Champions!: The Story of Burnley's Instant Return to the Premier League

By Dave Thomas

Champions is the story of Burnley's Championship title win of season 2015/16. In the world of the big city football clubs, Burnley remains the club from the small town that continues to defy the odds through its good management and careful budgeting. This is the third promotion to the Premier League in just seven years. It was a season that began tentatively, after relegation. Three key players had been sold, and the first month produced nothing too special. Two key additions were made, as Andre Gray was brought in from Brentford for a club-record fee and Joey Barton, to the surprise of most in Burnley. Gray's goals and Barton's leadership became the foundation for the promotion that followed. As ever, in the background, Sean Dyche's man-management and motivational powers provided the bedrock of the success that came in the final week of the season, as a three-horse race went right to the wire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785312472

Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas, is a cornerstone of the Ruby community, and is personally responsible for many of its innovative directions and initiatives. He is one of the founders of the Pragmatic Programmers and the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Book preview

2016

Introduction

When the Burnley accountants posted a profit of over £30m in March 2016, few people if any at all might have remembered that exactly 30 years earlier in 1985/86, Burnley Football Club had been on the edge of a financial precipice so bad that for the final game of the season the directors decided to print extra souvenir programmes fearing it would be the last ever Burnley game.

It was the season following, when the final game was against Orient, that is now seen as the time when the club might have ceased to exist. Who will ever forget that last game and the 2-1 win and the tears that rained down? But in truth the state of affairs at the end of 1985/86 was far worse. As it happened, and as so often happens, last-minute deals were struck and funds were injected that saved the day. But at that point it wasn’t so much a club on the edge of a cliff; it was a club well over the cliff edge and hanging on to a tree root by a finger.

Funny how football works; this club that was so desperate not that long ago, needing injections from four directors towards the end of 2008/09 to keep it solvent, has since won promotion to the Premier League three times and is now about to enter a period of financial wealth and security that would have been unimaginable in the dark days of the 1980s when gates fell below 2,000 and to make ends meet the groundsman collected the soil from the training ground molehills to use as filler for levelling the pitch and repairing holes.

The 2015/16 season at Burnley began with new names in the squad; Kieran Trippier had gone to Spurs, Danny Ings to Liverpool and Jason Shackell to Derby. After the season had started, in had come Joey Barton and Andre Gray.

Derby County and Middlesbrough were investing heavily and giving it a real go and some of the sums Championship clubs were paying out were astronomical, commented Sean Dyche. It forced him to have a re-think, ‘I’ve had to re-calculate. I’m stunned to be honest. Some clubs are offering packages way ahead of what we were paying in the Premier League.’

Winger George Boyd, a great success the season before, gave an insight into the way things were at the club behind the scenes.

‘No matter how much you throw at promotion it won’t necessarily happen unless you have the right personnel and a strong group ethic. That’s what the manager has been good at building at Burnley. We all know each other; we all work for each other. Once you start splashing the cash around you can easily get that little divide between the new players and the old. But that won’t happen here. We have lost some players but have tried to replace them with people who can perform at this level and fit in with the rest of the group.’

Boyd looked back, ‘Playing Saturday and Tuesday takes its toll in the end but in the Premier League we could have done with games coming round a bit more often. With all the international breaks and fewer games anyway, there was almost too long between some games.

‘You were always fresh but half the time you just wanted to stop waiting and get on with it.’

Much of the summer had been spent discussing what might have been and missed chances that might have led to Premier League survival, but with a new season it was time to put all that to bed.

‘I don’t think you ever get your head round relegation,’ Boyd added, ‘but the important thing is to set new goals and not dwell on it. The sooner you squash all that disappointment and concentrate on the present the better. When you change divisions your goals have to change too.’ The same applied to supporters. Of course we thought of this and that, of games when we came away wondering how on earth we had lost or only drawn. It was a tough relegation to take.

In game after game Burnley played so well, but never got the rub of the green or those little strokes of luck that make all the difference. It was a brave and defiant relegation. Even in the very final game out they came and gave their all, and won 1-0 at Aston Villa.

‘The fans here understand the reality,’ said Dyche. ‘They get it, and I’m pleased about that. We had a fantastic season two years ago. Last season was different but exciting in its own way and now we are back trying to do it all over again.’

