Brian Laws hails Turf Moor pitch battle

Laws reminisced about the time, more than 30 years ago, when he volunteered to clear the pitch as an apprentice with the Clarets, which led to an incident involving a dumper truck, a collision with the Bob Lord Stand and an altercation with manager Brian Miller.

However, despite the inclement weather conditions, there’s been no sight of trucks or shovels within the Clarets camp.

Ice and snow at Burnley’s Gawthorpe training ground had initially interrupted their preparations for the weekend fixture with Leeds United, but a huge desire to play, coupled with the groundsman’s leniency and the installation of the new £750,000 Desso Grassmaster pitch, with new irrigation and undersoil heating, has seen the Clarets reap the rewards.

Laws said: “The only time I can remember having really heavy snow like this was when I was an apprentice here in ’79. It was that deep in snow they asked for volunteers to take it off, and I’d just passed my driving test and I had to drive a dumper truck, I loved it.

“I was driving it and I had to go down the main street and back to dump the snow. I got cocky after about five tries, and I was taking it really fast around a corner, I couldn’t straighten it up, and I smashed straight into the Bob Lord stand.

“Brian Miller nearly knocked my head off.”

The Clarets have faced a fortnight without any action following the postponement of the weekend’s game against Steve Cotterill’s Portsmouth, but Laws is adamant his squad are ‘ticking over’ well.

Laws said: “It’s been a long fortnight. They talk about a day being a long time in football, but a fortnight without a game is unheard of.

“The last two weeks have been very difficult, no question; training facilities have been smashed to bits with the weather, we’ve had to beg, steal and borrow to keep the players focused and to keep them fit.

“They’ve been itching to get on a bit of grass, so I’ve had to plead with the groundsman, and they are notoriously protective of the pitch, but we’ve had to do some bargaining with him to get on the main pitch, because obviously we’ve had the heating on.

“We trained on it the other day, and with the players it was like a new toy; they couldn’t wait to get on it and I couldn’t get them off, to the annoyance of the groundsman.

“But that’s the way these two weeks have been, it’s been frustrating, but also you can see them very hungry and desperate for a game of football, and hopefully they’ll have that kind of mentality against Leeds United.”

Since the 2-1 victory over Derby County on home soil, the squad have been fighting for fitness at home and in the gym. And, courtesy of frequent heart monitor results, Laws knows there has been no signs of slacking.

“What we’ve tried to do is maintain a good balance,” Laws said. “We’ve used the heart monitors with the players when we can’t get them in when they’re at home or at the gym, and they give us the information back from the monitors, which we’ve downloaded and seen they’ve been working hard.

“They’ve physically been ticking over nicely. Nobody has slacked off, in fact they’ve been working harder. Although we haven’t played as much football, physically we’ve topped them up, so it’s been very valuable. They think it’s pre-season again.

“Finally, the cost of the new pitch has paid off and it’s probably the best investment the club will make.

“It’s better than buying a player because its value to us will be great, not just in conditions like this, but also for the rest of the season. We can play a lot of games on here and it won’t be affected and it’s going to be a great sight to see when the rain starts to pour down again, we won’t have a boggy pitch.”

Laws took the chance to visit Elland Road, courtesy of the Clarets’ enforced winter break, where he witnessed Simon Grayson’s side beat Crystal Palace 2-1 courtesy of a late brace from Luciano Becchio. And he knows knocking them off their sixth-place perch isn’t going to be an easy feat.

“They’re all big games,” he said. “And when you haven’t played a game and one or two teams have it sends a more important message to say that we’ve got to go out there and win the game and if we achieve that then we can overtake Leeds and push ourselves back into the top six. It’s an important game for us, it’s not going to be easy.

“I had Glynn Snodin on the phone this morning on the scrounge, asking me a few questions. ‘What was the team for Saturday?’ which I gave him. I was quite happy to give him the team early. Billy Mercer was in goal, Stuart Gray left back, Brian Laws right back and Russ Wilcox at centre half. He decided he’s not turning up on Saturday, it was too strong a team, job done. Then secondly he was asking for a car park, so I said to him ‘pay’, like everyone else. But that’s the kind of camaraderie that you have with opposite managers and coaching staff but seriousness does start on Saturday for sure.

“I had an opportunity to see them first hand against Crystal Palace and it was such an open game, one you couldn’t call until the last 15 minutes and Leeds then got a grip of the game but could still so easily have lost it. That emphasises what you’ve got on paper doesn’t give you the right to win a game. While we’ve got a strong side we have to earn the right, that’s a message we need to be very strong with. Leeds are a massive club annd they’re certainly on the up now. They’ve been on a downward spiral for quite a while but you can see things are turning.”

And Laws is expecting a record attendance for the season and a vociferous atmosphere ahead of the ‘War of the Roses’ clash, though he hopes his side give the Clarets faithful the ammunition to stop the visitors ‘Marching on Together’.

“One thing that hasn’t changed with them is the fans,” added Laws. “They are very strong in the sense that they’ll come and support them through thick and thin and while they’re on an upwards you can see the continuation of good support and you can see the travelling support is going to be strong.

“We have to make sure that while they may have three or four thousand on we’ve got to be more vocal than them and the only way we can achieve that is to give the supporters the ammunition to do that. We need the players to perform on Saturday and that’s a key element for us to win the game.”

The Clarets have been forced to experiment with various strategies, tactics and formations to combat teams at Turf Moor this season. The Clarets failed to make their dominance pay against the likes of Bristol City and Doncaster Rovers who successfully left with a point after piling players behind the ball. Nigel Clough’s organised Derby County side also looked to have thwarted Burnley’s attempts as they looked to sit on a one-goal lead until their resolute defence was eventually infiltrated.

Laws added: “We’ve had to overcome hurdles and difficulties because teams are coming here looking to get a point or protecting a goal so we’ve had to adapt. As long as we’re versatile enough to change against their tactics and we’re doing the right things then hopefully we’ll come out winners. It doesn’t matter if we have to wait until the last 10 minutes to do it, it’s a game of patience. Leeds aren’t a negative team, they are positive and they’ll want to have a go at us so I can see it being a very open game.

“It’s a local game so it’s an important game for everybody. It can cement their position in there and it can cement ours sothere’s a lot of elements in it that are positive for both clubs. If you can get through the Christmas period and you’re in the right position then you can kick on. Come January that’s when the league levels out; the teams there or thereabouts tend to push on and it doesn’t rarely change from that period onwards. Teams will strengthen in January as I hope we do and it’s an important period where we need to stay in it so results are going to be vital between now and the mid-January period.”