An extraordinary 10 days, from despair to euphoria

What an extraordinary 10 days in the history of Burton Albion.

From the pits of despair at Vale Park to the unbridled euphoria when Matt Paterson’s goal went in to beat Plymouth Argyle in the 94^th minute… with the small matter of a vital victory over Wycombe Wanderers thrown in.

And yet we still have more of this to come and we may yet experience either or both of the above emotions again.

I’m not the first to say that, whatever happens, this has been a wonderful season for the bookies’ favourites for relegation and for the manager who, apparently, quite a lot of people did not want to see in charge at the start of the campaign.

I actually don’t think too many people would have taken that view if they had had the chance to spend a few minutes talking to Gary Rowett about his plans and his approach. He is a persuasive talker but, better than that, he has, so far, been able to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

I think there were a couple of good examples on Saturday of the team spirit Gary has instilled. I say he has instilled it – it comes from the players themselves, who plainly get on with each other, but that’s because they’re the sort of characters Gary and Kevin Summerfield have sought out.

On Saturday morning, Matt Paterson Tweeted how much he was looking forward to another big game – and yet, at that point, he would have known he was not in the starting line-up, despite having done plenty to suggest he should be.

He wasn’t to know then that he would be knocking in a 94^th-minute winner to prompt an eruption of noise at the Pirelli. If he’d dreamed that finish he would perhaps have woken up, pinched himself and said “don’t be daft.”

But it happened and it’s great for Matt. I’ve been speaking to his dad, Bill, recently, and he assures me how much Matt is loving his time at Burton. I think most of us would agree that we hope he’s still with the club next season.

The second example of team spirit was to see the two “main men” who have been dropped, Stuart Tomlinson and Zander Diamond, joining in so fully with the celebrations.

Tomlinson, ever the extrovert, hoisted his replacement, Dean Lyness, in the air at the final whistle and it was hugs all round from Diamond.

That is just what you want to see. Hold tight to your hat and your seat. The next fortnight could be more extraordinary still....

* One of John Potts's splendid pictures of the celebrations after Matt Paterson's goal on Saturday.

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A WORD for the Plymouth Argyle supporters. They may not, quite, have been the largest in number at the Pirelli this season and, yes, their coaches were provided free, but I’d contend they were the best away support here this season.

They kept up a constant, good-natured noise and there were no idiots letting off flares or starting fights.

Argyle are a genuinely big club, therefore they don’t appear to feel the need to boast about what a big club they are, like the fans of wannabe big clubs like Northampton Town and Port Vale.

I had a quick word with Les, the landlord in my after-match local, the Derby Inn, which was heaving with Plymouth fans for a while after the game. For him, it was certainly a case of “can we play you every week.” Plenty of trade and not a whiff of trouble. I do hope Plymouth stay up. Their team looked too good not to on Saturday but one of the biggest concerns they now have for their last two games is that Jason Banton, who has plainly grown up a lot since his very brief loan at Burton two years ago, has been recalled by his parent club Crystal Palace.

That seems very harsh, especially if Banton now finds he doesn’t actually get a game at Palace before the end of the season. 

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A QUICK word too about opposition managers. The list is lengthening of those who cannot bring themselves to admit that they might just have been beaten by Burton Albion because Burton Albion are actually a half-decent side. Graham Alexander at Fleetwood and Mark Yates at Cheltenham are notable recent additions to the list after their teams were thoroughly well beaten by the Brewers.
Add Plymouth Argyle's John Sheridan to the list this week. Plymouth battled hard and had a good spell for 15 minutes or so in the second half but for Sheridan to suggest they "might have been the better side" is delusional. I seem to recall him being equally graceless when he was at Chesterfield and the Brewers won there.
Gareth Ainsworth, the veteran player-manager of Wycombe Wanderers, does not belong on that list. His was an honest assessment of Wycombe's defeat at the Pirelli and he was generous in his praise, not least his praise for Jacques Maghoma, as clear a man of the match on Tuesday as you could wish to see.
I would not be at all surprised to see Ainsworth get Wycombe heading back towards the top of the division again next season. 

Too much happening for the football to be perfect...

Sorry to disappoint those who want to see perfection from League Two players on a football pitch, but the remainder of Burton Albion’s season is unlikely to throw up a series of classics.

There are just too many factors coming into play to make flowing football likely.

