TWO ENDS OF A NINETY YEAR GAP

Hull City are the visitors to Turf Moor tomorrow. a curious co-incidence surrounds this fixture.

On the 16th September 1905 Burnley played out a 1-1 draw against Hull in the first ever meeting between the two clubs. Exactly 90 years later to the day on the 16th September 1995 Hull were the visitors to Turf Moor for the last game where fans could stand on the iconic Longside before it was demolished to make way for the James Hargreaves Stand. I stood on there many a time, mostly at the front because it meant I could see and it also meant that I was far enough away from the more ahem! " enthusiastic " "fans" (hooligans) at the back of the Longside for my dad to be able to watch the game in peace.

Well nearly in peace as we always seemed to manage to position ourselves in ear (splitting) shot of a very tall thin man who used to shout , without warning, three of four times each half, the phrase "Get it up the park", which while it didn't last long it did have the decibel level of a DC 10 and a pitch that could shatter a chandelier in the Kierby Hotel.

Anyway if you are nostalgic for the Longside here is a link to a site and a video

SECOND STRINGERS

While the big guns blast away in the Premier League the two clubs second teams are in the same division and met in Manchester last week with Burnley taking the honours 2-1.

A match report is here .

Another match report here from the website Clarets Mad which can be accessed by clicking here

For your information and edification here are the two teams:

Manchester City: Gunnar Neilson, Kieran Trippier, Greg Cunningham, Dedryck Boyata, Ben Mee, Michael Johnson (Andrew Tutte 68), Robert Mak, Adam Clayton (Paul Marshall 68), David Ball, Alex Nimely (Abdisalam Ibrahim 68), James Poole. Subs not used: Tobias Johansen, Jack Redshaw.

Burnley: Diego Penny, Ben Hoskin, Nik Kudiersky, David Edgar, Christian Kalvenes (Michael King), Richard Eckersley, Alex-Ray Harvey, Brian Easton, Joe McKee (Dom Knowles 75), Fernando Guerrero, Wes Fletcher. Subs not used: Jonathan Lund, Jake McEneaney, Oliver
Devenney.

Eagle eyed Blues will spot Michael Johnson among the City line up. He played 68 minutes and its good to see him on the way back to fitness.

ITS THE LEAGUE CUP TO ME......

Ahead of City's game against Scunthorpe in the nose bleed inducing 4th Round of the Carling Cup I post the winning goal from Dennis Tuert in the 1976 Final against Newcastle. I hope this acts as a good omen. It was the league Cup by the way, back then. Since then its been allsorts. Milk Cup. Littlewoods Cup. Coca- Cola Cup. Anyone remember any other incarnations.

Anyway the link is here

MANC (UTD) BUSTERS

I know its a bit childish but here's me modelling a T-Shirt my pal Martin gave me. He makes T-Shirts for footie fans to buy and this was is a limited edition he made for some Clarets celebrating Burnley's home win against Man Utd at the start of the season. If you click on the picture then it should enlarge. Its funny - childish- but funny.

HERE...THIS WILL CHEER US UP?

Some pics and a video from The Play Off Final in May. Video has my daughter, nephew, cousin, brother in law and my dad, giving the thumbs up at the end.

THAT DIDN'T GO SO WELL

Blackburn 3 v. Burnley 2

Wigan 1 v. City 1

Not the weekend I was hoping for although the early Burnley goal and the fact that City got a point with 10 men were some crumb of comfort.

The Burnley game was exciting though the result didn't really look much in doubt after Blackburn equalised. Match report here What was more suprising perhaps was the size of the crowd. The capacity is 31,367 and the attendance was 26,689. Surely segregation didn't account for the missing 4678 fans. It's a poor do if Blackburn can't sell out for a derby against Burnley. I bet its a sell out at the Turf. OK we lost so I'm just clutching at straws, but it a fair point nonetheless.

The City match was bloody awful. A point is a point I suppose but City really should be sweeping past teams like Wigan if we have any pretentions to the top four let alone winning the damn thing. I know we went down to 10 men but that was partly because of a first yellow for Zabaleta for a stupid challenge which gained us nothing. City will have to up their performance if this season isn't going to be another let down. De Jong was slow, Richards has gone shit and Adebayour just had a bad day at the office. All told the passing was woeful and without the snap and bite of Bellamy they don't look as sharp up front. Better days ahead I'm sure. Match report here

UPPING THE ANTE

Ahead of Sundays derby with Rovers it seems some Clarets fans have been getting themselves a bit giddy and have been upping ante.

Dressing up Jack Walkers statue is either

a) disrespectful to a fine man

b Funny

Discuss.

Anyway here's the link. Judge for yourself.

Jack Walker is a Claret

CAN'T LET THIS GO BY

Been busy of late and so blogging been a bit lite.

However Sunday 18th October is High Noon for a lot of Clarets fans (well Half Past High Noon to be more precise).

It's the meeting of Blackburn and Burnley at Ewood Park. Lets hope level heads prevails and the day is remembered for a famous Burnley victory rather than the Battle of Ewood Park. Rumours about away fans getting tickets in the Blackburn end do not bode well though.

It's funny but when I was a young boy watching Burnley the Blackburn match, which more often than not seemed to be on Boxing Day, wasn't the big deal it is today.

The real rivals then were Man Utd and to a lesser extent Leeds.

This might be because from 1966 to 1976 Blackburn weren't in the same (higher) division as Burnley. This was the time when I was watching Burnley most, so maybe my perception of the rivalry is coloured by my own personal experience.

There are full head to head stats here

Any way its 39 wins to Blackburn 38 wins to Burnley and 18 draws in all competitions so far.

The last league meeting between the two teams (old Division 1) in 2001 ended in a 5-0 drubbing for the Clarets at Ewood. So let hope there's no repeat of that on Sunday.

Given Burnley's current away goal trajectory it will be 6-0.

Picture shows a tussle at the Turf in the FA Cup quarter final in March 1960. Blackburn won 2-0 by the way.