The Final Part of Notes from the Football Field

Shankly said that football wasn’t a matter of life or death, it was more important than that. I can tell you that Shanks was wrong; Easter Sunday 1981 and our son was born 3 months prematurely and weighing only 1lb 10oz; if anything was more important than this, I had yet to encounter it and I had played plenty of football. This was hell and back.

Martins fight for life lasted 4 months on a ventilator in that incubator and it was August before he finally made it home. It was like a nightmare as the extent of the damage he had suffered became known to us over the next two years and it has taken us a lifetime to accept the situation.

Football wasn’t that important anymore and for the next 6 years I didn’t play; some might say that neither did Burnley during that period either, which culminated in that game in 1987. I had no time for football and spent my time almost in mourning, searching for the answer as to why us; there was never a road to Damascus moment that eased the agony, it was rather a slow realisation, that we had to make the best of our situation and do the best we could for Martin.

My final comeback for one year only, came the year after that game. At the age of 35 my ego was massaged enough to persuade me to take charge of my local pubs The Anchor’s reserve side as player manager. All those years of theories could now be put into practice and I could develop my own team of the 90s!

Hang on, this was the 4th Division of the St.Helens Combination we were talking about; funny this was also the same divison that I started my senior football in as a 17 year old; what comes around, goes around; it would be a piece of cake, or so I thought.

The side was basically a lot of 18 and 19 year olds; proud lads who wanted to play every week to impress their mates and didn’t take to being left out of the side lightly. We had a goalkeeper who went onto have a spell at Wigan Athletic towards the end of the season; Pilkie who was a left winger who was as talented as I had seen, but lazy, temperamental, fast as lightening, could go through the entire opposition and then do it again for laughs, but wasn’t a team player; sulked and when dropped, never turned up again. Man management skills; tell me about it!

We occupied a modest just below mid table position in the league and my days of leading the line were well gone. It was middle of the back 4 for me and there was more coaching than tackling coming from me on the pitch!

I had tried to instil a disciplined approach to training and turning up for games and whilst everyone was happy to go along with that in principle; they were not that keen when they fell foul and weren’t selected.

Our keeper (not the one Wigan bound), turned up for a game drunk, with a near empty bottle of Malibu he and his mate had been at; he didn’t play again. An ex pro rugby league player wanted his brother also in the side and I didn’t oblige and although he stayed, his brother left. My god this was major surgery and I wasn’t sure if all the decisions I made were the right ones.

My pace had gone and the once, “give them a yard then hit them, ball body and all” didn’t work anymore; I gave them a yard and in no time it was two, three or four yards. Clumsy tackles and challenges became common; the brain still knew what was happening in front of me and I could still read the play unfolding; the legs simply wouldn’t get me there.

The final game was the Divisional Cup and our now depleted squad turned out in the semi final; the bickering and ill feeling was enough and although we played OK, lost 4-1, I said my piece and left, the boots (a pair of Gola screw in studs) are still in the garage, mud on from that final game.

So to my beloved Burnley; whether it’s the Premiership or the Unibond; it will always be Burnley; as a young lad, from the day of watching the cup final on TV, crying my eyes out with my plate of jam butties and bottle of Tizer, to the heady days when we challenged the best and played in Europe; to the dark days when our very existence seemed in doubt.

Coming from my part of the country, people often say why Burnley? They don’t understand; following a team is a lifelong thing; it is not a mercenary thing. You have to believe that the rollercoaster ride will take an upward turn.

I’m glad I played my football when I did; because as I sit writing these final notes in the series, I gaze out from my lounge window across the park were it all started for me in the cub team all those years ago. The football posts, changing rooms and pitch are gone; kids are rarely seen kicking a football; they have other interests to pursue.

It is sad to see this decline and if Shanks was wrong about football being more important than life; he was right that football is important; it’s a commitment to the team whether as a supporter or player, its about loyalty, work ethic, team work, understanding and sympathy. How much better our lives would be if we could encourage more of these attributes.

I hope you have enjoyed these notes and at this time of year may I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Colinwaldron