Clarke Carlisle's Blog by Clarke_Carlisle

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!