Talk To Me

Burnley 2-0 ITFC May 4th 2013

Once I had found a cheap hotel that looked reasonable, we made the decision to go to the final game of the season - £65 including breakfast at The Rosehill House Hotel seemed to good to miss! We both took Friday off work and took a leisurely drive up to Lancashire via Worksop, Sheffield and across the Snake Pass, which was bleak and not very scenic. We were planning to have a picnic there but ended up having it in Accrington where we also had an improvised tour of the Crown Ground, home of Accrington Stanley!

A real football ground

The Rosehill Hotel

After checking in, we took a walk into Burnley town centre which was about half a mile down hill from the hotel. I have to say it was fairly uninspiring and after a drink we had to trek back up.  

The lady at the hotel reception booked us a table at Ninos, an Italian pub/restaurant in nearby Cliviger, after informing us of the lack of decent places to eat in Burnley. It was only a fifteen minute taxi ride there and it was well worth the £7 fare.

Turf Moor from one side of town

Ninos

Turf Moor from the other side of town at Cliviger

My Saturday morning was kicked off with a full English breakfast which was excellent. After packing, we checked out of the Rosehill and headed to Turf Moor for the 12.45pm kickoff.

With the luxury of knowing that we were safe in the Championship Mick McCarthy chose to make four changes from last weeks game, including giving Tyrone Mings his Ipswich debut.

Motorcycle emptiness

The game was pretty uneventful, especially the first half where the two teams just seemed to be playing out the time. It took a superb strike from Burnley substitute Junior Stanislas to break the deadlock and bring a very quiet home support to life after sixty minutes. McCarthy then gave a debut to academy player of the season Jack Marriott before the game restarted. Both sides then had chances to score before Martin Paterson doubled the Clarets lead with just three minutes left of the season, heading a corner past Scott Loach. 

This meant that I needed Town to score two quick goals so that I could finish above Sharon in the TWTD's prediction league. 

Burnley swapped keepers in the final minute, Lee Grant making way for the veteran Brian Jenson. "The Beast" clearly a fans favourite and wasn't going to concede two late goals so I, like Ipswich, was beaten!

The playlist
Talk To Me by Southside Johnny And The Asbury Dukes - unknown to us until we arrived in Lancashire it was the weekend of “The 25th Burnley International Rock and Blues Festival”, with Southside Johnny And The Asbury Dukes headlining on the Saturday night. We saw Southside Johnny perform Talk To Me with Bruce Springsteen in Madrid last year at the Bernabéu. 
Max had requested Motorcycle emptiness by the Manics if we had have won. Max and I both think that Burnley manager Sean Dyche is a secret biker!