Burnley 0 V Rovers 2

[cletus]

Burnley 0 v Rovers 2 (McAteer, Bent)

att...21369

17th Dec 2000

The first league encounter for about 18yrs & this game was talk of the town...both towns. Burnley were actually above us in the table & were having a decent season. The Souness revolution was yet to kick-start itself.

Because of previous trouble between the two rival sets of fans, police & clubs made it nigh on impossible for non-season ticket holders to get tickets for the trip to Yorkshire. A strict vetting system was put to use...& i was going to lose out.

Rovers fans were also encouraged to use the 'free' transport laid on by the club, which would be escorted to Yorkshire in a series of police convoys.

Anyway, i left no stone unturned in my quest to get a ticket & i eventually got one through my boss knowing someone in the club ;)All i had to do was say i was the person who`s name was on the ticket. When i went to Ewood to register for the free travel, they asked my name...i told them, then they asked my post-code,"oops!" Next thing the woman in the ticket office called a policewoman over, so i did one. I`d have to make my own way over.

Matchday.

As i drove over to Yorkshire, i noticed police officers on every motorway bridge, a police helicopter & passed a Rovers convoy surrounded by those big blue police vans. It was like a military operation. I parked up just up the road from the turd & walked down to the ground. The away end turnstyles weren`t open so i milled around outside. Most of the Burnley fans were teenagers just hanging round trying to look 'iffy' but just up the road a bigger bunch of neanderthals were having a bit of a missile throwing competition with the local plod outside a pub. Next thing a whale of sirens & activity as police horses moved all the milling dingles down the road away from the oncoming 1st convoy. I got moved on. The Rovers coaches arrived with loads of lads hammering on the inside windows making nasty gestures at the locals. You could hear the chanting from inside the coaches "Who let the Dingles out? who? who?who?" A copper on a horse shouted at me "I`ve told you to move away!" so i approached him & showed him my ticket. "i think i`m in there with them mate" the copper looked at me & told me i was a stupid #### & let me through. i was in!

The game.

I cannot remember much about the game itself, only the amazingly hostile atnosphere from both sets of fans. Rovers fans all around me were bouncing non-stop & chanting all those wonderful anti-Burnley songs we all grew up with. Some-one had smashed the toilets up under the stand & water was everywhere, but we didn`t care.

I remember something about David Dunn getting clattered (did the dingle get sent off?..think he did) & ofcourse the goals. We were in heaven! Also remember some Burnley numpties trying to start a pitch invasion, but just made themselves look like cocks, whilst we howled derision at them. The game ended 2-0 to the Rovers & the Souness revolution had started at the home of our most hated rivals!

After the game.

It seemed like an age before we were let out of the ground. I`d met up with a few pals from my local & was keen to get back to my car (i was on nights that night) Rumours spread through the crowd that the Dingles were smashing their own town center up & it was like Beirut out there. Eventually the crowd started to move towards the exits & a policewoman shouted instructions for 'everyone to get on a coach'. I told a copper that my car was just up the road & he said "no way pal, get on a coach & pick it up tomorrow...if it`s still there!"

So i had no option, i bummed my way onto the coach my mates were on.

When the convoy of coaches eventually began to move, we headed away from the turd & up towards Todmorden, passing lots of dejected Dingle fans milling about around pubs. We exchanged friendly hand gestures & the odd object hit the windows as we passed. As we exited Burnley, the convoy did a swing to the right & we could see the entire fleet of coaches down the road. It must`ve been about a mile long with loads of flashing police lights & every junction blocked off, so we wouldn`t stop. It did feel like a military operation. Got back to Blackburn about two hours late for work & had to walk it. Got a bollocking off my gaffer. About midnight a workmate offered to give me a lift over to Yorkshire to pick up what was left of my car, so we went. The car was ok...much to my relief. Driving back through Burnley town center was strange. The place was desserted with rubbish & stuff littering the empty streets. I passed a slow moving, obviously drunk bloke in a Burnley shirt swaying & staggering whilst trying to eat something, so i gave him a blast on my horn.

...& that was my experience.

