Clarke Carlisle's Blog by Clarke_Carlisle

Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous! That's the only sentiment I can come up with when I contemplate the facts that (a); we were beaten by Coventry on Saturday, and (b); they have subsequently moved above us in the table! The difference in styles between the two sides was polar! I played under Aidy Boothroyd at Watford and experienced real success with the method, but when you are playing against it, it feels so anti-football!! Shelling fifty yard balls up to 6"5 striker Clive Platt in the hope of picking up the knock downs is real percentage football. By contrast, we tried to work the ball through the thirds and create an opening with movement and guile. This must sound like a really bitter rant because, after all, they won the game and that's all the Rothman's will show!

We must stay strong to our values and beliefs though. Continuing to play good flowing football and creating clear opportunities in front of goal will finally pay dividends. But it needs to be sooner rather than later, because we're getting to that point in the season where 3 points is actually more important than a good performance! We're halfway through a good week of high intensity work on the training ground and we need that to carry over to Saturday when we entertain Derby County at 5.15pm on the telly. It'll be a chance to show everyone what we're capable of and start climbing back up the league again.

Away from the pitch I had one of my proudest moments of my career this week. On Wednesday I was named the new Chairman of the Professional Footballer's Association, succeeding Chris Powell in the role. It's such an honour to be selected to represent your entire workforce, especially when it is your peers who elect you. I am just liaising with Chris and Gordon Taylor, our Chief Executive, to fully understand the parameters of the role, what the expectations and requirements are and what I can seriously contribute to/affect within the union and football in general. It's very reassuring to receive full backing when I state that I still have to devote full time and attention to my continuing football career. The requirements of the position can't in any way hinder that and if anything, I think they will contribute in a positive way.

One thing I will definitely have to improve on though, is names and faces! I am so bad at recalling people's names, it can be a bit embarrassing sometimes! I stand there, stalling, knowing that I know someone but just can't quite put the name to the face or place to them! If anyone's got any tips they would be greatly appreciated! So, erm, fella, thanks for reading my blog, erm, big guy, and please, have a great week and many blessings, er, love!!!

Good day all! I’ve had a rather interesting time since I last called in. We’ve had 3 matches that have produced contrasting performances and results. We travelled away to Norwich brimming with confidence after our jaunt to QPR and it helped us to produce possibly our best 45 minutes of the season. 2-0 up at half-time, we felt destined to break our away day hoodoo but alas, it was not to be. Giving them every credit that’s due, they came out like a team possessed in the second half and put in a performance that rivalled ours in the first. Even so, it took an overlooked blatant handball to get them an equaliser and we felt very hard done by. It’s galling when a decision costs you points, especially when the referee is in the perfect position to make the call, but they are human after all, and therefore as fallible as the next man.

We continued our string of good performances in the next game, a home match against Doncaster Rovers. This was a different tale, although the outcome was exactly the same! After conceding a goal against the run of play, we created chance after chance after chance, but they all went begging. After finally digging out an equaliser, we finished with a 1-1 draw and were wondering if our luck would ever change! Well, it finally did, because after one of our least convincing performances on Saturday, we managed to grind out a 3-2 victory against Watford, and how sweet it was too! You always like to do well when you play against one of your old teams, however it’s also standard procedure that you should commit your first (and hopefully last!) big howler of the season, much to the delight of your ex-support!

I was caught in two minds when a hopeful clearance was bouncing towards me on the halfway line, whether to just half-volley it back up the pitch, or try and control the ball and pass it out of defence. Consequently I ended up doing neither, just letting the ball bounce through to a delighted Watford striker who duly ran up the pitch and slotted it home. It’s at times like this that a player is severely tested, because it can cause you to crumble under the pressure and make more and more mistakes, or you can smile, confident in the knowledge that the next time the situation will be dealt with.

I believe that the latter was the case for me, and that’s come from experience. Mistakes happen to all players from Premier League to the Conference, but better players make less, and recover from them quicker. After the match the squad went en masse to watch the shambles that was the world title fight between Audley Harrison and David Haye. Well, if anyone ever grumbles about players and their wages again, I’ll simply refer to Harrison’s £1.5 million for his no show on Saturday! I never expected it to be a classic, but I did expect him to at least try! I’d have been happier if it was all over in the first round but he’d come out ‘windmilling’ and attempted to knock Haye out!

Wow, this was to be Heavyweight champion of the WORLD! I can only imagine that the fear froze him, because the reception that he received was definitely hostile. After the fight it was maybe deserved, but he was getting pelters on his way to the ring, a tad harsh for a home crowd! Full credit to David Haye though, he did exactly what it said on the tin, and I hope he takes it to the Klitschkos now because they will be good fights! Before I go I just want to say happy birthday to my boy, Marley, who was 3 last week. Daddy loves you son! Have a great week and many blessings!

Wotcha folks! I’ve had quite an eventful few days since I last checked in with you, a couple of matches, a Sky commentating debut and a slightly unnerving visit to my knee specialist! I’ll start with last week’s fixtures which began with a trip to Villa Park for a Carling Cup tie against Aston Villa. We lost the game 2-1 in extra-time, but deserved so much more. It was a tad bizarre that Andy Goldstein had predicted that scoreline, and the fact that I would score in the 90th minute on no less than two occasions that week! It was such an awesome feeling to score the goal, the equaliser taking the game into added time, and I was overcome with unbridled joy, as you can see! In fact the picture looks like a still from platoon or something!!!

