A day at the Turf

One of the longest trips of the season began in slightly bizarre fashion, early on Saturday morning when one member of our travelling party arrived at a different hotel to the one that we had all agreed to meet at! With over 200 miles of motorway ahead of us, there wasn't a huge amount of time to spare for us to wait for our remaining passenger to make it round from Hemel Hempstead to High Wycombe.

So we arranged to meet at the M6 Toll services in the absence of a better place between the M40 and M1 and began the drive north.

My only previous visit to Burnley as a reporter had not been a particularly pleasant one in March 2008 when a tempestuous affair on the pitch boiled over in the stands and even in the press box. Both home fans and some of the local press turned on members of the visiting press and club staff  (Neil Price won't mind me mentioning that he nearly came to blows with one fan sat in front of him who continued to hurl abuse his way!) and the situation very nearly got out of hand.

So it was with a little trepidation that I approached this visit and all of us had taken the precaution of removing obvious signs that we were there to report on the visiting team!

We met up at Norton Canes Services as planned with our remaining passenger (who will remain nameless!!) and it was nice to see some friendly faces from the official supporters coach, who I had a quick chat with.

Despite a quick de-tour around Stoke due to an accident on the M6, we arrived in Burnley at 1pm and were met by chicken curry in the press room. I think my colleagues made hay whilst I went and set my equipment up and recorded a couple of pieces with the studio as I was doing some extra reports for another local radio station in addition to the commentary. My early morning sandwich purchase saw me through the afternoon!

The press seats at Turf Moor are right at the back of the James Hargreaves stand, the one which replaced the popular terracing in the mid 1990's and are a long way up! A few more seats have been added along with some small tv screens fixed to the desks, which are a requirement of all clubs when they are in the Premier League. All media seats must have sight of a screen for replays otherwise the clubs get fined by the Premier League as I understand it.

Despite the addition of more seats, I was hardly delighted to find my position was right on the end of the row with the home fans congregating right next to us but I am pleased to say that we had nothing to worry about on this visit.

Allan Smart was our guest summariser for the afternoon, having made the relatively short journey from nearby Preston. He was able to give us his view on the Championship as he has been covering some games at Deepdale for BBC Radio Lancashire. He also confirmed that he has still has the scarf that was thrown from the Wembley stands in celebration at the end of the 1999 play-off final victory over Bolton, alongside his other mementos from that day.

We were expecting goals as there had been a remarkable 34 in the previous six meetings at Turf Moor between the two sides and, despite a quiet opening 20 minutes, we weren't to be disappointed. Yet again, Watford were made to pay for failing to take their chances although they did appear to have good reason to feel aggrieved at the penalty decision that handed Graham Alexander the opportunity to strike home the winner from the penalty spot.

The tv screens that we had at our disposal showed a live feed of the game, with roughly a five second time delay on the pictures. So it did mean that you could check to see the pictures of an incident straight after it had happened, although I did find myself nearly missing the next phase of a couple of incidents because I was checking the screen for what had just happened.

I had a quick chat about the game with Watford's Chief Executive whilst Malky Mackay was interviewed for TV and Brian Laws was talking to the written media in the press room. I had arranged to speak to Don Cowie also but given that the game had finished after 5pm due to seven minutes of injury time,and the fact that it was a long walk back to my seat from the interview area, I had to make the decision to get the Malky Mackay interview ready to hit the airwaves before we went off air at 6pm, and therefore missed out on getting the Cowie interview.

With the interviews and reports written it was time to start the journey home, which wasn't until after 6.30pm. At least by that time, the traffic around the ground had gone so we had a trouble free run back to Norton Canes Services where some welcome fish and chips were ordered!

There was time for a slightly tense end to the day though as my petrol light came on just as we passed the last services before home, still 17 miles short of our drop off point. Much discussion ensued as to how far we could get and eventually I took the decision to come off the motorway and hunt for a petrol station. But all three that we saw were closed!

Fortunately we made it back to the hotel where I was able to drop off my three remaining passengers and we were all back in our cars in time to hear the Haye-Harrison 'fight'. It was over by the time I got home, just ten minutes down the road!