First and foremost is the pressure for the teams both at the top and the bottom. Take into account those still harbouring play-off hopes and those still needing a few points to be absolutely sure of staying up and, actually, three-quarters of the division still have something to play for.

The players involved in these games are human beings, not machines. Ever been under pressure at work? Or in an exam? Or in your social life? You don’t necessarily perform exactly as you’d prefer to all of the time in those situations.

Secondly, just as it becomes even more important to deliver your best, you find yourself playing on pitches that are beginning to suffer from the rigours of a long season, as the Pirelli Stadium pitch clearly was on Saturday. Usually, in April, that is accompanied by them drying out and becoming stupidly bouncy. This time, they are sticky and muddy.

I have a bit of a theory (unproven of course) that some people who criticise players a lot are the computer game generation, whose players perform as expected on perfect pitches every time they turn out.

Computer game players don’t encounter conditions like those at Accrington on Monday, with a heavily-sanded pitch and a ferocious wind blowing straight down the ground.

“A lottery,” was Gary Rowett’s immediate observation and he was right.

Take all of these factors into account and the nature of the game was predictable. Nervy, safety first, tempers fraying at times, little quality on the ball.

It wasn’t short of drama though, as the two sides slugged it out, each taking the lead, each working so hard – ultimately, each fully deserving to take something from the game.

Of course, if you’re a Burton player or fan, it was incredibly frustrating not to take all three points once they had got within a minute of doing so and it was especially hard on Stuart Tomlinson.

Just before he spilled Lee Molyneux’s shot to allow James Beattie to knock in Accy’s equaliser, he had made a brilliant save to touch a better shot from Molyneux on to the bar and over. The highs and lows can follow each other very quickly in football.

The point (or lack of three) at Accy has decided nothing: it certainly does not signal the end of Burton’s chances of automatic promotion, as some have been quick to suggest. Actually, a defeat at Port Vale wouldn’t do that either.

All of those strange, largely uncontrollable factors will still ensure more twists. We have three of the last four games at home. It’s too close to call.

It’s been noted – rightly so, I guess – that the local papers have barely mentioned that Jacques Maghoma (pictured) got listed in the League Two team of the season, voted sixth-best by the managers in the division.

Sorry about that. As far as I’m aware, he’s not, as yet, received any trophy for it, unlike with the Player of the Month award.

The problem for us on the local papers was that there was an awful lot of other news around on the day and only so much space. The Brewers signed two players, Lee Fowler and Dominic Knowles, and sent a third, Cleveland Taylor out on loan. Plus, there was a game against Chesterfield to preview.

Getting that nomination was more good news for Jacques towards the culmination of what has been the season of his career so far.

He had few chances to shine in the battle at Accrington but his two free kicks were marvellous. He lined up the first from what seems a ridiculous 45 yards but with a gale at his back, it was probably more like a 30-yarder. It was so close to being right, dipping late and just over the bar with the keeper nowhere near it.

In the second half, Jacques scored with one from 30 yards with the wind against him, again with a late dip to take it under the bar, the keeper again grasping at thin air. I’m off to seek out the video footage...

* Burton Albion news can be found under "Sport - Burton Albion" at www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk
I also tweet reasonably regularly on the Brewers and other sports:  @ColstonC and would certainly appreciate a follow!

The Berbatov of League Two! And Andy Corbett

SO who is the Berbatov of League Two?

Well, according to Kevin Summerfield, it’s Michael Symes.

I have suggested before that behind the assistant manager’s outwardly quiet, man-of-few-words public image lurks a dry wit.

But while Summerfield was undoubtedly joking on one level, you can see what he’s getting at when you look closer.

Gary Rowett mentioned that Sunmerfield had come out with the description of the on-loan striker from Leyton Orient at training.

What he means is that, like Berbatov, Symes can have a languid air on the pitch, as if he’s strolling unhurried about his work. But that should not be mistaken for laziness and, the management team contend, it can mislead opponents.

Rowett cited Symes’ brilliant goal to win the game against Aldershot Town as an example.

When a long high ball came down the field towards the striker and three defenders, they all back off him. The ball was allowed to bounce, they did not really stop him controlling it.

What they did not expect was that he would then turn and volley it into the top corner of the net. But Burton supporters had already seen an example of Symes’ control and awareness when he juggled for four or five touches before equalising at Wimbledon.