On Boxing Day after a fifth defeat of the season, 3-0 at Hull City, and a lean period that had lasted several games, astonishingly there were minority calls for Dyche’s head. The majority stayed calm and so did the board, not that there was ever any chance of a review of his position. It would have been absurd. But by this time, few if any people expected Burnley to do anything more than perhaps ensure a place in the play-offs as they lay way behind the top position.

And yet: as the season reached the finale and with just two games to play and unbeaten in 21 games, Burnley were just about in the driving seat with three teams locked in an astonishing struggle for automatic promotion. This was surely the tensest and most unique end to a Championship season ever, with even the possibility that two of the three teams with identical records might have to have a play-off to decide who went into the actual play-offs. Our nerves could barely take any more as we settled to watch the penultimate game at Turf Moor against QPR.

It wasn’t the greatest of games but as Dyche said afterwards, ‘You can’t be brilliant every day.’ It was the day that was brilliant rather than the performance in the 1-0 win that ensured promotion. But it’s the results that count. We all know that. Away at Charlton, three more goals were slammed in and as soon as the second went in you knew that the title was Burnley’s. The trophy was up in Middlesbrough so in future quizzes watch out for the question, ‘Which team celebrated the winning of the 2015/16 Championship title with inflatable trophies?’ The weekend was a blur, for players and supporters alike, the Charlton game, the gala players’ dinner on the Sunday and the town parade in the open-top bus on Monday, and all beneath cloudless blue skies. It was truly memorable.

‘We’ve got a pound or two more than last time,’ said chairman Mike Garlick. The jar on the mantelpiece is no longer an economic necessity. It is now just memorabilia, a souvenir of once hard times.

I think all of us harboured firm hopes of a top six place. A few of us thought maybe top two. Like many I never thought we would end up as CHAMPIONS. It’s been marvellous.

Many thanks to Blackburn supporter Marcus Redmond for allowing me to use his account of the day Rovers came to Burnley, and to Henry Winter for permission to use his interview with goalkeeper Tom Heaton who at the end of the season was called up by Roy Hodgson for England’s Euro 2016 squad.

Also to Tim Quelch, the author of several books involving both Burnley and cricket. I asked Tim to provide a rousing finale to this book, something that encompassed all the angst that we go through as supporters. A huge talking point in Burnley was the mural of Sean Dyche that appeared on the end of a prominent Burnley building. The artist is Paul Jones who can be contacted at Graffia.

A word about the photographs: Facebook and Twitter receive much criticism but for the sharing of pictures and memories they are marvellous. It is where I found many of the illustrations. Whenever possible they are credited but if they are not, it is because I was unable to track down the photographers. There were so many other pictures that could have been included. Special thanks go to RocketRon Jenkins and Andy Pritchard for the two pictures on the front cover. As ever in moments of ire when the ancient computer shows signs of age and temperament (it will shortly be eligible for a bus pass), it is Mrs T that comes to the rescue and sorts out the problems.

Dave Thomas

1

August

Somebody has to go to Morecambe

PRE SEASON FRIENDLIES: ACCRINGTON, GLASGOW RANGERS, CHESTERFIELD, FLEETWOOD and BURNLEY 2 BRADFORD CITY 0

By this time last year I think I’d already clocked up four diary pieces with the Prem season to look forward to and the World Cup in progress. With just a week to go until the first game of the new season, 2015/16, this is the first.

As Burnley’s friendlies had been taking place we’d been pootling about the country doing our own pre-season tour. We were in Dorset, land of sheep, Thomas Hardy, pheasant shoots and green wellies, and my mouth had dropped open when they lost at Accrington.

Ah but that’s okay said the faithful, it’s only pre-season, it’s all about fitness and giving them all a game. But come on I thought, losing at Accrington, pre-season or not, I doubt losing was on SD’s agenda.

I was actually walking along the beach at West Bay munching a pie. There was a food festival going on, and there was this pie stall so it seemed rude not to try the pork and cider. West Bay might be better known as Bridport Harbour. They did the TV series Broadchurch round there and it was only a few miles from Beominster where we were staying.

