Fletcher goes back to the gory days
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Alastair Campbell hitch-hiked to Elland Road to witness Paul Fletcher score arguably Burnley’s greatest goal.
He never imagined he would end up travelling to matches with his boyhood hero. Or that they would write a book together.
Saturday Bloody Saturday, published yesterday, is a novel that delves deep into Fletcher’s memory banks as a centre-forward in a Burnley side who shone brightly in 1974, reaching the FA Cup semifinal as well as thrashing Leeds, then England’s most consistent trophy hunters.
Fletcher’s overhead kick, one of two goals in a 4-1 triumph, is still revered by Clarets of a certain vintage.
A year that featured two General Elections and a three-day working week was memorable to Fletcher for another reason. Britain was under terrorist threat and the book’s fictional team find themselves heading to London as an IRA hit squad prepare to assassinate a top Labour politician.
“It was a frightening time,” said Fletcher, who was Burnley’s record signing when he moved from Bolton for £66,000 in 1969. “A coach was bombed on the M62 in Leeds, some soldiers were going back to their barracks, and you’d think, ‘This could happen to a football coach’.
“The chances were a million to one but it didn’t feel like that. You were always thinking about it, or the stadium – is that a place the IRA would target?
“It was a nervous time to travel down to London, but we got some good results there. It seemed to last two or three years and I do vividly remember the fear. My wife would say, ‘Be careful on Saturday’, but how can you be careful if someone puts a bomb in the stadium? It was real.”
Authenticity on IRA methods was provided by the man who was Tony Blair’s close confidant throughout the Good Friday Agreement negotiations, which eventually brought peace to Northern Ireland. Campbell, the spin doctor supreme of the New Labour era, was able to go straight to Martin McGuinness, the paramilitary turned deputy First Minister who died almost a year ago. “In the first draft, one of the planners of the assassination was in prison in Belfast,” he said. “McGuinness said, ‘Well, that just wouldn’t happen – once you are in prison you are no longer active’.
“It’s important to get the details right in a book like this. The team are fictional but the other clubs and players are not. Ron Harris is portrayed as a hard man because that’s what he was.”
Campbell befriended Fletcher when the latter returned to Turf Moor as chief executive in 2007, having held similar posts at Huddersfield, Bolton and Coventry.
Fletcher, who at 67 is seven years Campbell’s senior, now picks up his pal en route to Turf Moor every other weekend and not since his heyday have Burnley fans had so much to shout about, with last week’s 1-1 draw at home to Manchester City the latest chapter in the real-life success story.
“Pep Guardiola was pretending to praise us afterwards by saying we are the most British team in the Premier League,” said Campbell. “He meant hard, dirty, long ball; I don’t think he meant not many Spanish players.” “You’re so cynical,” said Fletcher. Campbell said: “Well, if it wasn’t a dig then, Pep, I apologise, because I know you read the Daily Express.”
Saturday Bloody Saturday by Alastair Campbell and Paul Fletcher, published by Orion at £18.99.