After playing for two hours in that match I’m sure we could’ve been forgiven for turning in a weary performance on the Saturday at Loftus Road, but it couldn’t have been more different. Travelling to QPR, the league leaders at the time, we put in a shift that saw the first goal that they’d conceded at home all season (Graham Alexander top man!) and should’ve resulted in their first loss. But Paddy Kenny was in inspired form in the Ranger’s goal. If you add into that the fact that half a dozen of the lads were struck down with gastroenteritis in the two days between the games, it was a very commendable effort. However in the final 5 minutes of that game Jamie Mackie landed really heavily on my right knee, the one that I had surgery on some 10 years ago and I encountered my first problem with that knee since then.

As a precautionary measure my physio sent me for an MRI scan at Leeds and the results were somewhat disconcerting! The radiographer reported that my Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL) was missing!!!! This seemed completely implausible because I only had slight swelling and the joint seemed perfectly stable, so I piggy-backed Chris McCann’s visit to Mr. Andy Williams, the world’s foremost knee specialist and perpetrator of my original surgery, to get a qualified opinion. It transpires that my ligaments are all present and correct, they’d obviously been mailed first class from the 18 yard box in West London! Because my LCL had been repaired using part of my hamstring, what had appeared on the scan was not what the radiographer was looking for, so he mistakenly thought it had completely ruptured! I was so glad that a potential 3 month injury became a 3 day setback with just one meeting!

Finally, I made my debut with the Sky commentary team in the fixture between Blackpool and West Bromwich Albion on Monday night. I was so nervous because I’d never done this for TV before, and it was completely different to my previous forays into radio commentary. On the radio your comments are very much descriptive, painting a picture for the listener because they can’t see the action. It took a while for me to get used to the fact that a; I had to explain WHY things were happening, not just WHAT was happening. b; people could see what was going on so we didn’t have to talk ALL the time. And c; I have to watch the monitor AND the match so that I could refer to angle changes and/or cut-away shots of the crowd/managers/reactions etc. that were appearing on TV. I’m sure that I will improve with practice, but it’s great to get a taster of all the different facets of the media to see what I do or don’t like and to see what I can or can’t do. Well I’m just preparing for the long trip to Norwich, always a grind, but if you fancy an insight into our away days, I compiled a video diary of last week’s trip to Birmingham and London. It’s on Burnley’s official website at present and is good for a laugh, even if I do say so myself! Have a great week and many blessings!

Well, who'd have thunk it!! I don’t know about the next man, but a 4-0 home defeat to Reading was the last thing I expected when I turned up at Turf Moor on Saturday! As seems to be a recurring theme for my blog, refereeing decisions played a massive part in the game, two penalties (one given and one not) and a red card showing how involved the man in the middle was. I don’t think we can make any complaints about Leon Cort’s dismissal, or about the penalty decision that went against him, but in not awarding a penalty when big Chris Iwelumo was bundled over in the box the referee made a match changing decision.

The lads didn’t play very well, that was plain to see, but if you can nick a goal against the run of play and go in 1-1 at half-time, it can do your confidence the world of good. You don’t have to go chasing the game from the start of the second half, leaving yourselves vulnerable to the counter, you can just relax and continue to try and play good, flowing football and wait for the chance to come your way. I’m not going to lie to anyone, Leon’s sending off gives me a fantastic chance to get straight back into the side, which is great on a personal level. But it cuts off my nose to spite my face when it comes at such a great cost to the team. Winning the game 5-4 would’ve been the perfect result for me, a good chance to get back in the team and still 3 points on the board, but life’s never perfect!

It’ll be interesting if there’s a 50/50 challenge between Duffo and myself in training, we’re both sensible with our tackles in training, but when there’s a place up for grabs, it’s very much dog eat dog! I ventured down to Bristol this week to do some punditry for the Sky match between City and QPR and I very much enjoyed it. In answer to your question Alice, I am beginning to feel a lot more comfortable in front of the cameras now, and that’s down to a little advice I received from Andy Hinchcliffe. I bumped into him at Radio 5 studios in Manchester and he gave me a little appraisal of what he’d seen me do thus far. It was all helpful but what really stuck with me, was to never be unprepared. It can be so condescending when pundits don’t even know the names of players on the pitch, let alone what their current/past achievements are, so always do your homework and you’re ready for any eventuality.

It annoys the wife that I spend a few hours reading team sheets, match reports and player profiles, but it’s the least the professionals deserve if I’m going to attempt to critique them! Finally, your statement made me laugh Oghan! I wouldn’t believe all that you read on message boards. I was once spotted talking to a rival manager and looking for houses in that area, but my wife and I were 3500 miles away in Dubai!! With regards to Portugal though, we are like a bunch of school kids whenever we go on a trip and a few tricks were being played after a good relaxing break! And to set the record straight, I encountered my problems with alcohol some 8 years ago now. Going through rehab and counselling over 3 years of sobriety helped me discover the reasons why I was doing what I was, and gave me the tools to move forward with my life. I may have a pint with the lads once or twice a year, but it’s never to the same level or for the reasons that I used to, and I’m happy with that! Have a great week and many blessings