By Turfmanphil
August 29 2005

TMP rants about 40 years of supporting the Clarets and summarises his frustration and anger in 20 key statements!

1. It helps if you are one or more of the following, slightly bonkers, a dreamer, impatient and/or an eternal optimist with the glass always half-full not empty!

2. Mega-rich people are never born in Burnley and if they are their first passion will be Bowls!

3. You have to believe in the conspiracy theory to survive!

4. All rumours that we are buying Henry will be true,but they will concern Henry Shufflebottom, an arthritic 46 year old half-back from Stafford Rangers!..oh and for FREE

5. It will always be more than 90 minutes but only when season tickets sales are due!

6. Never bring a mate who supports the opposing team to the Turf..we will always lose!

7. That team that hasnt won a game in 46 outings will when they play us!

8. We play complete crap in style,why get knocked out in the Quarter's when you can save the crap game for the Semi's?

9. If by some miracle we do get to a final we will lose,unless a war is about to break out! [1914!]

10. Think of a weird score [5:6,4:7,2:7 etc] and we will have been beaten by it!

11. If a team is going to miss out on the play-offs by one place or one goal that will be guess who? You will also be guaranteed to remember the friggin goal that was perfect but disallowed!

12. You will either have not been born or been too young to remember the Glory days..with me it was 1960 aged friggin 6!!

13. We will always complain that we are not on telly enough and when we are proceed to lose the game!

14. If Burnley FC ever had an epitaph [God Forbid!] it would read 'When will it be Our Turn?'

15. Never buy a shirt with your favourite player's name on it. The guy will be transferred within 3 months of you buying it and somehow it wont feel the same wearing it!

16. Why spend 3 hours standing in a queue for a Rovers ticket when you can spend 4 hours trying to get through on the phone?

17. Stories on TV about the Clarets will always feature cobbled streets,cloth caps and whippets! I bet King Cotton gets a mention too! Southerners of course will all still believe its like that North of Watford!

18. If there is any way we could conspire to lose a game winning 3:0 with four minutes to go we will find a way!

19. If referees are renown for being bad we will get them in key games and if they are renown for being good we will get them on an off-day!

20. By stating these obvious facts about supporting our club we will now all be proved wrong-We all hope but know it wont happen!