Beominster, about as far away from cobbled streets, racing pigeons, cloth caps, whippets and ferrets as you can get, sits in this little, secluded, almost hidden, saucer-shaped hollow among the rolling tree-covered hills and pastures, just inland a few miles; the perfect little village with a greengrocer, butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker and wonder of wonders a great little restaurant that does Sunday dinners for just £5 with as much as you can heap on the plate. And the best news – it does these Sunday dinners every day of the week, with a pudding for just £2. Shame it’s 240 miles from home.

Bloody hell, I said to Mrs T, if I lived there I’d never cook again. She looked at me with one of those withering looks that only women do so well. ‘Huh, you never cook anyway,’ she said, to which I had no real answer. Lose at Accy Stanley and win at Glasgow Rangers, work that one out I thought, while we were still down there and had a day out at Montacute House; an amazing Tudor pile where a couple of Tudor wannabees were dressed up in all the gear riding up and down a mock tournament arena knocking tin hats off the tops of tall poles and slicing cabbages in half while they galloped at speed past them.

A nice Scott Arfield goal decided the game with reports saying that after a dodgy start, by the end of the game Burnley were in control. On account of being in Dorset we sadly missed the supporters’ club trip up there with a stay in a seaside hotel at Ayr. A crowd of more than 22,000 saw this game.

From Dorset it was on to Hampshire to visit Mrs T’s other sister and while there off they go to Chesterfield and lose. Now call me old fashioned but it did occur to me that if you are winning 2-0 you should really be able to hold on to that against a lower league side and go on to win the game. But then I remembered they’d had plenty of practice at establishing 2-0 leads last season – and then losing. Reports said that they played super stuff for much of the first half and then vanished in the second and lost 3-2. But: it was no doubt in this game that the decision was made to snap up the Chesterfield right-back Tendayi Darikwa.

By now, of course, Shackell had gone. Tripps and Ings went early on in the summer as we knew they would with our blessings, but the Shackell saga dragged on and on. Sean D was eventually quite explicit about this one, that Shackell was no longer interested in playing for Burnley. We all knew that Derby were after him right from the word go so using the smokescreen that he was injured, Shackell did not appear in any pre-season game. ‘Injured?’ yeh, right, pull the other one we all thought, this only has one ending. He is going.

SD explained that Shackell had made it clear he wanted to go, fresh challenge and all that. Credit to Burnley, they held out for a decent fee, £3m allegedly and weeks after it started it ended to everyone’s satisfaction.

If we were sorry to see Ings and Trippier go I can’t say we felt the same sentiment with the departure of Shackell. There never ever seemed that connection between him and the crowd that you got with the other two, particularly Trippier. And while they will be remembered with genuine affection and fondness and we will follow their careers, Shackell always seemed to be the classic modern footballer, his current club wherever it may be a job of work and a pay cheque, albeit done professionally and with commitment. I always had this image in my head of him arriving at training in a bowler hat, pinstriped suit, with a brief case and a rolled-up umbrella. Unlike the other two, emotion was seldom on display save for the occasion of THAT goal at Blackburn in the promotion season. So: for promotion and that goal alone he will be remembered with gratitude if not affection.

Saturday 1 August

Bradford City and the Duff testimonial. By this time there had been all kinds of news. Heaton, Jones and Arfield had all signed new contract extensions. The new office block extensions along Harry Potts Way were proceeding at full speed. Planning permission for the new facilities at Gawthorpe had been approved, although government approval was still needed because of the conservation issues with all manner of objections from various eco groups and institutions worried that flora and fauna would be trampled underfoot.

And then there were all the new players: in came Vossen from Belgium, Lowton from Villa, Long from Everton and Tendayi Darikwa from Chesterfield. And that wasn’t all. In a seismic policy shift it was clear that new recruitment guy Frank MacParland was working overtime to bring good youth players from the lower league clubs and actually pay for them. AFC Wimbledon’s scoring sensation Daniel Agyei arrived for a fee having banged in a shedload of goals for their youth teams last season. Shrewsbury Town player Josh Ginnelly would arrive, presumably after the fee was decided by a tribunal. The Darikwa signing, while not quite fitting the ‘youth’ bracket, was certainly a bold splash in the lower-league market. Money from Trippier, Ings and Shackell had presumably made all this possible.

