The Berbatov of League Two! And Andy Corbett

SO who is the Berbatov of League Two?

Well, according to Kevin Summerfield, it’s Michael Symes.

I have suggested before that behind the assistant manager’s outwardly quiet, man-of-few-words public image lurks a dry wit.

But while Summerfield was undoubtedly joking on one level, you can see what he’s getting at when you look closer.

Gary Rowett mentioned that Sunmerfield had come out with the description of the on-loan striker from Leyton Orient at training.

What he means is that, like Berbatov, Symes can have a languid air on the pitch, as if he’s strolling unhurried about his work. But that should not be mistaken for laziness and, the management team contend, it can mislead opponents.

Rowett cited Symes’ brilliant goal to win the game against Aldershot Town as an example.

When a long high ball came down the field towards the striker and three defenders, they all back off him. The ball was allowed to bounce, they did not really stop him controlling it.

What they did not expect was that he would then turn and volley it into the top corner of the net. But Burton supporters had already seen an example of Symes’ control and awareness when he juggled for four or five touches before equalising at Wimbledon.

“He has terrific awareness,” said Rowett. “He knows where everyone is, his team-mates, the defenders, the goalkeeper – he spotted that the Aldershot keeper was slightly off his line.”

Rowett and Summerfield don’t think Symes is lazy at all. They think he can just look that way, although it wasn’t something that had occurred to me until the manager mentioned it.

Symes had a groin problem for the away game at Dagenham and, arguably, his ability to hold the ball up and bring other into play was missed. That said, Calvin Zola played and it wasn’t very long ago at all that we were describing those abilities as among Zola’s best assets. Truth is, they still are; it’s just that Calvin, like one or two others, didn’t have one of his best days at Dagenham.

Symes has certainly upped the ante in terms of competition up front and that was something Rowett quietly alluded to when I talked to him about the assembling of the current squad this week.

He likes the fact that there is good competition to play at centre-half and up front, competition he has ramped up by adding Ian Sharps and Symes (pictured) on loan. When you get in, you have to play well to stay in and when others get a chance, even if it’s off the bench, they have to put themselves about to have a chance of securing a place.

It is, of course, how it should be.

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Not too much has been said about Andy Corbett’s testimonial as yet, which is rather a shame and yet understandable in that a promotion bid is bound to overshadow everything at this stage of a season.

Corbs is also one of the quiet men of football; it’s just his nature. When others spend their summers on a beach, his idea of a perfect holiday is to flog himself up a mountain, either on his bike or climbing it.

There is no date yet for a testimonial match but a committee is operating, with director Frank Spiers and Radio Derby summariser Tony Bentley particularly active on it.

There is to be an Andy Corbett Testimonial Golf Day on Monday, April 29 at Broughton Heath GC, Bent Lane, Church Broughton, DE65 5BA

The entry is £75 for a team of three, to include 18 holes and a barbecue. Each team of three will have a fourth player allocated to them from among the players, management, staff and guests of the club.

Gary Rowett, Kevin Summerfield and Zander Diamond are already confirmed as among these.

Golf Day booking forms are available from www.andycorbettgolf@gmail.com

Various Sponsorship opportunities are available including for the nearest the pin prizes and for sponsorship of each.

Please contact Tony Bentley on 07733 315249 for more details.

Anyone not wanting to play but who would like to attend the barbecue, which starts at 5pm, can but a ticket for that for £8.

Cheques should be sent payable to “Frank Spiers & Co Re Andy Corbett's Testimonial”  together with a stamped addressed envelope to Tony Bentley, 3 Lancaster Drive, Hilton, Derbyshire, DE65 5JQ.

* I update Burton Albion news as and when I have it in the Derby Telegraph newspaper, on the paper's website, at http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/burtonalbion#axzz2O55kEdDo and I update from matches and during the week on Twitter:  @ColstonC

Finding a way to win the bad games is what successful teams do...

Nobody – absolutely nobody – wins promotions by being brilliant all of the time.

Footballers are human beings, not stats on a computer game, and sometimes things go wrong, as they did for Burton Albion at Bristol Rovers.

As much as it’s a cliché, promotions are won as much by teams working hard enough to find a result when the going is tough and, on Tuesday night, that was a test Burton Albion passed with flying colours.

It was a grim, icily cold night in Aldershot and the Brewers were up against it when they conceded a goal in three minutes.

It would be easy to criticise the defence, as Aldershot’s on-loan striker, Paul McCallum, got beyond them and scored from a narrow angle but the rest of the match showed that it really was just one of those things which can happen sometimes. The Brewers got caught cold and McCallum, as it happens, barely had a meaningful kick for the rest of the night.

Lifted by an unbeaten run of six games and buoyed by the goal, Aldershot had a good first half-hour, snapping into their challenges and playing with a bit of confidence.

What impressed me during that period, though, and what was so different to last season’s Burton, or even Burton away from home earlier this season, was that they appeared to believe in what they were trying to achieve, even when things weren’t working out for them.

The shape didn’t change, the style didn’t change. The effort most certainly didn’t. For a while, they were rushed by Aldershot’s keenness but, towards the end of the half, the Shots’ fire was going out and the Brewers were starting to get on top.

Looking back at my notes, all the half-chances were falling to Burton, save for a shot from midfielder Danny Rose which Stuart Tomlinson beat away efficiently to his left.

The replays show that Robbie Weir’s equaliser, a minute before half-time, was a better goal than it looked at the time, a nice, controlled volley from the edge of the box.

Burton had done enough to deserve to go in level.

In the second half, they did more than enough to deserve the win that came their way when three Aldershot defenders shamefully failed to challenge Michael Symes for a high ball and he punished them with a volley high into the net from the edge of the box.

