With Burton Albion in town on Saturday, it was time to catch up with our
old friend Dave Child, Brewers fan for over 50 years, TV & Radio
commentator.
I could listen to Dave’s stories all day long, he entertained me for a
good hour plus, most of which were stories about his exploits as a young sports
commentator and his meetings with a certain Brian Clough, visits to Springfield
Park and other escapades, but they are for another time, the main focus of our
conversation was Saturday’s meeting between our two sides.
Barry - What are
your hopes and expectations for this new campaign?
Dave – My hope
for this season is obviously to be better than last season. We must thank Wigan
actually, for getting our last manager sacked, Jake Buxton, who went on the
back of your four three victory at the Pirelli. We ended up finishing pretty
well and almost forgot the problems we had up to the turn of the year. We
termed it as ‘The Great Escape’.
So if we can finish in the top half of the table this year it’ll be seen
as a success, but I’ve got a feeling that our aspirations are let’s flirt with
the playoffs. So that’s the line I’m going to use for my expectations, let’s
see us flirting with the playoffs.
Barry – Give me
two players to look out for on Saturday.
Dave – We’ve
got so many good players in the squad but two to look out for who are
definitely getting a mention are Tom O’Connor and Lucas Akins.
If we look at Lucas Akins first, every Burton fan knows him and to be
perfectly honest most of the opposition fans know him as well. Lucas has been
around for what seems like ages, at the weekend he made his 300th
appearance for Burton, he’s already a Brewers Legend, he was with us when we
first came into the Football League, he’s played in League 2, League 1 and in
the Championship for us and every time we’ve gone up he’s still produced.
Lucas sort of dances around the ball as you will see on Saturday, he’s a
very talented lad, he always plays with a smile on his face and always gives
100% for Burton Albion.
Tom O’Connor, he’s new to the fold, what a wand of a left foot. I’m sure
that Wigan will have done their homework on his corner routines, he’s scored
two goals direct from corners in the last three games. He’s a real threat with
that left foot, he puts in a decent corner, so I can bet your life that you’ve
had a good look at that one on the videos.
Barry - Jimmy
Floyd Hasselbaink did a great job last season when he came in, started off not
to bad this campaign, are you all behind him?
Dave – Jimmy Floyd
Hasselbaink is probably the right man for the job, but we never really expected
him back, after he left Burton he went off to QPR, didn’t have the best time
there, definitely didn’t have the best time at Northampton, but sometimes you
can be a good fit with a club and Jimmy coming back to Burton was a good fit.
It was also a big risk on his part, there we are rooted to the foot of
League 1, he could have had relegation on his CV, but he got stuck in and let’s
not forget Dino Maamria (assistant manager), absolutely lovely bloke Jimmy and
Dino have dove tailed together very well.
It’s almost as good as promotion, winning a relegation battle, that’s
exactly what they did, they won the relegation battle and now they’ve had the
chance to put their own stamp on the team, hopefully we’re going to be
challenging at the other end of the table, very pleased with Jimmy, very pleased
with Dino.
Barry – What’s
your form like at the moment?
Dave – Our form
is a bit hit and miss, we’re very Jekyll and Hyde, we’ve won twice on the road,
which isn’t bad, Fleetwood was the last place we won at last Tuesday night,
with a goal straight from the corner, thank you Tom O’Connor, we were better
than a one nil to be perfectly honest, and we tend to be better against the
better teams shall we say, we beat Sunderland, we beat Ipswich and we’ve beaten
Portsmouth, they were home games.
When we are playing one of the bigger teams, Wigan certainly fit into
that category, we seem to lift ourselves and after we’ve been wounded, which we
were against Oxford at the weekend, I think the boys will be out to prove a
point. So could this be another away win? Especially with, dare I say it, the
dodgy home form of Wigan.
Barry – Right then,
Dave, let’s have a prediction
Dave – I always
want to say, ‘Burton are going to win’ so, I’ll say Burton are going to win, but
it’d probably only be by the odd goal, so we’ll have to wait and see on this
one, I can see a one nil and I do like a good one nil, the fact that Wigan
haven’t scored that many goals at home, I think you’ve scored something like
10, Burton don’t actually score too many away, we’ve got four so far, so it’s
probably got nil nil all over it, but because I have to say a Burton win,
because I’m a Burton fan, nil nil really, but one nil Burton!
Big thanks to Dave for joining us this week, a great chat and always a
pleasure.
Wigan Athletic v Burton Albion, Saturday, 30th October 2021, 3pm
kick-off click here for ticketing details
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