Clarets hero Fletcher and fan Campbell provide novel spin on Seventies soccer

PAUL FLETCHER’S defining moment as a player came when he scored the goal of the decade against Leeds in 1974.

His glorious bicycle kick from the edge of the area helped Burnley to an astonishing 4-1 victory. Then, just as the moment began to fade from the memory, fans discovered that the goal had been captured on film by ITV cameramen who were at the ground to make a documentary about Don Revie. The clip containing the acrobatic move turned Fletcher into a club legend.

Now the former Burnley striker has taken his experiences of football in the Seventies and used them to write a novel ‘Saturday, Bloody Saturday’. The book is cowritten with his long-time friend and Burnley’s greatest fan, Alastair Campbell, the controversial former government spin doctor.

‘I was there when he scored that goal,’ said Campbell. ‘It was incredible. One of the best goals I’ve ever seen.’ Fletcher nods as Campbell speaks. ‘He’s not usually this nice about me. He’s usually busy telling me where I went wrong as a player. It’s weird when he’s nice to me.’ The unlikely writing duo have been friends for decades. Every other Saturday, they travel to Burnley’s home games together. It was during these car journeys and in meetings in Burnley and London that they worked on a first draft that Fletcher had produced to write their joint novel. It’s a high-octane, high-stakes tale which combines football, politics and terrorism, and along the way it acts as a window onto football in the 1970s. ‘I’m not saying it was better or worse back then, just different,’ says Fletcher. ‘You had to have real bottle to get through games then because everyone was trying to chop you down.

‘There weren’t subs so if you were injured you stayed on the field and had to limp up and down the right wing. If you didn’t hobble off covered in blood, the fans didn’t think they’d got their money’s worth.’

Campbell and Fletcher’s novel is the tale of a struggling northern club that are desperate to win, but they insist it’s not based on Burnley. From the football, the story moves to an IRA active service unit and their plans to cause mayhem in London while Britain heads for a General Election.

Campbell says the book reflects the way fans and players felt in that era. ‘In the Seventies a Burnley fan could go to a game then be in a cafe that night and bump into players that he’d watched playing earlier. Now, you see Jesse Lingard on Instagram having flown on private jet for a night out in Barcelona. I want my kids and grandchildren to know what it was like back then.’

Saturday Bloody Saturday, by Alastair Campbell & Paul Fletcher, is published on Feb 8 by Orion