A fan's-eye view from Turf Moor, with Stephen Cummings

YOUNGER readers may not believe this, but there was a time when going to Turf Moor used to be a pleasurable experience. You would wake up on a Saturday morning eagerly looking forward to the events which would unfold from three o'clock onwards. Hell, there was even a time when you would enter the ground safe in the knowledge that the most likely outcome was a victory. Those days are long gone.

Nowadays, a trip to Brunshaw Road is a singularly miserable way to spend an afternoon - more total torture than total football. In my 23 years of Clarets watching, only the 1986-87 season, which very nearly resulted in relegation from the Football League, ranks worse than this. That may sound harsh. It is. Unfortunately it is also completely justified.

One of the group of supporters with whom I sit commented last Saturday that watching Burnley has now become a chore rather than a pleasure. He said the only reason he still comes is because he's a season ticket holder and enjoys the banter our small group shares.

Saturday mornings are filled with trepidation rather than anticipation. The traditional pre-match pie and pint feels more like the last meal of a condemned man rather than the precursor to an enjoyable afternoon's entertainment. The short walk to the gallows - sorry, I mean ground - is punctuated not with the nervous pre-match chatter of yore, but negative speculation on just how bad the Clarets will be. Once inside Turf Moor, there is an almost tangible sense of foreboding in the concourse beneath the stand. It is as if everybody has resigned themselves to the inevitable. And all this before a ball has been kicked.

The game against Northampton was typical of the sub-standard fare served up at Turf Moor nowadays. We witnessed two very poor sides pratfall their way through an error-riddled 90 minutes. That people had parted with hard-earned cash to watch this contemptible rot made it doubly galling. It was truly atrocious.

The post-match pint is a dismal affair. It bears the hallmarks of an autopsy rather than a serious discussion of the various shortcomings in the team.

These are hard, hard times to be a Burnley supporter. And the terrible thing is I really can't see a satisfactory conclusion to the current situation.

Finally, might I wish you a Christmas every bit as merry as the current situation is bleak.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.