“He has terrific awareness,” said Rowett. “He knows where everyone is, his team-mates, the defenders, the goalkeeper – he spotted that the Aldershot keeper was slightly off his line.”

Rowett and Summerfield don’t think Symes is lazy at all. They think he can just look that way, although it wasn’t something that had occurred to me until the manager mentioned it.

Symes had a groin problem for the away game at Dagenham and, arguably, his ability to hold the ball up and bring other into play was missed. That said, Calvin Zola played and it wasn’t very long ago at all that we were describing those abilities as among Zola’s best assets. Truth is, they still are; it’s just that Calvin, like one or two others, didn’t have one of his best days at Dagenham.

Symes has certainly upped the ante in terms of competition up front and that was something Rowett quietly alluded to when I talked to him about the assembling of the current squad this week.

He likes the fact that there is good competition to play at centre-half and up front, competition he has ramped up by adding Ian Sharps and Symes (pictured) on loan. When you get in, you have to play well to stay in and when others get a chance, even if it’s off the bench, they have to put themselves about to have a chance of securing a place.

It is, of course, how it should be.

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Not too much has been said about Andy Corbett’s testimonial as yet, which is rather a shame and yet understandable in that a promotion bid is bound to overshadow everything at this stage of a season.

Corbs is also one of the quiet men of football; it’s just his nature. When others spend their summers on a beach, his idea of a perfect holiday is to flog himself up a mountain, either on his bike or climbing it.

There is no date yet for a testimonial match but a committee is operating, with director Frank Spiers and Radio Derby summariser Tony Bentley particularly active on it.

There is to be an Andy Corbett Testimonial Golf Day on Monday, April 29 at Broughton Heath GC, Bent Lane, Church Broughton, DE65 5BA

The entry is £75 for a team of three, to include 18 holes and a barbecue. Each team of three will have a fourth player allocated to them from among the players, management, staff and guests of the club.

Gary Rowett, Kevin Summerfield and Zander Diamond are already confirmed as among these.

Golf Day booking forms are available from www.andycorbettgolf@gmail.com

Various Sponsorship opportunities are available including for the nearest the pin prizes and for sponsorship of each.

Please contact Tony Bentley on 07733 315249 for more details.

Anyone not wanting to play but who would like to attend the barbecue, which starts at 5pm, can but a ticket for that for £8.

Cheques should be sent payable to “Frank Spiers & Co Re Andy Corbett's Testimonial”  together with a stamped addressed envelope to Tony Bentley, 3 Lancaster Drive, Hilton, Derbyshire, DE65 5JQ.

* I update Burton Albion news as and when I have it in the Derby Telegraph newspaper, on the paper's website, at http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/burtonalbion#axzz2O55kEdDo and I update from matches and during the week on Twitter:  @ColstonC

Finding a way to win the bad games is what successful teams do...

Nobody – absolutely nobody – wins promotions by being brilliant all of the time.

Footballers are human beings, not stats on a computer game, and sometimes things go wrong, as they did for Burton Albion at Bristol Rovers.

As much as it’s a cliché, promotions are won as much by teams working hard enough to find a result when the going is tough and, on Tuesday night, that was a test Burton Albion passed with flying colours.

It was a grim, icily cold night in Aldershot and the Brewers were up against it when they conceded a goal in three minutes.

It would be easy to criticise the defence, as Aldershot’s on-loan striker, Paul McCallum, got beyond them and scored from a narrow angle but the rest of the match showed that it really was just one of those things which can happen sometimes. The Brewers got caught cold and McCallum, as it happens, barely had a meaningful kick for the rest of the night.

Lifted by an unbeaten run of six games and buoyed by the goal, Aldershot had a good first half-hour, snapping into their challenges and playing with a bit of confidence.

What impressed me during that period, though, and what was so different to last season’s Burton, or even Burton away from home earlier this season, was that they appeared to believe in what they were trying to achieve, even when things weren’t working out for them.

The shape didn’t change, the style didn’t change. The effort most certainly didn’t. For a while, they were rushed by Aldershot’s keenness but, towards the end of the half, the Shots’ fire was going out and the Brewers were starting to get on top.

Looking back at my notes, all the half-chances were falling to Burton, save for a shot from midfielder Danny Rose which Stuart Tomlinson beat away efficiently to his left.

The replays show that Robbie Weir’s equaliser, a minute before half-time, was a better goal than it looked at the time, a nice, controlled volley from the edge of the box.

