I've never seen so many sightseers in a car park in almost half a century following football. The players' section of the car park at the City of Manchester Stadium that is, where a yellow-jacketed steward was telling excited autogawpers which Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati or personally customised giant 4x4 belonged to which highly paid members of Mark Hughes's £100 million-plus squad.I've never really been one for cars but there are a lot of men who are, including a few Burnley fans stopping to take pictures. I know Chris Eagles has a Lamborghini, but the fact it made the national press suggested Burnley top of the range car purchases are the exceptions not the rule. The only time I can remember photographers in the Turf Moor car park was to snap former goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly arriving in the Mini he drove all the way from Hungary.
All a long-winded way of saying that from the minute we arrived on Saturday, we felt the gulf in wealth between Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City and Burnley-backed Burnley.
As my son Calum and I walked towards the away end, a Rolls Royce was dropping a dark suited man in shades at the main entrance, alongside a blacked out Hummer from which emerged a tight-trousered, low-cleavaged, gum-chewing blonde dripping jewels, followed by what looked like a nanny carrying a curly-haired child. The blonde might as well have had WAG tattooed on her forehead.
Nice stadium away end packed lower and upper tier, not a bad atmosphere in the home sections either side of us but not as good as Maine Road. It was Burnley's first visit here though so many more pictures being taken than at Anfield or Stamford Bridge. Big gulf in grounds too.
Then came the football. And suddenly the gulf was not so big at all. To be fair to City, for parts of the game they were nearly as good as us.
"Where were you when you were shite?" Came the question from the City fans. The answer, for most of us, was following Burnley, and loving it when we took on bigger so-called better clubs and reminded them that money isn't everything.
Joleon Lescott cost seven times more than our most expensive player, and at £22 million a lot more than the entire Burnley squad, and then some. Yet when it came to a cross from Tyrone Mears, (£500k rising to £600k if he plays a lot, which he will) no amount of transfer fee or inflated wages could legislate for the stupidity of Lescott raising his arm to give us a penalty. Up stepped Graham Alexander, aged 38, signed for £200k from Preston. 1-nil.
Almost 2-nil from a free kick, saved by Shay Given, (£8 million) but when Gareth Barry (£12 million) was dispossessed by Wade Elliott (free), who has played in every league from non-league up, we set in motion another flowing move which ended with another defensive error from Lescott, and a tap in from our record signing - at three million quid - Steven Fletcher, who was brilliant all day.
When Shaun Wright-Phillips, (£8.5 million reduced from £21 million) their best player, pulled one back just before half-time with the help of a deflection off Stephen Jordan (released by City in 2007) I cannot have been alone in my "here we go again" sinking feeling.
Hughes must have read the riot act at half-time because City were much better in the second, and the sinking feeling went deeper with each of the two goals, from Kolo Toure (£14 million) and Craig Bellamy (also reported to have cost £14 million) which put them 3-2 ahead.
Suddenly the joy and mayhem which greeted the penalty and Fletcher's tap-in seemed a distant memory. But we never gave up. And we had another schoolboy error from another multimillionaire international defender with a big car to come.
What Wayne Bridge (their third £14 million man on the field on Saturday) thought he was doing when he headed the ball lackadaisically into the path of David Nugent (on loan from Portsmouth) is beyond me. It will doubtless be beyond Fabio Capello when he sees the tape.
Nugent pounced, crossed for Fletcher, whose exquisite cushioned header found substitute Kevin McDonald who volleyed home. McDonald was a £500k snip from Scotland's lower leagues, succeeding where 50 million quid's worth of Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez had failed.
Cue joy and mayhem with a Claret and Blue cherry on top. Cue the exit of hordes of City fans. How anyone can leave a match at 3-3 with four minutes added time left is as beyond me as Bridge's header. But thousands did. Perhaps they'd gone to look at Lescott's limo.
Burnley fans stayed to cheer every one of the players off the field, and to celebrate our first away point.
Three goals - all scored by Scots - more than doubled our away total for the season. It felt great. Even better to get home in time to see David Haye beat Goliath and then find we were the main match on Match of the Day. I tweeted asking when was the last time that happened? Nobody can remember!
It was a bonus to have Motty as commentator. Still the best in my view and to be fair to him, and to Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker, the story was as much Burnley playing well and fighting hard as it was City misfiring. We even made Lineker's last line, which I know he takes a lot of trouble over.
City - minus their international players - are now off to Abu Dhabi for a nice sunshine break and doubtless for Hughes a nice session or two with Sheikh Mansour who must be wondering, as the Burnley fans were, "where's your money gone? Where's your money gone?"
It is a good question. We have the smallest squad, the smallest transfer bill, the smallest wage bill by a mile, and yet we were more than a match for the Sheikh's expensively assembled collection of car park tourist attractions. Comments (4)
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