Blackburn Rovers 0 Burnley 1

Saturday saw Burnley travel just a short distance down the M65 for the East Lancashire Derby. Read on for my thoughts on the game, and images.

My friend Craig came over for the game, so the day started with a short trip up to Burnley Manchester Road train station to collect him. As we had a little time spare we had coffee nearby before driving back over to Queensgate depot to join the coach with Burnley Football Supporters Club. Picking at St. Peters Centre and waiting for the convoy to form on Belvedere Rd, it was a good 90 minutes before we arrived at Deadwood Park for the game.

I'd expected to arrive amongst the earliest arrivals, but we were probably amongst the last in the convoy, so the concourse was completely rammed by the time we had queued in. So we went straight out to our seats, where we remained for the remainder of the game. I don't recall being that congested in a concourse recently, and the positioning of the kiosk behind our entrance made it pretty difficult even to get through for a pee at half time.

Holding about 32,000, Deadwood is only occasionally over half full, Blackburn's ground is too big for them - presumably why they have not rebuilt and extended the fourth stand. It was quite full today with areas of the stadium opened for the first time in a while. The large crowd lacked the intimidating atmosphere that you'd normally associate with a full old ground.

When the team sheet came through, we had picked something like our strongest available 11, the notable exception being Hannibal who has looked really hand on the left - but was suspended for stamping on Tchamadeu last time out.

In the previous meeting back in August Burnley looked a level or two ahead of Blackburn, but after taking an early lead, were unable to show the same incisiveness after Blackburn's equaliser. Here we seemed quite happy to let Blackburn have the ball. We struggled with the physicality in the first half, and I thought both Sarmiento and Anthony struggled to have the sort of impact they were capable of.

It was also really clear that the team would have no protection from the referee, I thought Andrew Kitchen had a particularly poor game allowing all of the shirt pulling and most of the cynical stuff to go unpunished, gave a couple of corners that had no contact, and failed to give a bolt on penalty. Everybody always thinks the decisions unjustly go against them, so I try not to talk about referees too often - but this was a really weak performance.

In the second half Burnley took control of the game, and began to look the likelier of the two teams to score with good deliveries into the box from either wing, but without any presence on the end. That changed on the hour when Zian Flemming put his head on the end of a low cross from Bashir Humphreys, smashing it into the roof of the net infront of the Burnley support in the lower tier of the Darwen End.

Blackburn upped the tempo towards the end, with John Egan coming on for Flemming in the 89th to add an additional body and experience into a defence that bar a strange scramble in front of Trafford's goal never really looked like being breached. The home support started to empty from around the 80th minute, accelerating as the clock approached 90. After 4 minutes of injury time the celebrations began, with Josh Brownhill and Zian Flemming turning the corner post into a claret and blue mascot.

The atmosphere soured as the angrier element of the Blackburn support in the Riverside Stand tried to approach our end only to be met by a police shield, strange given that there are just 13 miles and 15 years between the two teams. We were sat right at the front of stand at that corner, and had to avoid a number of objects flying overhead, mainly but not exclusively from the Riverside. Unfortunately a number of stewards were hurt in the kerfuffle, with one female steward being struck on the back of the head by a bottle thrown from the Riverside, and another pushed over in the melee. I've not seen anything on that scale inside a football stadium in a very large number of years.

Reading are our next opponents away on Saturday 11th January. On the one hand the FA Cup 3rd round fixture provides a much needed opportunity to rotate and rest. On the other the worst of the fixture congestion is now over, and that is probably less needed.