"We'll take a point today...!" Oh look, we got three. Again.

A FRIEND of mine has a Scouse mate, a Liverpool supporter, who decided to hook up with us for the trip to Fleetwood Town a couple of weeks ago.

This chap is old enough to have caught some of Liverpool’s proper glory days but has got used to plenty of (relative) disappointment in recent years as well. Of more interest is that, through his friendship with my Burton-supporting mate, he takes a passing interest in the Brewers and knows how they are doing and the way the club is set up.

He was genuinely surprised, however, to listen to Burton supporters talking before the game, saying things like “we’ll take a point today.”

After he watched the Brewers take Fleetwood apart and we met up afterwards he said: “I’m amazed that you didn’t go into the game thinking your team could do that. You’re where you are in the league, you’re flying. Why shouldn’t you believe you’re going to beat them?”

It’s a good point but it’s a little reminder, I think, of who we are and where we’ve come from. There was plenty of similar talk ahead of the Rotherham game and the Exeter game; a lot of us came up with reasons (the injury list in one case, Exeter’s away form in the other) why a point would be a good result.

Even on Tuesday night, I wasn’t the only one thinking the Morecambe game might just be a step too far, that all good runs come to an end and a slightly less pressured game might just be the one in which it happened. I didn’t think that after five minutes, mind you, because it was obvious in that time that the players were as up for it as in any other of the recent contests. Morecambe had plenty of the ball but only one team looked like scoring; well, for 80 minutes anyway.

So, as I was saying, it’s about who we are and where we’ve so recently come from. Even in the fourth year in the Football League, a lot of us can’t quite believe this is happening.

If you’re an older supporter, you’re equating this to grim nights at Northern Premier League games. If you’re younger and you don’t have those memories, perhaps you can’t quite believe that Gary Rowett was going to do such a good job; something you share with a lot of the older supporters.

I can claim that I did believe he would do the job this well but that, admittedly, is from the privileged position of getting to talk to the man every week as part of my job. It wasn’t difficult to see Gary’s focus, common sense and determination, nor how most of the players were reacting to him.

The addition of Kevin Summerfield is proving a master-stroke too. Gary stated when he asked Kevin to join that, though they shared a philosophy, he wanted someone else on board who would see things differently, who would fill in the skills and experience gaps he recognised in himself. How many managers have you heard say anything like that?

Kevin occasionally does the after-match interviews and would probably be the first to admit that he’s not such a natural at them as Gary.

The manager will come out smiling with a quip or two before we start. His assistant tends to gaze around the assembled media with the air of wondering how long this might take. But he often cuts straight to the chase. The management “weren’t happy” at 3-0 up at half-time against Exeter because, goals apart, the team hadn’t been playing as they can.

That tells you all you need to know about how they work.

It’s not a bad week to be reflecting on how they work, with Bristol Rovers away on Saturday… the fixture that was the low point, statistically at least, of Gary’s time as caretaker manager, when everything Rovers hit went in, or was deflected in, mostly, and it ended 7-1.

Gary was calm after that, though, reasoning that it was beneficial, in that it had told him a lot about the character of some of the players in his squad and focused him on what needed to be done in the summer.

Draw your own conclusions, then, from the statistic that only four of the players in the 16-man match day squad for the game at Bristol Rovers last season were in the 18-man squad for the Morecambe game on Tuesday.

Yes, injuries have a small part to play in that. Aaron Webster was in neither squad but is still at the club, for example. But, basically, Gary has effected the transformation he knew was necessary.

The four in both squads? Jacques Maghoma, Andy Corbett, Jimmy Phillips and Calvin Zola.

• Most of you correctly identified Billy Kee as the schoolboy player in the picture quiz in my last blog. He was playing for Allexton & New Parks Under-11s in Leicester in 2001 in the picture. Paul Parker was the first to come up with the answer. Paul, I will get in touch to sot out the prize - a pint - soon!

Reflections on Fleetwood... and a picture quiz

Having missed the big day at Vauxhall Motors  when Burton Albion clinched promotion to the Conference, my own most memorable away day following the Brewers is of a game in which they were beaten; the day at Torquay, of course, when promotion to the Football League was confirmed.

In terms of regular games and performances, however, I am struggling to think of anything to match Saturday’s stunning victory at Fleetwood Town.

It was the completeness of the performance which will stay in the memory.

It started with the methodical, determined way the players went about snuffing out such threat as Fleetwood had in the first half on a dreadful, heavily sanded pitch.

It may be a cliché, that you have to earn the right to play, but it’s very true and the Brewers did that. They had the better opportunities in that first half, too.

