We had Robbie Blake – Twice
Back in October 2000, we travelled to Nottingham Forest for a midweek game on the back of a run of four consecutive victories that had lifted us into the top six in Division One just months after our promotion.
Any hopes of moving further up the table that night were dashed when Forest beat us 5-0 with two goals from Chris Bart-Williams and one each scored by Andy Johnson, Alan Rogers and Ricky Scimeca. We were run ragged with Nik Michopoulos having what could only be described as a nightmare in goal, but the real stars of the show for Forest were Jack Lester and a forward they had on loan from Bradford City by the name of Robbie Blake.
Despite neither of them scoring, Blake’s name was on everyone’s lips on the way home and I am sure it was the same for manager Stan Ternent. I always wonder whether that was the day he decided he’d like him at Burnley. Whether that’s so or not, we were heavily linked with him in the summer of 2001 but he remained at Valley Parade and came on as a substitute against us just after Tony Ellis had scored the winner to take us to the top of the league early that season.
Following relegation from the Premier League, Blake had started the season well for Bradford City, for whom Chris Kamara signed him from Darlington, and was scoring at around a goal every two games but any interest we might have had in him seemed to disappear when we reportedly made a £1m plus bid to take Shefki Kuqi from Stockport, the club from whom we’d signed our only, at the time, million pound player a year earlier with the capture of Ian Moore.
Then, out of the blue, Bradford City announced on 16th January 2002 that they had reluctantly accepted a bid from Burnley for Blake. They even quoted the offer as being £1 million plus a further £250,000 should we win promotion. It took nine days before the deal was completed, the message board was in meltdown over what some perceived were delays or, even worse, deal stoppers.
By the time he had signed, Kuqi had moved to Sheffield Wednesday and had already been back to Turf Moor to score his new club’s winner deep into stoppage time. Our promotion charge was faltering but Kuqi was scoring goals for Wednesday while we were getting precious little from Blake. He started just one game and came off before the hour. In nine substitute appearances he was twice later substituted himself. He even played in a reserve game at the end of the season, alongside seven other first teamers that cost the reserves the league title.
Had we made a big mistake? Would we have been better with Kuqi? If this was the signing that we needed to get us over the line and into the Premier League, it couldn’t have been worse. This was not the player we saw play against us for Nottingham Forest. With Kuqi we might just have gone up; with Blake, or without him as was the case in the main, we didn’t even make the play-offs.
He’d reached double figures in league goals for Bradford City in the first half of the season but I don’t think he even had a shot at goal for us, let alone score, and everyone was questioning this, our second million pound signing.
Nothing had been said until the season ended but he was playing with a double hernia that required surgery. That gave Burnley fans hope that we’d see a different Blake come the following season and he was in the team for the opening game of the season against Brighton.
We were expected to beat the newly promoted club with ease but we were deservedly beaten 3-1. Blake? Ternent said of his performance: “Robbie Blake was hopeless and I told him so. He looked like had had divers boots on.”
He was promptly dropped and made just one substitute appearance in the next four games. Then we went to Derby on the Saturday of the international break and he was brought back in with Gareth Taylor on duty with Wales although Glen Little had now been reduced to a place on the bench.
We’d made a poor start to the season with just one point from the first five games with only one goal scored. As we came off at half time 1-0 down, nothing had changed. Little came on for Lenny Johnrose at the start of the second half and we were about to see the real Robbie Blake. Ten minutes into the half we were in front. He equalised with his first Burnley goal from the penalty spot and then, four minutes later, Warren Barton scored an own goal. Blake was mesmerising; we were seeing the player we’d signed for the first time.
In a season of somewhat mixed fortunes for the Clarets, he was becoming our shining light. He netted sixteen goals in all competitions, a total beaten only by Gareth Taylor although he wasn’t always first choice with supporters always remembering the FA Cup sixth round tie at Watford when both he and Little were on the bench. However, in fairness, they’d both been substitutes in the big win against Fulham in the previous round.
The next season was a real struggle for us and only Blake’s goals saved us from the drop. He netted 19 that season in the league and none were more important than then penalty he stroked home right in front of us at Walsall early in the second half. We won 1-0; we’d have been close to the drop had we not won that day. He did save his best for the FA Cup in that season. He scored twice in a 3-1 fourth round win against Gillingham and one of them was as good a free kick as you are likely to see.
Things changed in that summer of 2004 with Steve Cotterill replacing Ternent as manager. He immediately installed Blake as captain and played him up front in a 4-5-1 system. Blake didn’t let him down either, for half a season at least. He was among the goals almost from the start of the season; his first coming in a 1-1 draw against Wolves, but as Christmas approached there was speculation that he was looking to move on with Wigan, who were looking to win promotion to the Premier League, wanting him.