That one looked a good goal at the time; it looks an even better one on the replays and a willingness to shoot is a feature of this Burton side.

We scarcely saw any goals from outside the box in the first couple of seasons in the league, the team tending to try to walk the ball in, but they are flying in from all angles now. Confidence does that for you but so does being encouraged to have a go by the management, I rather suspect.

It wasn’t a great game, let’s not kid ourselves, but the Brewers found a way to win it. It’s a very good quality to have.

As usual, the opposition manager, Andy Scott, wasn’t in any mood to praise Burton, just as Mark Yates of Cheltenham and Graham Alexander of Fleetwood haven’t been recently.

Perhaps to acknowledge Burton’s qualities would be an admission that they were out-guessed tactically by Messrs Rowett and Summerfield.

Strangely, it was an Aldershot fan who summed it up best in the after-match comments. This was on their forum:

“I thought they were excellent, their work rate was fantastic ALL game. I think the reason so many of our players had a bad game was down to them, they never gave any of ours a moment. In fact I may be so bold as to suggest that they’re not getting enough credit for their performance. OK maybe they didn’t play beautiful, free flowing football but they earned their win.
And sure, we contained them but, apart from the early goal, we didn’t look like scoring and the longer the game went on I thought there only looked like there would be one winner.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

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Poor Alex MacDonald. A super three points and then he puts his phones on top of his car when he stops for a pee and drives off forgetting about them! When he remembers and goes back, he finds a lorry has driven over them.

The on-loan Burnley winger recounted this tale of woe on Twitter when he got home.

That apart, things seem to be going rather well for him at Burton and I already get the impression that a lot of Burton fans would welcome him being signed permanently at the end of the season.

Wholehearted triers are welcomed by most supporters and MacDonald is certainly one of those. We also found out at Aldershot that he has a long throw. He delivered two of them at the EBB Stadium, one better than the other, and it’s another string to Burton’s bow.

Thanks to the Burton supporter who had a scout around Burnley’s forum and found out that the fans there rate MacDonald too.

That is, they rate him as a bloke and a trier. They think he perhaps isn’t Championship class (he still has time to become that at 22 of course) but they also wish him well if he ends up at Burton.

Loans in Scotland (twice) and Plymouth will have been hard work. MacDonald, who has a baby daughter, and lives in Runcorn, says he is ready to settle. Perhaps it will be here.

* Latest Burton Albion news is reached quickly here:  www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/burtonalbion#axzz2NE6u2uiu

Changing times in the media...and other stuff

This is a time of change in the newspaper industry – indeed, I should really say media industry. At the Derby Telegraph, we are now part of a group called Local World which also includes the Burton Mail and a lot of other media outlets in the Midlands and further afield.

Much emphasis is being placed on the internet and – if you want to read them – you will, as things develop, find more and more small snippets of up-to-date news on our website, www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk. They will be flagged up on Twitter and Facebook more and more too. I expect to update more often on Twitter from matches: @ColstonC if you’re not already following.

The aim is to make sure that whatever I get to know about the Brewers will be shared as widely as possible.

I’m a traditional old newspaper hack getting to grips with this new world and while part of me is disappointed that the newspaper itself is not necessarily the first port of call for information any more, I’ve been conscious for a long time that the Derby Telegraph is hard to find in Burton. That’s not the case with the info on the internet, in whatever form, so my target is to increase my internet audience.

It’s an exciting time to follow the Brewers and an interesting time for the media coverage of them. Join me for the ride!

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Well, the League Two table has an interesting look to it after the midweek games.

Burton Albion could have done without Cheltenham sneaking a stoppage-time goal to beat Chesterfield but never mind, it was always unrealistic to think  the Brewers would stay in the top three every single day until the end of the season, given the games in hand other people had.

What’s interesting now is that a lot of the games in hand other people had are out of the way. We actually go into the Cheltenham match on Saturday with a game in hand over them and we’ve played the same number as Port Vale, Northampton Town and Exeter City.

Suddenly, below the top seven, a seven-point gap has appeared and it’s one that can’t be made up with their one game in hand by either Southend United or Fleetwood Town, nor by Bradford City with two games in hand. Imagine the pressure on them now to turn that game or games into maximum points.

Fleetwood v Exeter and Port Vale v Southend are two other games this weekend which see promotion challengers going head to head.

I wouldn’t like to predict how it will all end up but it’s fascinating and isn’t it brilliant to be involved in it at all, rather than being at this stage and talking about the handful of points we still need to guarantee a place in League Two next season?

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It’s a shame that the club worded their announcement of season ticket prices a little ambiguously, because it enabled those who want to have a moan about anything possible to, well, have a moan.

The initial wording rather suggested that both existing season ticket holders and new applicants could take advantage of the same frozen price for next season and this actually isn’t quite the case. New applicants will pay a little more. The critics predictably suggested that new applicants should be paying the same, as we need to encourage new applicants. It isn’t rocket science to work out that, had the prices been the same, the critics (possibly the self-same people in some cases) would have turned it around and said the club was failing to reward existing season ticket holders for their loyalty!

In the end, the other thing that isn’t rocket science is that the prices are exceptionally good, compared to every other Football League club and that is the main thing to take from this.

The best prices, of course, are there for those prepared to commit early, which means they will buy not knowing which division the club is playing in. Surely, that isn’t relevant. If Burton Albion are still a League Two club next season, this will still have been an exceptional campaign for a new squad, with a new manager, who the bookies installed as relegation favourites.

Football club chairmen and administrators are there to be shot at and we all know that Burton Albion do not get everything right; they would be an exception if they did.

But given the loss made last year, there must have been a temptation for Ben Robinson to raise prices. He didn’t do it. Credit where it’s due.