In the second half, they took over the game. Jacques Maghoma had had a quiet first half, the ball not running for him, but he did little wrong in the second half and, aside from the goals, there was one moment when he skipped away from one opponent and nutmegged another to turn defence into attack which was worth the admission, as they say. It was no surprise to see him and others Tweeting about it later on: “Jaguar skills!” said Stuart Tomlinson. “I knew you’d be buzzing. All I could hear was your voice!” answered Maghoma. The camaraderie between them on Twitter tells us plenty about the spirit in the dressing room.

The longer the game went on, the less heart Fleetwood had for the contest, as Burton wore them down and Maghoma tormented them. I don’t buy any argument from the Fleetwood end about it not being a penalty, or a red card. Maghoma had slipped past keeper Scott Davies and had no reason to fall with an empty net in front of him. Davies clipped him and the referee had no option.

Nor am I much concerned that Fleetwood had a patched-up side because of injuries. So did Burton the previous week against Rotherham. Fleetwood have a bigger, more expensively-assembled squad and if, as we were told, they have loaned out a number of those surplus players, well, that’s the choice you make. They were unbeaten in five going into the game, so they were hardly in dire straits.

It was good to see Gary Rowett’s theory about his side being fitter than others late in the game and being able to exploit space against tired opponents proved. Some of the passing between Maghoma, Billy Kee, Michael Symes and, later, Calvin Zola was wonderfully intuitive and Fleetwood had no answer.

It was good to see Maghoma also answer those who claim he is a selfish player by presenting a chance on a plate for Zola at the end when he might have gone for his own hat-trick.

And it was good, too, when a chant of “one Gary Rowett” broke out among the large away following. Rowett will know as much as anyone that he was not the universally popular choice to take over when Paul Peschisolido was sacked but he has won over most of the doubters now.

Two of them, Mick Arnold and Doug Harvey, went public on the Burton Albion Facebook page in the last week to say “we were wrong.” Good on them! As Doug said: “Thank God Ben (Robinson) saw something in him…”

Indeed.

Let’s not pretend all days between now and the end of the season will be as good as Saturday at Fleetwood. But hey, it was very good indeed. 

++++++

And finally, a picture quiz for you. Who is this current Burton Albion player, captured during his schooldays? A pint, some time, for the first to answer it correctly, either here, by messaging me on the fans' forum, through Facebook or by emailing me at work, ccrawford@derbytelegraph.co.uk

In favour of a forum...

I had the following published in the Burton Albion programme on Saturday for the game against Rotherham United. Thought i might as well publish it here as well...

It has been an eventful week for what is, as far as I can see, the only internet forum for Burton Albion supporters but, at the end of it, I rather hope that it is in a good position to thrive.

Internet forums in general divide opinion even more than Jacques Maghoma. At one end of the scale, there are people who are completely scornful about forums, who think they’re completely pointless and over-run with illiterate numpties. At the other end of the scale are people who think they are great for free speech and democracy.

As usual, the answer lies somewhere in between and forums, like life, have their plus and minus points.

While I am writing about football forums in general and Burton Albion’s in particular, I think it’s worth reminding people that there are forums out there on almost every conceivable subject and the opportunity to interact offered by the internet is a huge plus. I know people who have taken great comfort after bereavements or after illnesses such as depression by finding a forum full of people in the same boat, at a time when they were feeling very alone. Therefore, I don’t agree at all with people who condemn forums outright.

The problem with football forums is policing them adequately while not appearing to deny people their right to a view. A difficulty is that they attract some people – attention seekers – who do not wish to do anything other than complain about everything. Yes, just like some people on the Pop Side and even a few of those who travel to almost every away game apparently for the sole purpose of berating the team.

Anyone who has been on a football forum will know that they can be open to anyone to post or they can require members to register (without giving up their anonymity publicly) in order to post. Check around football club forums and you’ll see that the vast majority require membership.

The current Burton Albion fans’ forum is a relatively new project, launched after Karl Savill, who ran the old one, “Clough the Magic Dragon” decided he’d had enough of the hassle.

At the start, the new forum was open and free to anyone who wanted to post. Unfortunately, this quickly became a problem. There are simply too many mischievous people about and some who hold grudges. People have found others posting in their name. Some have used the forum only to wind others up.

This week, the administrator of the new forum decided enough was enough and he (or she!) has switched it to members only. The response has been largely favourable and so it should be.

The next step will be to moderate it tightly and (having had some experience of moderating a forum myself) I can warn the moderators that they may be in for a rough ride if (when?) they start deleting posts or even banning members who are repeatedly abusive. It has to be done though.

I’ve chosen to write about the forum because I do believe in them. I contribute to the Brewers one, as it’s an outlet for my own views on the club which I would not be airing in articles in the Derby Telegraph.

I think the key to contributing to a forum is that you should not say anything online to another member that you would not be completely comfortable saying to their face – however large they turned out to be when you met them.