[ABBEY]

brings back some emotional memories...my dad took the rip out of paytons dad in preston hossy and 2 weeks later passed away

[nonaynevernomore]

I watched it on tele, amazing

[yorkblues]

yes it made my xmas

[1864roverite]

a whole lotta Sunday fun, beer in the morning, beer in the afternoon and plenty more beer in the evening

sore head in the morning

[roversWASmylife]

I remember this game well.

Payton what a t*sser.

Remember Hughes should have scored right infront of us, ah well.

[nonaynevernomore]

Was it as empty in the away end as they say???

[Billinge End Blue]

No - a couple of hundred empty seats (three thousand plus Roverites?). Ticket sales were very restricted and the hype around the game must've put off many of those able to get a ticket (not many nippers amongst our following). A ridiculous seven hour round trip for a local derby on the official transport - the authorities should just have let the town trashing start early to amuse the cretinous ones amongst the Claret faithful while we arrived...remember the regular thud as missiles clattered into the back of the stand from the Cricket ground behind....

Those McAteer and Bent goals will always be fondly remembered...

Great victory but some of the pre-season 'friendlies' from the eighties on the Longside were much more fun (the Valley Blues coach got to the Hapton Inn before 6 o'clock one sunny evening), Tony Finnigan's wondrous strike (suppose I should've started another thread on here really...)

[Hasta]

I remember posting a link to this at the time. I've just come across it again.

It's soooo bitter it's funny. Possibly the most biased report ever.

Enjoy !!

[OhmiBRFC]

"Perhaps next time we'll just get on with the job, without letting the historical baggage weigh us down. After all, it won't be another 17 year wait until the next match. Same division, next season, our opportunity for revenge will surely come."

Wasn't 17 years but we wasn't in the same divison

and we still won

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Read the away report of the 5-0 massacre at the bottom........ more comical than the great man John Bond and so full of envy that only a Dingle could spout.

PRICELESS THAT LOT!

[Hasta]

Another article from that website that backfired spectacularly.

[ihateburnley]

Has anyone got the goals from any of the Rovers vs Bstards goals on the internet?

[Rob of the Rovers]

This match was unforgettable for me as it was my first visit to the Dingledome. I'll never forget walking into the concourse under the away end, the place was bouncing with people literally hanging off the walls high above, it was that packed!

The dingles did their best to make the occassion extra special for us:

- The crappy pitch invasion

- Ball getting sent off and spitting at the Rovers fans as he walked towards us. It dribbled down his shirt....

- Payton making an obscene gesture in response to 3,000 Rovers fans goading him

- Tearing up their own town centre

- Me and my Dad made our own way to the ground, but my mate told me that a Dingle had thrown a bag of chips at his coach

[Billy Castell]

Forgot that it was my dad's birthday that day as well. I can remember listening to it on the radio, and it sounded stormy. Not a match to take small kids and the nervous.

[revolutionrock!]

You see, it's all fake. Straw's latter-day devotions, the three-sided stadium, the arriviste fans... it’s a puffball of a set-up, inflated only by the continual pumping in of hard cash from a deceased man's moribund manufacturing empire. Take comfort, dear reader, in the knowledge that one day we will have back the Blackburn Rovers we used to hate far less: small but well organised and well managed, a team that was always more than the sum of its parts, always gutsy and committed.

Which brings us to Stan Ternent's Burnley. Look, I've waffled on for ages, and though I didn't want to talk about football I'm going to have to. Just for a minute.

Towards the end of a shamefully one-sided second half, with their team five goals to the good and threatening to score with every attack, the Blackburn fans sang, with an air of disbelief and joy, "We've beaten the @#/?s 5-0". And, in a way, I derived a flake of comfort from this. They had perceived us to be a threat. They expected this result even less than us.

Funny in so many ways.

[ultrablue]

signed, sealed and delivered

[MagicOPromotion]

2-0 to Burnley...I dont like them but ..every credit to them tonight ...beaten both Chelsea & Arsenal...the Dingles will be on cloud 9. Well done lads

NOW ....FCK OFF AND GET BEAT WILL YOU its so depressing to see you do well

_______

=== XRumer 5.0 Palladium RULEZ! ===