Notwithstanding the defeats at Stanley and Chesterfield the message boards were buzzing, awash with positivism other than one thing – the tiresome Lansbury saga. Burnley are throwing their weight around, said the Forest manager Freedman when another bid or story of a bid plopped on his desk. Little Burnley throwing their weight around… since when have Burnley been a heavyweight? But the Lansbury saga was now boring. Last summer bids failed, in January bids failed, and now it was starting all over again. The latest alleged bid was £4m with ace hack Alan Nixon stoking the fires. Who knows what might have happened last season if the club had signed the players they really wanted for fees higher than they were prepared to bid.

Prior to the Bradford game, in midweek, Burnley had won 2-0 at Fleetwood in a display that was well-drilled and solid reports said. There was a repeat score against Bradford City, the first game for me and Mrs T. During the week we’d had a few days in Morecambe. Yeh I know, somebody has to go there. It’s something of a sad place now but what a resort it used to be in the 50s and 60s before people started jetting off on packages to sunnier Mediterranean climes. I can remember as a kid seeing the illuminations, the fairground, huge swimming pool, crowded promenades, the Winter Gardens and packed hotels. In the late 1940s Burnley sometimes took the players there for a bracing fresh air pick-me-up before big games. And by gum it is certainly bracing as the wind whistles across the bay. This is not the place to wear a toupee.

Across the bay is Grange over Sands, a sort of small Harrogate by the sea. The train hugs the shoreline and eventually ends at Barrow. People actually go there I believe. We’d had a few days in Morecambe to celebrate a chum’s 70th birthday. He treated us to a plush evening meal in the iconic Midland Hotel conservatory, cost him a few bob as well but this was dining at its finest as the sun set over the far horizon, the wind farms and the gasworks. And anyway, I’m a Yorkshireman and never turn down a free meal. Recommended: try the Flatiron steak and fries and salad in the bar at the Midland at just £11.

Midweek Morecambe sunshine was replaced on Saturday by cold and rain in Burnley, just what you needed for Duff’s testimonial. In August it’s not unreasonable to expect warm sun and blue sky for the first home game of the season. Taller floodlights are planned for the Turf; if they fitted them with yellow bulbs we could pretend we play in sunshine every game. The word dreary was an understatement and the poor weather might have been one reason why fewer than 5,000 turned out for what was a thoroughly entertaining and competitive game.

We’ve seen some stunning goals in our time at Turf Moor over the years and some cracking free kicks, but Taylor’s effort in this game was up there with the very best. From 25 yards he cracked it home like a missile. I’ve always thought you could pick several of Robbie Blake’s free kicks as the perfect strike. But this one of Taylor’s was absolutely faultless. Memories of the penalty miss against Leicester came back. Football is cruel. This was a free kick worthy of winning a game far more important than this against Bradford.

There is the tale that years ago, canny old manager Alec Stock used to sit his players down each pre-season and one by one he’d tell them how many goals he expected them to score that season. I reckon from Taylor he’d have demanded 12. Each season Dyche has told his players to step up and fill the gaps left by departing players. But now he had set himself a problem; until Darikwa’s debut today we could be forgiven for assuming that Lowton would be first choice to step into Trippier’s shoes. But what a debut from Darikwa, just signed from Chesterfield.

The new Bertie Bee made a fairly quiet debut. You may or may not have noticed that this one was taller and leaner than last season’s. Braddy, after 15 years in the job inside the hot and sweaty costume, reluctantly decided to call it a day. The upending of the streaker some years ago is still vivid in the memory. And who will forget when he was once sent off, not that long ago, by the referee for indicating he needed to go to Specsavers and was locked up in the slammer.

With Lowton injured, in came Darikwa who was simply outstanding, best player by far on the pitch. It shows what we all think, that in the lower leagues there are indeed terrific bargains to be found and at last Burnley have grabbed one. Surely there must be others to plug the midfield gaps that still exist with Marney and now Ulvestad injured. The latter is combative just like Marney and it was a determined Marney-esque tackle that resulted in him being stretchered to the dressing rooms.

