ANOTHER poor result, another chorus of boos and another sea of saddened souls traipsing disconsolately down Brunshaw Road - probably to drown their sorrows. Alas and alack! Suffering and woe! Will the Clarets ever rediscover the form that moved the pundits to re-christen the ground, "Fortress Turf Moor?"

On current form the clever money would be against such a revival. But fear not, gentle reader - for in this very column I shall reveal just how the Clarets can undergo a renaissance in form and return to playing with the elan, flair and verve which made them feared and revered throughout the land.

But how? I hear you cry, as you raise your tear-stained faces from your claret and blue scarves. Well I'll tell you this much: the remedy to the current malaise lies not in signing new players, having tactical rethinks or employing tough fitness and dietary regimes.

These are desperate times, and desperate times call for desperate measures. I propose transforming Turf Moor into a genuine fortress with battlements, gargoyles and all.

For example, as visiting teams alight from their coaches inside the ground, a huge portcullis should swing down effectively trapping them. Then, from the stands above, large quantities of boiling oil should be poured down on them. This could be followed up by a ferocious volley of poison-tripped arrows fired from the roof of the Bob Lord Stand.

Should any of the visitors survive this onslaught, they would make their way to the dressing rooms. Here they would be met by a pack of rabid hell-hounds or a fired up Peter Swan, whichever is considered to be the most dangerous.

In the meantime, visiting supporters would be arrested by Burnley supporters and locked in an official club dungeon until the game had finished. Denied any backing from a travelling horde, the opposition would soon fold.

Other ideas I have include strategically placed man traps on the pitch and training ball boys to behave towards opposition players in a malicious manner. I am also particularly fond of the notion of digging a moat around the perimeter of the pitch and filling it with crocodiles and poisonous snakes. Let's see how keen the opposition will be to retrieve the ball when it goes out for a throw-in in future.

A draft of my proposals is already en route to Mr Kilby. With my vision and his financial clout, we'll soon turn things around.

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