Some people take umbrage when they are disagreed with, to which I say, if you can’t stand the heat…

Happily, there have been some healthy debates on the new forum and I think it could become more popular in time. If you haven’t found it before, give it a chance. You can read it without being a member and it’s at www.burtonbrewers.proboards.com/index.cgi

Stats that tell you Brewers fight to the end

Gary Rowett has a theory that his Burton Albion team is capable of finishing games very strongly, which is why he thinks they may well have beaten Wimbledon last week if they had not had Zander Diamond sent off.

That, of course, is his opinion and one which cannot be backed up because we will never know if it would have happened. But it was certainly the case that Burton were having a good spell in the game at the time and Rowett thinks that as Wimbledon threw more caution to the wind in search of the home win their league position so desperately needed, so the Brewers would have been able to exploit the gaps that may have been left.

To listen to Rowett when he is talking like this is interesting. Normally, what the public gets is an after-match interview, conducted within five minutes of the end of the game when a manager has to say the first thing that comes into his head, conscious that it is often going out live on radio. You do have to be careful. And you also think of other things you’d like to have said or better ways of putting things later, just as you do in life.

What comes over when you chat to the manager about football is that nothing Burton do under him and Kevin Summerfield is thrown together. It comes as a result of a lot of soul-searching and tactical thought. Surely, when players know that is the case, they are more able to accept it when they might not start or when they’re substituted. They know the manager isn’t making it up as he goes along.

“We’re a very fit side,” said Rowett.

“I’ve looked at the facts from one or two of our away games and we’re very competitive late in games.

“I thought we could have nicked the game at Wimbledon. I thought we were getting on top of them. We also have a strong squad now and I feel I’m getting to the point where we’re getting better options coming off the bench in tight games, people who can really make a difference.”

Wins earned late on at Southend United and Plymouth Argyle back up Rowett’s theory.

But the Brewers manager also points out that his side have one of the best records in the division for collecting points after they have fallen behind in a game. That one’s not an opinion, the facts back it up.

If you want to look for yourselves, they’re on http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D3/ptsgain.html

These are “points gained when losing” and they show Burton, Southend and Rotherham United top of that table, having won 16 points in games when they have been behind. For Rotherham, that’s five wins and a draw when they’ve been behind; for Burton and Southend, four wins and four draws from a losing position.

“It tells me a lot about the character of my players that we’re one of the highest points takers when we’ve gone behind,” said Rowett.

“Some teams haven’t won a single game when they’ve gone behind.”

Indeed, six of them haven’t in League Two, including, perhaps surprisingly, second-placed Gillingham, although you could argue, of course, that may be because they don’t actually fall behind too often.

More stats? Only one team in the Football League – Blackpool, with 17 -  have earned more points than the three in League Two when behind, although you can add Manchester United and Everton if you include the Premier League. But who wants to include the Premier League?

All of that, then, is this week’s helping of the information passed on by the manager which I didn’t have room for in Friday’s match preview in the Derby Telegraph.

And finally, on a lighter note, I went to see The Hobbit last week with my daughter, so I now know what our former manager has been doing since he left…

An uncanny resemblance, don’t you think?

Well, here goes...

The idea of a blog about my experiences following Burton Albion has been in my head for a while. I suspect most of the people who can be bothered to find this blog will be Brewers fans and quite a few of those will know that I write about the club's fortunes for the Derby Telegraph newspaper.
The Derby Telegraph reports Burton Albion because the town is 10 miles down the road from Derby and, while a limited number of the papers are sold in Burton itself, the Telegraph covers a fairly large chunk of what the club would consider to be its catchment area.
For me, and for as long as it lasts, covering the club professionally is a great privilege. Not all sports reporters actually get out to cover live sport, believe it or not, and it's also true that probably 90% of my job as deputy sports editor on the paper is office-based.
Let's get it out of the way early on - I'm a fan. When I was a very junior reporter in Burton in 1978 I got taken to an Albion game and I was hooked. It's as simple as that. I didn't report on the team then. Getting to matches home and away was my recreation and I did it solidly through to 1987, when I launched a business with a partner for a while and money was too tight for luxuries. Right at the end of that time, I managed to miss the FA Trophy final at Wembley with chicken pox after seeing every other round. Great timing. Within that spell, of course, was also the brilliant FA Cup run to play Leicester City in the third round at the Baseball Ground in 1985.
The way my working life panned out, I began covering the Brewers halfway through Nigel Clough's decade in charge, so I've just hit the nine-year mark in doing it. That hasn't worked out badly... a move to a new stadium, a third round FA Cup tie against Manchester United, promotion to the Football League and consolidation of the Brewers' position in League Two. It's been a historic and fascinating time.