Bradford were neat and tidy and might have scored a couple but for a stunning Heaton save and the crossbar. But it was clear they needed a decent striker. Burnley might have had far more than the two they did score. It was another well-drilled and methodical display but Bradford found holes in the defence more than once. At the other end only the Bradford keeper kept the score down on several occasions.

Michael Duff deserved more than the under-5,000 attendance for the service he has given but over the years it’s a crowd that is par for the course for a home pre-season friendly. It was a game in which he showed no signs of losing his touch or his reading of a game at the ripe old age of 37. His list of achievements and promotions is magnificent. Steve Cotterill found a gem when he brought him to the club.

So: back in the groove, a home game followed by a pub meal at the Kettledrum, or the Queen or the Stubbing Wharfe. The season was back. This time two years ago you could have been forgiven for thinking a grim season lay ahead and on they went and won promotion in a super season. It is for that reason surely most of us have stopped making predictions.

But go on then: top six seems a reasonable bet, I decided.

Kerching go the Elland Road tills

LEEDS UNITED 1 BURNLEY 1

The opening game and away at Elland Road was not the first game of the season you would have perhaps chosen. But 56 years ago when it was the opening game of the season, Burnley went on to win the title. If this season’s game is an echo of the past we can be well pleased.

In the summer Leeds appointed a decent manager in Uwe Rosler and a good new CEO, Adam Pearson. You couldn’t help thinking that if owner Cellino could stop interfering, Leeds might have a decent season. Sky must have decided this was a glamour fixture having decided to make it the first televised Saturday game of the season. Either that or the guy who chooses the fixtures for television is a Leeds fans they are on so often. The fixture, however, is a far cry from those of the 1960s following Leeds’ promotion to the First Division when Burnley were the top team in the land after their title win in 1959/60. Tim Quelch’s 2009 book Never Had It So Good looks at that remarkable achievement and has been re-issued. It makes remarkable reading and 56 years on the contrast between ‘then’ and ‘now’ is astonishing. Was it Macmillan who said decades ago, ‘You’ve never had it so good?’ He could say the same today to footballers. He might also say the same to anyone who has supported Burnley over the years. Think back to the wilderness years in the old Fourth Division and think how good it is today, we told ourselves.

Could a town the size of Burnley win today’s Premier League? No they could not. Imagine today such a smalltown team taking on the best teams from the continent and baffling them with their tactical innovations, dead ball scams, ever-changing formations and mesmerising movement. Little Burnley back then had a team filled with players that would have been valued at £20m and more in today’s prices. Players that Mourinho would have drooled over played and lived and felt perfectly happy and at home in a saucer-shaped vale filled with cobbles, terraced rows, mills and chimneys, fog, mist and smoke. London might have been a thousand miles away for all they cared about it.

In today’s values this was a side that cost just £600,000. Spurs, Burnley’s great rivals of the time, spent ten times that amount. This was a town struggling to cope with recession in its major local industries, cotton and coal and Macmillan’s remark did not go down too well at all in this region. Money was in short supply yet a quarter of the local population attended games in an age where not too many people travelled long distances as they do now.

Today, positive attempts are being made to turn the clock back with heavy investments at Gawthorpe in terms of providing facilities to produce players to slot into the first team. Back then this was a club that invested heavily in its young recruits, guaranteeing each of them a five-year apprenticeship, featuring top-class coaching and supported by induction into a trade of their choice which they could fall back on if their football careers did not take off. Imagine Tom Heaton last season in the Prem working as a part-time joiner while he played for Burnley and was called up by England. Back in 1959 this is exactly what John Connelly did.

This was a club back then when players supported each other both on and off the field. Burnley players were parochial and other players from other clubs referred to them as the Republic of Burnley they were so tightly knit. Their wives helped each other make ends meet, exchanging knitting patterns and children’s clothes. They shared recipes and had baby-sitting rotas. It was a club that actually vetted the players’ girlfriends and irreproachable player behaviour was demanded both on and off the pitch. The parents of young lads that came to the club knew that they were in good, safe hands. Today Sean Dyche promotes and instils his core values and beliefs into his players. As such, they are another welcome echo of a distant past that harks back to Harry Potts who was a father figure to all of them.

