One wouldn’t think Burnley would be on a direct route from Leeds to Liverpool but the canal bearing that name does take a rather roundabout course. It’s a pastoral spot in a town that doesn’t have a reputation for rural charm. The rule of thirds works well enough on this shot.
Now here’s a fairly unique combination: witnessed on the edge of Burnley this afternoon. But as I typed the title of this post, it struck me that it sounded like one of those ‘what 3 words’ geolocation things. So I tried it, and magnificently, “goalie.pylon.llama” does correspond to a 3 x 3m square of land on South Island, New Zealand, to the west of the town of Greymouth — as this page proves. There could be a whole new game in this.
And yes, football’s back. In some ways, anyway.
This is how Christmas works this year. We saw my side of the immediate family today — these people are not them, but we gathered in the same place, Towneley Park in Burnley. We didn’t bring our own seating either, but it worked out anyway. It was good to see them — but it shouldn’t have to be this way.
The Leeds and Liverpool canal takes a very roundabout route to link its titular cities. Here it is going through Burnley, a stretch which is a nice bit of greenery in the middle of that what is, otherwise, a workaday town. But it also feels very neglected, becoming swamped in places by algae (a sign that there are too many nitrates in the water) and litter (a sign that some people shouldn’t be let out of doors). This coot takes advantage of examples of both.
The town of Burnley has nearly 75,000 people in it and lies less than a dozen miles from my house, so one might have expected it to have appeared on the blog more than three times in the last seven years — and all three of them (6/4/12, 1/19/12 and 22/11/15) were taken at Turf Moor, the home of Burnley FC. Is there much other reason to go to Burnley? Not if the evidence of my life is anything to go by, but I did find cause to visit today for non-footballing reasons. The garage was nothing to do with it, but I do like the scene, even if there’s not quite the desired symmetry to the shot.
The Campaign for Real Football might not have approved of Sky moving the kick-off of this weekend’s big game in the Championship to a Sunday lunchtime, but they could never complain about Turf Moor, Burnley. This has got to be one of the most unreconstructed pieces of Northern England remaining in existence, surely.
As I move into the second year of this blog, some things are going to recur. Some of them at the same time each year (tomorrow, for example, Clare is running Alice’s Run again), others at different times, like this one. Here we are at Turf Moor, Burnley, for this season’s match-up between Burnley FC and my beloved Brighton & Hove Albion. Last season it took place in April, on a cold, grey day – and the match (and result) lived up to those conditions. Today, earlier in the season, much sunnier and warmer, and a happier trip for the travelling Seagulls. Burnley 1, Brighton 3.
Good Friday, and the 7th football match to feature on this blog since I began on 26/8/11. And of all the 7, this one was the worst. From Joe’s mood here you can tell the match hasn’t kicked off yet. (Result: Burnley 1, Brighton 0. Even completists might be bored by the information that the other six matches on here have ended Morecambe 2-3 Bristol Rovers, Brighton 2-0 Barnsley, Morecambe 1-2 Accrington Stanley, Leeds 1-2 Brighton [Yes!!], Liverpool 6-1 Brighton [er… not so good], Brighton 2-0 Portsmouth.)
Being 42 