Burton had done enough to deserve to go in level.

In the second half, they did more than enough to deserve the win that came their way when three Aldershot defenders shamefully failed to challenge Michael Symes for a high ball and he punished them with a volley high into the net from the edge of the box.

That one looked a good goal at the time; it looks an even better one on the replays and a willingness to shoot is a feature of this Burton side.

We scarcely saw any goals from outside the box in the first couple of seasons in the league, the team tending to try to walk the ball in, but they are flying in from all angles now. Confidence does that for you but so does being encouraged to have a go by the management, I rather suspect.

It wasn’t a great game, let’s not kid ourselves, but the Brewers found a way to win it. It’s a very good quality to have.

As usual, the opposition manager, Andy Scott, wasn’t in any mood to praise Burton, just as Mark Yates of Cheltenham and Graham Alexander of Fleetwood haven’t been recently.

Perhaps to acknowledge Burton’s qualities would be an admission that they were out-guessed tactically by Messrs Rowett and Summerfield.

Strangely, it was an Aldershot fan who summed it up best in the after-match comments. This was on their forum:

“I thought they were excellent, their work rate was fantastic ALL game. I think the reason so many of our players had a bad game was down to them, they never gave any of ours a moment. In fact I may be so bold as to suggest that they’re not getting enough credit for their performance. OK maybe they didn’t play beautiful, free flowing football but they earned their win.
And sure, we contained them but, apart from the early goal, we didn’t look like scoring and the longer the game went on I thought there only looked like there would be one winner.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

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Poor Alex MacDonald. A super three points and then he puts his phones on top of his car when he stops for a pee and drives off forgetting about them! When he remembers and goes back, he finds a lorry has driven over them.

The on-loan Burnley winger recounted this tale of woe on Twitter when he got home.

That apart, things seem to be going rather well for him at Burton and I already get the impression that a lot of Burton fans would welcome him being signed permanently at the end of the season.

Wholehearted triers are welcomed by most supporters and MacDonald is certainly one of those. We also found out at Aldershot that he has a long throw. He delivered two of them at the EBB Stadium, one better than the other, and it’s another string to Burton’s bow.

Thanks to the Burton supporter who had a scout around Burnley’s forum and found out that the fans there rate MacDonald too.

That is, they rate him as a bloke and a trier. They think he perhaps isn’t Championship class (he still has time to become that at 22 of course) but they also wish him well if he ends up at Burton.

Loans in Scotland (twice) and Plymouth will have been hard work. MacDonald, who has a baby daughter, and lives in Runcorn, says he is ready to settle. Perhaps it will be here.

* Latest Burton Albion news is reached quickly here:  www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/burtonalbion#axzz2NE6u2uiu

Changing times in the media...and other stuff

This is a time of change in the newspaper industry – indeed, I should really say media industry. At the Derby Telegraph, we are now part of a group called Local World which also includes the Burton Mail and a lot of other media outlets in the Midlands and further afield.

Much emphasis is being placed on the internet and – if you want to read them – you will, as things develop, find more and more small snippets of up-to-date news on our website, www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk. They will be flagged up on Twitter and Facebook more and more too. I expect to update more often on Twitter from matches: @ColstonC if you’re not already following.

The aim is to make sure that whatever I get to know about the Brewers will be shared as widely as possible.

I’m a traditional old newspaper hack getting to grips with this new world and while part of me is disappointed that the newspaper itself is not necessarily the first port of call for information any more, I’ve been conscious for a long time that the Derby Telegraph is hard to find in Burton. That’s not the case with the info on the internet, in whatever form, so my target is to increase my internet audience.

It’s an exciting time to follow the Brewers and an interesting time for the media coverage of them. Join me for the ride!

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Well, the League Two table has an interesting look to it after the midweek games.

Burton Albion could have done without Cheltenham sneaking a stoppage-time goal to beat Chesterfield but never mind, it was always unrealistic to think  the Brewers would stay in the top three every single day until the end of the season, given the games in hand other people had.

What’s interesting now is that a lot of the games in hand other people had are out of the way. We actually go into the Cheltenham match on Saturday with a game in hand over them and we’ve played the same number as Port Vale, Northampton Town and Exeter City.

