Jingle Bells Jingle bells Jingle all the way....

Last updated : 25 August 2002 By Mark R

There were a handful of others as mad as us!

The train crawled to London and we were soon at Kings Cross to catch the 7.10 to Leeds. There were fans of Brentford (going to Huddersfield), Orient (going to Rochdale) and Palace (going to Preston).

The train was late but we still had plenty of time to get the 10.18 to Burnley. This Arriva northern train was packed and got later and later as people struggled to get on and off (packed full of holiday makers going to Blackpool!).

We eventually arrived about 11.40 into Burnley and headed into the nearest pub. It was basically a large front room and yes Phil the barmaid called us all luv!

Next we moved on down to a cracking pub called 'The Ministry of Ale' and settled down for a couple of hours. Our final call was to a pub nearer the ground, which had a fair few Albion and Burnley fans all mixing well, looking forward to the season!

The ale suddenly tasted a bit bitter as Liz got a phone call from a mate back home saying that Virgo and Cullip OUT and Pethick would partner Hinshelwood!

I must admit I thought oh well, my 3-1 prediction for a Burnley win was well wide of the mark, do I change it to 5-0!!!

We wandered to the ground about 10 to 3 and were soon in with the 1,500 or so Albion fans. The stadium has changed a bit since our last visit, and we made plenty of noise as usual.

From the kick off we dominated this match and I would have to say played better than we did in all but a handful of games last season. Pethick was my MOTM followed closely by all other 10 players.

Melton coolly knocked in the first goal from a BZ through ball. Brooker danced round the Burnley defence as if it didn't exist and then Rogers confused the Burnley keeper and BZ knocked in the free ball!


Who cares that they scored at the end, we well and truly deserved 3 points!

After the game it was a bit nasty. There were several mounted Police attempted to keep the baseball capped Burnley 'firm' away from us, one lad in a Brighton shirt got a nasty slap, but the Police just pushed the tw*t who did it away!

I asked the Policeman which he let him go and he said that he didn't see him punch him! We kept our heads down and mouth closed and all met up back at the Ministry of Ale to celebrate!

One Burnley fan in there had the cheek to inform me that after seeing that performance we will be going down, but they will get better!

Made me laugh!

We caught the train back to Leeds, had another celebratory beer in the Scarborough Hotel then headed back down south. We eventually caught the 00.05 back to Worthing, but it was very late and we couldn't get a taxi so had to walk 3 miles back to Durrington, eventually getting back at about 3.30am, so almost a 24 hour trip.

Roll on Tuesday....