In mid-December, he scored both goals in a 2-0 win against Preston at home. The first of them, right on half time, was a stunning free kick at the Jimmy Mac End of the ground. He played at Sunderland in the next game but was then an unused substitute against Wigan with his departure considered imminent. The only surprise was that he didn’t go to Wigan; Birmingham boss Steve Bruce stepped in to take him to the top flight with an offer of around £1.25 million, more than Wigan were prepared to offer.
That we thought was it. He’d been with us for just three years but had left a memorable impression. He didn’t have much success at Birmingham and was sold by the end of the season and back to the Championship with Leeds.
He spent two years at Elland Road, scoring against us in a 2-0 win for them at Elland Road in his first season, but when we played there in April 2007, he looked a shadow of the player who we’d seen in Claret and Blue.
Despite that, with Leeds going into League One, we took the opportunity to bring him back to Burnley. Cotterill paid £250,000 for him. It was money well spent and for someone who had left under a cloud, he returned as the lost prodigal son.
He scored just nine times in his first season back but a change of manager brought a different role for him. Whereas both Ternent and Cotterill had played him up front, new boss Owen Coyle opted to play him on the left hand side although he was never guaranteed a starting place in Coyle’s team.
The 2008/09 season proved to be a memorable one for Blake and Burnley as we won a place in the Premier League for the first time. When he came on as a substitute to score at Coventry, he had his shorts pulled down by Stephen Jordan to reveal that ‘Bad Beat Bob’ underpants. Referee Mike Thorpe wasn’t too impressed; he yellow carded Blake.
Blake came on as a substitute at Preston in January and just over ten minutes later he scored yet another stunning free kick against them. Four days later, we played Spurs at home in the League Cup semi-final second leg. If that goal at Preston won him his place back in the team, then thank goodness it did.
This was the night when, having pulled back a three goal deficit only to lose with late goals in extra time without which we would have won on away goals, Blake turned in arguably his best ever performance for Burnley. He scored the first with yet another sensational free kick and then teased Chris Gunter to death down the left hand side before setting up Chris McCann for the second. It was from Blake’s free kick that Jay Rodriguez scored the third.
In all my years of watching Burnley, I’m hard pushed to find a better individual performance from any Burnley player as I witnessed that night from our little magician Robbie Blake. He and the team deserved so much more.
He scored three more goals for us that season, the second of them earning us a vital 2-1 win at Plymouth, but he was a prominent player and he ended the season a winner with that play-off win at Wembley when he proudly showed off the Bad Beat Bobs again.
There were only two more Blake goals to come in what proved to be his final season as a Burnley player. In any poll, our opening Premier League goal is right up there with his sensational volley to give us a 1-0 win against Manchester United.
Who could have thought then that he wouldn’t score on the Turf again? He gave us the lead at Blackburn in a game that we lost, and he was never to score for us again. In and out of the side that season, he did start twenty of the Premier League games but it was as a substitute that he made his final appearance against Spurs in the last game of the season, coming on for David Nugent.
It was no secret that he didn’t see eye to eye with new manager Brian Laws who offered him a new one-year contract. Blake said he wanted two years but on 1st July, at the first opportunity he signed for Bolton.
It didn’t prove to be his best move. He rarely played for them and never started a league game for them. He scored one goal for them, and no surprise that it came from a free kick as Bolton came from two down to draw 2-2 against Birmingham.
His only starts for Bolton came in the cups, one of them at Burnley when we beat Coyle’s team 1-0 with a Wade Elliott goal, much to the delight of the unforgiving Burnley fans and players.
Blake moved to Doncaster in the summer of 2012 but it was all over for him. Again, his only starts came in the cups and on 1st December 2012, in a 3-1 FA Cup defeat at Oldham, he scored his final goal past future Burnley goalkeeper Alex Cisak.
It was over after 578 league appearances in which he scored 145 goals. He’d played 242 of those games and scored 61 of those goals for Burnley.
He worked with former Burnley team mate Paul Cook at both Chesterfield and Portsmouth before moving on to Bognor Regis as manager where he’s been since 2018.
It says so much about him that he twice left under clouds and yet never lost his popularity with the Burnley supporters. That’s no surprise; Robbie was the kind of player you pay your money to watch, the kind of player who gets you off your seats.
We always referred to him as the Little Magician. He might have had those divers boots on as Stan said back in August 2002 but he proved time and time again after that just how good a player he was for us no matter what he might have been wearing on his feet.
In some difficult years at times, we were thankful for having him in our team. He is clearly a player we will never forget and to think we had Robbie Blake, not once, but twice.
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