Suddenly, below the top seven, a seven-point gap has appeared and it’s one that can’t be made up with their one game in hand by either Southend United or Fleetwood Town, nor by Bradford City with two games in hand. Imagine the pressure on them now to turn that game or games into maximum points.

Fleetwood v Exeter and Port Vale v Southend are two other games this weekend which see promotion challengers going head to head.

I wouldn’t like to predict how it will all end up but it’s fascinating and isn’t it brilliant to be involved in it at all, rather than being at this stage and talking about the handful of points we still need to guarantee a place in League Two next season?

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It’s a shame that the club worded their announcement of season ticket prices a little ambiguously, because it enabled those who want to have a moan about anything possible to, well, have a moan.

The initial wording rather suggested that both existing season ticket holders and new applicants could take advantage of the same frozen price for next season and this actually isn’t quite the case. New applicants will pay a little more. The critics predictably suggested that new applicants should be paying the same, as we need to encourage new applicants. It isn’t rocket science to work out that, had the prices been the same, the critics (possibly the self-same people in some cases) would have turned it around and said the club was failing to reward existing season ticket holders for their loyalty!

In the end, the other thing that isn’t rocket science is that the prices are exceptionally good, compared to every other Football League club and that is the main thing to take from this.

The best prices, of course, are there for those prepared to commit early, which means they will buy not knowing which division the club is playing in. Surely, that isn’t relevant. If Burton Albion are still a League Two club next season, this will still have been an exceptional campaign for a new squad, with a new manager, who the bookies installed as relegation favourites.

Football club chairmen and administrators are there to be shot at and we all know that Burton Albion do not get everything right; they would be an exception if they did.

But given the loss made last year, there must have been a temptation for Ben Robinson to raise prices. He didn’t do it. Credit where it’s due.

"We'll take a point today...!" Oh look, we got three. Again.

A FRIEND of mine has a Scouse mate, a Liverpool supporter, who decided to hook up with us for the trip to Fleetwood Town a couple of weeks ago.

This chap is old enough to have caught some of Liverpool’s proper glory days but has got used to plenty of (relative) disappointment in recent years as well. Of more interest is that, through his friendship with my Burton-supporting mate, he takes a passing interest in the Brewers and knows how they are doing and the way the club is set up.

He was genuinely surprised, however, to listen to Burton supporters talking before the game, saying things like “we’ll take a point today.”

After he watched the Brewers take Fleetwood apart and we met up afterwards he said: “I’m amazed that you didn’t go into the game thinking your team could do that. You’re where you are in the league, you’re flying. Why shouldn’t you believe you’re going to beat them?”

It’s a good point but it’s a little reminder, I think, of who we are and where we’ve come from. There was plenty of similar talk ahead of the Rotherham game and the Exeter game; a lot of us came up with reasons (the injury list in one case, Exeter’s away form in the other) why a point would be a good result.

Even on Tuesday night, I wasn’t the only one thinking the Morecambe game might just be a step too far, that all good runs come to an end and a slightly less pressured game might just be the one in which it happened. I didn’t think that after five minutes, mind you, because it was obvious in that time that the players were as up for it as in any other of the recent contests. Morecambe had plenty of the ball but only one team looked like scoring; well, for 80 minutes anyway.

So, as I was saying, it’s about who we are and where we’ve so recently come from. Even in the fourth year in the Football League, a lot of us can’t quite believe this is happening.

If you’re an older supporter, you’re equating this to grim nights at Northern Premier League games. If you’re younger and you don’t have those memories, perhaps you can’t quite believe that Gary Rowett was going to do such a good job; something you share with a lot of the older supporters.

I can claim that I did believe he would do the job this well but that, admittedly, is from the privileged position of getting to talk to the man every week as part of my job. It wasn’t difficult to see Gary’s focus, common sense and determination, nor how most of the players were reacting to him.

The addition of Kevin Summerfield is proving a master-stroke too. Gary stated when he asked Kevin to join that, though they shared a philosophy, he wanted someone else on board who would see things differently, who would fill in the skills and experience gaps he recognised in himself. How many managers have you heard say anything like that?

Kevin occasionally does the after-match interviews and would probably be the first to admit that he’s not such a natural at them as Gary.

The manager will come out smiling with a quip or two before we start. His assistant tends to gaze around the assembled media with the air of wondering how long this might take. But he often cuts straight to the chase. The management “weren’t happy” at 3-0 up at half-time against Exeter because, goals apart, the team hadn’t been playing as they can.

