TV cuts didn't tell true tale of how we tamed the Tigers
PERHAPS for the first time this season I got some inkling as to how television editing can give a strange slant to a Premier League match.
Saturday's Match Of The Day managed to fill the seven minutes or so allotted to the Hull game with every Hull chance and much commentary about how hard done by the Tigers and beleaguered boss Phil Brown were at Turf Moor.
I won't argue about the fortunate nature of some of the decisions that went Burnley's way, save to say that Steve Hunt fell over his own feet for the free kick which led to the struck-off Hull goal (and Burnley supporters were every bit as stunned as Hull ones when it was chalked off).
But in concentrating on Brown's fate (he's lived to fight another day we found out by Monday) it missed the point that Burnley were fully deserving of the three points.
They sensed Hull's nervousness from the off and did exactly what they had to do, passing the ball well, defending pretty solidly and never really looking in trouble to make it five crucial wins from six games at home in the campaign.
It made all the punditry a bit odd, which won't bother us too much with the points in the bag.
It is back to the troublesome away road on Saturday when the Clarets face the division's big spenders, Manchester City.
City has not been a happy hunting ground for Burnley through the 90s and Noughties, perhaps the darkest hour before the dawn coming in Stan Ternent's first season in charge in 1998-99, when they whacked six past us at Turf Moor and Burnley looked doomed to drop back into the league's bottom tier.
The dawn came in the excellent run of form and escape that followed that night. Let's hope it gets lighter a bit sooner this time out!
- BURNLEY fans will have been saddened to learn of the death of Margaret Potts this week.
Margaret was the widow of perhaps the club's greatest manager, Harry Potts, and she co-authored with Todmorden born sports writer Dave Thomas "Margaret's Story", a book about her life with the great man.
Dave told the football narrative but what gave the book another dimension were Margaret's own, often very personal memoirs.
It made the book very special - heartbreaking in parts, when the narrative described Harry's final years when he suffered from serious illness.
Dave says he was privileged to work on the book with the feisty Margaret, and it is certainly a cut above many football biographies.
I always got the impression that Margaret loved the Burnley crowd's (if not always the board's) appreciation of her husband's contribution to the club, when she attended functions like the re-naming of part of Brunshaw Road as Harry Potts Way.
She took his place in the Millennium parade around the ground of the 1959-60 league champions and in her final months I hope she was able to appreciate the club's return to the top flight under Owen Coyle - a manager who certainly believes in the team playing passing football positively, the way Harry liked it.
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Weather for Halifax
Sunday 05 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 3 C to 5 C
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