AN enthusiastic young Burnley fan called Daniel dialled a busy local radio football phone-in on Saturday.

Wending his way homewards to East Lancashire, he offered an overview of events at Saltergate.

With a little prompting from his dad, I suspect, he labelled the Chesterfield team as "mean and nasty".

He added that Burnley's performance was a "bit iffy".

He had clearly savoured more enjoyable days watching his favourite team.

Daniel had a valid point.

This was not thrill-a-minute stuff. Far from it.

Yet you can reasonably present two sides of the argument to this flat Derbyshire away-day.

While the artistic value was negligible, and this contest never rose above the mediocre, let's give Burnley's performance the positive hit.

This was a 0-0 draw to savour in a perverse sort of way.

Why? Because this precious result underlined Burnley's improvement as a team unit.

They now have an important durability and resolve to cope under intense home pressure.

And that is an asset they just did not possess on their league travels last season.

Remember the catastrophic surrenders at Carlisle, Oxford and Wycombe? Yet no team in Division Two will present a sterner test than Chesterfield on their own patch.

Big, strong, forceful and direct, John Duncan's men are experts at grinding the opposition down with their relentless powerplay.

But Burnley did the business.

Chesterfield simply fired blanks and Burnley mopped up the onslaught.

Burnley's policy was simple: "If they are not going to allow us to play, then we'll make sure the opposition can't."

That's exactly what happened and, believe you me folks, it wasn't pretty.

Yet, if Burnley are going to achieve any tangible success this season, these Clarets "closed-shops" could become a feature away from Turf Moor.

Cynics would suggest Burnley set their stall out for a point. With one shot on goal and the towering figures of Peter Swan and Vince Overson on the substitute's bench, the evidence supports that theory. Adrian Heath admitted as much when he appeared for the post-match inquest, clearly a happier man than his opposite number.

The Turf Moor chief said he did not take ANY pleasure from the display, but was, nevertheless, delighted with a point.

"It was never going to be an open, enjoyable game of football," he conceded.

" Before the game I said to the players that there are certain fixtures in a season when they've got to roll up their sleeves up and battle out a 0-0 draw. That's what we did.

"While I'm delighted with the point, I couldn't take much satisfaction out of the game.

"I'm sure the people who came to watch us will have not taken much from it either.

"We weren't allowed to play, but we made sure the opposition couldn't play.

"I'm pleased for the boys because they went in there against a very difficult team and came out with a point."

Heath added: "The onus wasn't on us to go out and make a nice game of football of it. We came to Chesterfield to try and take something from this game. We achieved that."

Burnley built their success around a solid defensive platform and denying Chesterfield the ammunition to fuel strikers Tony Lormor and Kevin Davies.

And that proved a major test for Wayne Russell. The reserve team goalkeeper had waited patiently for his chance. Called into action after Marlon Beresford was forced to miss the game through injury, he did not let anybody down. Russell, in fact, passed his test with flying colours. He had to cope with several physical challenges and a diet of high balls into the penalty box.

Yet his handling was, on the whole, excellent.

Russell produced several notable saves to deny both Davies and the dangerous Steve Gaughan.

When Burnley did produce a rare attack they could find no way past the shaven-haired figure of Sean Dyche.

The Chesterfield skipper marshalled his defence superbly.

He denied Paul Barnes with a timely first half interception after Barnes had charged on to goalkeeper Billy Mercer's poor clearance.

A wicked cross from the rapid Mark Jules produced the most dangerous moment when Kevin Davies was inches away from connecting in front of an unguarded target.

At the other end, Kurt Nogan unluckily saw his shot take a wicked deflection and Chris Brass blazed over.

But there was just no way that either defence was going to be breached as Burnley returned to Turf Moor with a point from this war of attrition. It was a contest which will not live long in the memory banks but a satisfactory outcome for Burnley who registered their first league draw of the 1996-97 campaign.

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