will have to wait SO that was Christmas. Too much turkey, too many drinks and a mountain of veg to make my favourite meal of the festive period, cold meat and bubble and squeak.

I'll hold my hands up, I love this time of year even though it is busy. Early deadlines, match after match, driving through sales traffic in order to make kick off on time. Mind you, it's better than being in sales traffic!

But it is a funny time for footballers because they have to avoid the excesses of the rest of us.

The Clarets players have produced some great performances this season but would Arthur have netted a double at Deepdale with a hangover?

Would Glen Little have struck his two classics against Birmingham City if he had been on a bender the day before?

The drinking habits of the fit young men who play the world's greatest sport have been front and back page for much of the last fortnight. I would need a whole paper if I was to enter the debate.

But with four games in quick succession the Burnley players' Christmas celebrations have been got out of the way nice and early so they can concentrate on the pitch.

So while I was getting the Buck's Fizz down my neck yesterday morning they will have been out on the training ground getting ready for today's game against Rotherham.

At least Ian Moore, who returned to goalscoring form against Crystal palace at the start of the month, will have had the chance to give his dad his present.

There is no doubt you have to make sacrifices if you are to make it at the highest level but the rewards are more than enough to make a bit of abstinence worthwhile.

I am sure I am not alone in remembering a player at school who was head and shoulders above the rest, a lad who looked destined for a career in the game.

My mate was good, very good and he has had a decent playing career at local level, games on Saturday and Sunday as well as a bit of coaching.

But if he hadn't discovered beer, fags and girls at the age of 15 there is no doubt he could have been better. There is nothing to say he would have made it, but he could have given it a decent go. Now, I am more than aware of my own limitations on the field and playing for Airedale and Wharfedale Under-11s was always likely to be the height of my footballing achievement.

As a result the discovery of beer and girls (I couldn't smoke because it made me cough) at the same age did little more than turn me from a potential Saturday afternoon player to a Sunday morning kinda guy.

At least it did force me into the world of journalism as I knew from an early age that the only way I would be able to be paid in the world of football was to write about it.

That said, I still wish that it had been me getting the Kaliber and Schloer down my neck yesterday after training and I would always swap my seat in the press box for a place on the pitch.

Ah well, it's not to be. Chuck us another Stella then please.