Paul Heckingbottom sounds like a Yorkshire caretaker waiting to happen. And happen he did the week before last when Barnsley, one of several clubs he had played for in the county, reluctantly sacked Danny Wilson and made Mark Burton and him joint caretakers for the immediate match at Crawley. After a 5-1 defeat they looked more like undertakers. They badly needed Saturday’s 2-0 win at Oakwell, climbing above Crewe, their opponents, on goal difference in League One’s lower reaches.
Barnsley do not expect to be there. They have spent more seasons in the second tier than anyone, were relegated last May after eight in the Championship and have the fifth highest wage bill in their new division. In Wilson’s first spell at the club he took them into the top tier in 1997 for the only season in their history, giving him legendary status. Crewe’s manager, Steve Davis, was a defender with them in that promotion year, when ‘Bunny’ Burton was already at the club, a Barnsley man from birth to player, to head of academy coaching. Davis, knowing his counterpart, knew Crewe would “have to be on it”. In the event both sides were off it.
Burton had responded strongly to what his chief executive, Ben Mansford, called the “unacceptable capitulation” at Crawley (for which 400 travelling fans were refunded) and the programme called “forgetful”. Having condemned the players for “throwing in the towel” in the second half, which “really did hurt”, Burton praised their “response on the training pitch” and “expected passion, fight, spirit, belief and pride” on Saturday. Heckingbottom, senior development coach, had by then become assistant caretaker, if not altogether disjointed.
That, it transpired, summed up the football, flying in the face of Crewe’s classy reputation as well as three wins in their last five away games to set against Barnsley’s four out of five at home. The least said about the match the better. At every turn players overestimated their control and underestimated their opponents’ mobility. By the law of pinball averages the ball would have passed less often from one team to the other. Take the negatives from it and nothing would be left.
At half-time Dickie Bird, dyed in Barnsley wool as Burton, called it “rubbish”, which also described England’s cricketers. It got no better in the second half except that Barnsley scored two soft goals from set pieces. Midway through the half the centre-back Lewin Nyatanga, from close range, headed home Josh Scowen’s free-kick. Five minutes later Crewe’s goalkeeper Ben Garratt, glad of an excuse, limped off with a shin injury. In another eight his replacement, the American Paul Rachubka, signed from Oldham the previous day, punched the ball into his own net in a post-corner crowd.
Davis, whose son Harry was a staunch leader on the left of Crewe’s back three, admitted the game “needed someone to take it by the scruff of the neck. It was a poor spectacle with neither team showing any real quality.” He said he had warned at half-time about giving away cheap free-kicks.
Burton would love the job fully for longer than he captained Barnsley – 60 minutes when Gerry Taggart was sent off – but “will back whatever decision the club make”. He was “elated with the points and passion” and said his mind was “set only on Scunthorpe on Tuesday. There’ll be no sleep. When the kids have gone to bed the laptop will be out.” Mansford commended his commitment. Meanwhile, chance and chants will decide if there is only one Heckingbottom.
