Post
by ClaretTony » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:43 pm
I miss Janice - I've no one to fall out with at supporters clubs meetings any longer. I was asked to speak about her at the player of the season awards evening in 2013. Today, I think, is an appropriate time to publish my words from that evening. We don't forget Janice, and my thoughts are with you and your dad today Fretters.
What is being a football fan all about? That was a question I was asked a few years ago by some miserable bloke at work who had no interest in the game, in fact no interest in much to be honest.
I know why he asked the question. I'd gone in to work with a face like thunder on the day after Manchester City had been here and scored six times, when the daft fool on the PA played 'Wonderwall' and manager Stan Ternent told us he was considering his future just a few months into his first season here.
I can't recall how I answered. I certainly wasn't in the mood for pleasantries so I suspect I probably swore at him and walked off.
It did make me think though. What is it all about? Is it just a matter of whether your team wins or loses, whether it plays well, whether you've had an assistant referee at Ewood who is due for a white stick?
The answer I found, and the one I'm sure you will all find is no, that supporting Burnley is far more than all that.
Being a Burnley fan is being part of one big community of Clarets. It's also being part of smaller communities; the people you sit with at home games, those you travel with to away games and those you have a pint with, and those you speak to via email, social media and message boards.
Having been part of the Clarets Mad message board for over twelve years now I've seen how fellow fans come together in good times and in bad times, offering congratulations when due and also being there to offer support to other Clarets in the bad times, often when they've lost a loved one.
It's what we do. We have that special bond and over the years friendships, real friendships, are formed. Some of my best friends are Burnley supporters. Some have been friends for many, many years and some, I know, will always be friends.
I'm sure there isn't anyone in this room who doesn't have at least one friendship that has come about because of football.
For many of us here tonight, last November was a difficult time as we lost one of our friends at just 55 years of age - Janice Fretwell who was the treasurer of the Burnley Football Supporters' Club.
Janice was Blackburn born, but her life brought her to Burnley and eventually to Turf Moor where she became as committed a Claret as any one of us. Her troubled past, namely her birthplace, mattered not, and as the vicar said at her funeral: "It is never too late to come out of the darkness into the light."
Janice joined the Supporters' Club, eventually becoming a committee member and then treasurer. She was also heavily involved as a member of the Graham Branch Testimonial Committee and later taking a similar role with the Jimmy McIlroy Testimonial Committee.
Don't let me have you believe she was an angel. She was no shrinking violet and if she felt something had to be said she would most definitely not be at the back of the queue. I suppose I admired her for that. I'm similar myself and I can tell you that we had more than a few ding dongs in meetings.
One, over in the Bob Lord Stand, a few years ago was so bad that it didn't even get settled on the night and it needed a couple of phone calls the following day to smooth things over.
Incredibly, whilst she was throwing herself into all this, she was fighting a massive personal battle, that of cancer, having been diagnosed initially in January 2003.
She never hid from it, was always honest, and again I got on the wrong side of her when I dared to ask her son Marc how she was just a day after I'd been talking to her. "Why didn't you ask me?" she said. How do you explain to someone who is so up front that you find it a difficult subject to discuss?
More than once it looked as though she'd won the battle. I recall one such occasion when news came through when we sat in a bar in Bad Goisern in Austria in 2007. "Janice has been given the all clear," we heard and the place burst into spontaneous applause.
Sadly, the cancer kept returning and I recall the last two occasions I saw her. The first was on the weekend before Christmas 2011. We were both on the same trip to Brighton for the game we won against nine men.
The next, and last time, I saw her was at Cardiff last October. She looked poorly. I was shocked. Even so, typical of her, she brushed aside her own worries and asked how I was having learned that I'd had a major health scare in the summer.
Janice wasn't to be with us much longer. She sadly passed away in November and her funeral took place on the Friday before the home game against her home town club of Blackburn. We all turned up in our Burnley shirts, except her Blackburn supporting brother who wore blue and white halves. As a promise to his sister he wore a Burnley shirt underneath.
The funeral service was moving as we said goodbye to Janice, and as she was brought out of the church to make one last journey past Turf Moor, the entire first team squad, having just left training, drove past. It was so fitting.
Janice was gone but she will never be forgotten. You see, she was a member of that community and, like the rest of us, made some strong lifelong friendships through her support of Burnley Football Club.
These 5 users liked this post: Fretters CleggHall Steve1956 DCWat Cajun
Sounds about right!