That tells you all you need to know about how they work.

It’s not a bad week to be reflecting on how they work, with Bristol Rovers away on Saturday… the fixture that was the low point, statistically at least, of Gary’s time as caretaker manager, when everything Rovers hit went in, or was deflected in, mostly, and it ended 7-1.

Gary was calm after that, though, reasoning that it was beneficial, in that it had told him a lot about the character of some of the players in his squad and focused him on what needed to be done in the summer.

Draw your own conclusions, then, from the statistic that only four of the players in the 16-man match day squad for the game at Bristol Rovers last season were in the 18-man squad for the Morecambe game on Tuesday.

Yes, injuries have a small part to play in that. Aaron Webster was in neither squad but is still at the club, for example. But, basically, Gary has effected the transformation he knew was necessary.

The four in both squads? Jacques Maghoma, Andy Corbett, Jimmy Phillips and Calvin Zola.

• Most of you correctly identified Billy Kee as the schoolboy player in the picture quiz in my last blog. He was playing for Allexton & New Parks Under-11s in Leicester in 2001 in the picture. Paul Parker was the first to come up with the answer. Paul, I will get in touch to sot out the prize - a pint - soon!

Reflections on Fleetwood... and a picture quiz

Having missed the big day at Vauxhall Motors  when Burton Albion clinched promotion to the Conference, my own most memorable away day following the Brewers is of a game in which they were beaten; the day at Torquay, of course, when promotion to the Football League was confirmed.

In terms of regular games and performances, however, I am struggling to think of anything to match Saturday’s stunning victory at Fleetwood Town.

It was the completeness of the performance which will stay in the memory.

It started with the methodical, determined way the players went about snuffing out such threat as Fleetwood had in the first half on a dreadful, heavily sanded pitch.

It may be a cliché, that you have to earn the right to play, but it’s very true and the Brewers did that. They had the better opportunities in that first half, too.

In the second half, they took over the game. Jacques Maghoma had had a quiet first half, the ball not running for him, but he did little wrong in the second half and, aside from the goals, there was one moment when he skipped away from one opponent and nutmegged another to turn defence into attack which was worth the admission, as they say. It was no surprise to see him and others Tweeting about it later on: “Jaguar skills!” said Stuart Tomlinson. “I knew you’d be buzzing. All I could hear was your voice!” answered Maghoma. The camaraderie between them on Twitter tells us plenty about the spirit in the dressing room.

The longer the game went on, the less heart Fleetwood had for the contest, as Burton wore them down and Maghoma tormented them. I don’t buy any argument from the Fleetwood end about it not being a penalty, or a red card. Maghoma had slipped past keeper Scott Davies and had no reason to fall with an empty net in front of him. Davies clipped him and the referee had no option.

Nor am I much concerned that Fleetwood had a patched-up side because of injuries. So did Burton the previous week against Rotherham. Fleetwood have a bigger, more expensively-assembled squad and if, as we were told, they have loaned out a number of those surplus players, well, that’s the choice you make. They were unbeaten in five going into the game, so they were hardly in dire straits.

It was good to see Gary Rowett’s theory about his side being fitter than others late in the game and being able to exploit space against tired opponents proved. Some of the passing between Maghoma, Billy Kee, Michael Symes and, later, Calvin Zola was wonderfully intuitive and Fleetwood had no answer.

It was good to see Maghoma also answer those who claim he is a selfish player by presenting a chance on a plate for Zola at the end when he might have gone for his own hat-trick.

And it was good, too, when a chant of “one Gary Rowett” broke out among the large away following. Rowett will know as much as anyone that he was not the universally popular choice to take over when Paul Peschisolido was sacked but he has won over most of the doubters now.

Two of them, Mick Arnold and Doug Harvey, went public on the Burton Albion Facebook page in the last week to say “we were wrong.” Good on them! As Doug said: “Thank God Ben (Robinson) saw something in him…”

Indeed.

Let’s not pretend all days between now and the end of the season will be as good as Saturday at Fleetwood. But hey, it was very good indeed. 

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And finally, a picture quiz for you. Who is this current Burton Albion player, captured during his schooldays? A pint, some time, for the first to answer it correctly, either here, by messaging me on the fans' forum, through Facebook or by emailing me at work, ccrawford@derbytelegraph.co.uk