"WHY do you bother?" people will ask me. "Why on earth do you bother when you know they are going to lose?" And I have to admit, they've got a point.

For example, it's not easy to explain why in excess of 10,000 Burnley supporters will pitch up at Turf Moor this evening, when all the evidence suggests they would be better off elsewhere.

You could argue that people will turn up because of the faded glamour exuded by Manchester City (the bag lady of the football league, anyone)? But is that really a good enough reason? After all, faded glamour is merely a euphemism for no good any more.

You might suggest that the crowds will flock because they love Burnley Football Club. But again, this defies logic. What kind of fool would stay in a love affair which caused almost remorseless pain and upset down the years?

No, there's something more to it, something darker and more sinister. There's only one word for it and that word is obsession. The Oxford Reference Dictionary defines the word as meaning 'a persistent idea dominating a person's thoughts.' And the persistent idea which has dominated my thoughts in 24 years of Clarets watching, has been the hope that eventually, Burnley will somehow get it right.

Of course they haven't. Instead I have witnessed them fall from the top league in English football, all the way down to the bottom and very nearly right out of the league all together. Yet still, I believe - hoping they'll turn it all around. Which, if you think about it, means that for the best part of a quarter of a century I have been both deluding myself and in a state of denial.

God alone knows what a psychiatrist would make of all this.

But like 10,000 others I'll be there again tonight. I'll hope Glen Little can get round his man, I'll hope he can put in a teasing swerving cross and I'll hope Andy Payton will manage to score and win the game for us.

Of course the madness of it all is that if the Clarets don't win, I'll still be there on Sunday when Preston come to town. And if they don't win that game, I'll be there when . . .

You see, it's a life sentence. Like the man said: "The despair I can live with. It's the hope that kills me."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.