Happy April Fool’s Day

Paul Fletcher scored the greatest goal I ever saw, several decades ago, for Burnley against Don Revie's 'dirty Leeds.' A picture of the moment hangs in our hallway.  Now Burnley's chief executive, Fletcher has shown in the last few weeks he still has flair and creativity - with that rare thing, an April Fool that made me laugh. It has also caused mayhem. Fletcher was the brains behind a scheme - sorry scam - to honour the club's greatest ever players. Those duly honoured - or at least those he wanted to annoy - received a latter in February, with a proper masthead, and an impressive array of sponsors like Nike, Dulux, McDonalds and the Football League. None but the wisest codebreakers would have noticed that the main sponsor was the little known Daehbonk International (read Daehbonk backwards and you get the picture). The letter explained that the list of 100 greatest Clarets was compiled by the club, the FA Heritage Committee, and 5000 randomly selected season ticket holders. The next, but equally missable clue, came in the invitation to a black tie 135 pounds a head dinner to honour the hundred - at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane on 01-04-09 (i.e. today). I was brought in on the joke because I was named as the after dinner speaker and entertainment was to be provided by The Bachelors and comedian Mike King. The letter also boasted that preferential rates for an overnight stay for all honoured Clarets had been secured.  It further announced that at the dinner, the top ten would be presented with a gold Omega watch. 11-20 with a personally initialled leather briefcase. 21-35 with a port decanter. 36-50 with two Burnley season tickets. 51-100 with a limited edition Burnley scarf. So far so good. But then came the list. Number one - no surprise, Jimmy McIlroy, by common consent our greatest ever player. Number 2, also from way back, Jimmy Adamson. Number 3 - Leighton James - my hero. But who is that at number 6? Gazza? He only played a handful of games for us. And who is that at number 10? Paul Fletcher. Oh dear, his team-mates from the 70s were not going to like this. It was when you got to the 51-100 bracket that you realised his game. Martin Dobson, one of our best ever players, at 64, behind players in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s not fit to lace his boots. Indeed look closely and you could see almost all of Fletcher's team-mates in the 'limited edition scarf' section. As letters arrived, anger rose. Dobson, who is part of the club's youth development team, was considering his position, thinking if this was what the club thought of him, why should he continue to serve them? When I bumped into Steve Kindon at a match, I feared for Fletcher's safety for daring to come ahead of him. But by now the thing was getting wonderfully out of control. Fletcher 'leaked' the list to Clarets Mad website, who were also brought in on the joke, but presented it straight. Cue a massive uproar, an avalanche of messages of protest. Club historians were upset. Names missed out entirely were contacted for their furious reactions. Names relegated to scarves were asked to condemn the whole exercise. By now the world's biggest club was in on the act. Because there at Number 95 was Alex Ferguson's deputy at Manchester United, Mike Phelan. Ferguson was made part of the wind-up, telling Phelan he had to go to the dinner or risk being accused of his less glamorous former club of 'having gone big-time Charlie.' It was only, several weeks later, when Phelan wrote to Fletcher claiming prior engagements that we put him out of his misery. As to whether anyone turns up at the Grosvenor House tonight, I wouldn't care to be Paul Fletcher if they do.