely free. Stewpeas made no mistake at the far post heading the ball down and back the way it came into the bottom corner. Rapture? Nope, shock and dis-belief more like. Still, we’d been here as recently as last week – a Stewpeas goal to put us into the lead – surely, the England-cricket team style collapse wasn’t far away?  

Deep defending (as seems to be the norm when we go ahead) called pressure on to us, but, aside from a penalty area scramble in which Burnley fans told me after the game, one of our defenders scooped the ball up with his arms and Lee Camp produced his now standard world class save, Burnley had nothing to offer. 

Then, just after we were told that the fourth official had dreamt up FOUR minutes of additional time, Burnley threw everyone forward including Pyjama-wearing ex-red n’blue poo Inch High Private Eye Gabor Kiraly. ‘What was the point in that’, I thought as I cannot see what aerial threat he could ever pose.  

Sure enough the ball broke to Rowan Vine on the half way line; he decided to get it under control and run with it instead of having a pot shot from fifty yards out. Kiraly and a defender gave chase, but our man left them in his wake to score a second goal of his loan spell. The manner of its scoring should not be underestimated and showed great presence of mind; most would have taken the pot shot from the half way line.  

Even after two minutes of additional time, there was still time for another five minutes to play. You work it out, how can that be? Surely, we need to reduce the length of a football game to 40 minutes each way and only let the clock run when the ball is in play? It shouldn’t be that difficult to implement, should it? 

But, you know the score now, we held on for a fantastic win, played, in my mind at least as a tribute to young Ray Jones. Rest in peace young man.  

Ratings:
Lee Camp – 6.5 fantastic second half save (as always), but not much to do to be honest.

Bob Malcolm - 6 – FFS NOT A RIGHT BACK! I am getting so pissed of with the modern game that does not allow a nippy, skilful full back to be played in position. Big Lumps are apparently the way forward. I’ve seen more movement from a constipated Sheepdog – shocking!

HMS Barker - 6 – steady, but will never be my cup of tea as he seems incapable of overlapping or providing quality crosses.

Stewpeas – MOM – 7.5 – Three old fellas who were Burnley fans chatted to me after the game and they were VERY impressed by Stewpeas. He won everything that was thrown at him. Surely the only one who should survive the January cull.

Zesh – 6.5 – As stated above, he started poorly with no confidence, but, to be honest, was not as bad as usual. Maybe his approach of hoofing as opposed to trying to play results in an improvement?

Scott Sinclair – 6.5 –No commitment defensively, but absolute class when he has the ball at his feet. If Chelscum can give him the Joe Cole treatment, he will be an England regular in time for the next Euro Championships.

Gareth Ainsworth – 6.5 – lots of effort as he was playing both full back and winger for the majority of the game. Not enough end product though, but I’d guess that was because Super Bobby didn’t break into a sweat.

Adam Bolder – 7 – Best game from Adam for a while, the pick of the midfield as he was always looking for the ball and closed opponents down well.

Mikele – 6.5 – not his best game by a long way; battled, but did not use the ball as effectively as I’ve seen him do.

Marc Nygaard – 6 – as always, some ridiculous mis-controls followed by sublime touches. Won a lot in the air, but the flicks went nowhere.

Rowan Vine – 7 – great work rate as always and superb finishing for the 2nd goal.  

Subs:
Simon Walton – WOW! Didn’t even know he was on the bench until he came on. In fact, I didn’t even know it was him until E17 confirmed it post game – all the action after he came on was too far away to make comment.

Dexter Blackstock & Stefan Moore – no time to judge either although I have no doubt that if the game continued another five minutes Stefan Shite would have turned a 2-0 lead into a 3-2 defeat. 

Referee – Mr Pike – 7 – good performance; kept his cards in his pocket until Barker gave him no choice with a pointless whinge when the referee would not allow a substitution.  

Opposition – 4 – cannot believe that this is the same Burnley that (apparently) destroyed Wolves on Saturday. Just goes to show that everyone beats everyone in this league…  

Oh, as a footnote, no titty bars on this report!

simon@qprnet.com