This book is hugely recommended for the way in which it takes us back to such a distant era. Britain was so very different and was yet to be consumed by celebrity culture and glossy fashion; footballers were still the bloke next door and arrived at the ground by bus. John Angus cycled to Turf Moor. Both football and daily life back then were in black and white, colour was in short supply. For those of us who lived through those times, recollections and reminiscences come rushing back when we read books like this. But much younger folk will have little or no idea what football and life was like all those years ago and how much harder life could be.

And how insular it all was: in provincial Burnley there is the story that a planned Frank Sinatra concert was cancelled because the venue had already been booked by the Colne Swimming Association.

The re-issued version of this iconic book has been updated with better layout, a more striking cover and better presentation of evocative pictures of the town and players in action. £1,000 of royalties from the first edition was donated to Burnley FC Youth Development schemes. Further royalties will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

The seeds of the Burnley–Leeds United rivalry and frequent dislike were laid in the early 60s and continued until the mid-70s. The opening game of the title-winning season was at Elland Road on a baking hot day and I can remember getting the steam train from Todmorden and seeing a 3-2 victory. Later on, there was no love lost between Bob Lord and Leeds United directors. There was no love lost between Jimmy Adamson and Don Revie and Revie’s shadow still haunted Jimmy when he was manager of Leeds United. There was even talk of Revie coming back to consult with Adamson and advise him. Adamson made polite noises about this but it was one of the things that drove Jimmy to fall out of love with football.

Games between the two sides were frequently battles: in the white corner the likes of Bremner, Giles and Hunter; in the claret corner Andy Lochhead, Brian O’Neil and Gordon Harris. Today, games may be more restrained and civilised yet the undercurrents and memories of ‘dirty Leeds’ remain. If Burnley could only win four games this season, fans would most probably choose Blackburn Rovers and Leeds United home and away.

‘We’ll be facing a Premier League team, Premier League players, a Premier League manager and a Premier League budget,’ said Leeds manager Uwe Rosler before the game. Hell, he’ll be saying we’re a big club next, I thought.

For Burnley this was the first league game without Jason Shackell since October 2012, 121 games ago. Wise old owl Ian Holloway had tipped Burnley for a 1-0 win, ‘It’s Yorkshire v Lancashire, an extra bit of spice, but I fancy Burnley strongly to win this one. They’ve been up and down but I think Sean Dyche is an excellent manager. I know them inside out because I used to live up there and I reckon they’ll ride the departure of Danny Ings, no problem. They’ve got a really good squad and I think Ashley Barnes is a fantastic player.’

Alas Barnes was still out and months away from fitness. Ulvestad and Lowton were out injured with short-term niggles. Leeds meanwhile were confident after a settled summer, so settled in fact that their fans were in the main quite disbelieving after all the antics and events of the last couple of seasons. Quite a number of lapsed supporters, so disillusioned by the pantomime years, had returned to the fold with new season tickets, my neighbour included. Much of this new feel-good factor they attributed to the presence of new CEO Adam Pearson who they reckoned had brought a new professionalism and calmness to the place and had the persona to keep Cellino in check. Nor had any of their young players been sold. Twenty-four hours before the game it was easy to sense this new spirit and optimism in the local press and on the Leeds websites. You couldn’t help but wonder, were Leeds United about to re-enter the football world as a major player and a challenger for the top Championship places? The answer turned out to be a resounding no.

With a prior major family ‘do’ to attend, the unbreakable arrangements having been made long before the fixtures came out, and our fingers crossed that whatever game it was would be acceptably ‘missable’, it turned out that this was an opening fixture we had to miss. Gawd almighty, fancy missing the Leeds match when you live in Leeds, I thought. When the fixtures were published the groans and gasps from number 12 could be heard across the valley in Horsforth. But at least there was Sky in the house.

There was a big Sean Dyche feature in The Guardian. He thought Burnley could prosper without big spending. Having been in the Premier League would be no advantage. Some of the sums being forked out in the Championship to try and get to the Prem were astronomical. There was a hint that his spending plans and signings schedule had been badly affected by the wage demands of targeted players and he’d had to re-calculate. He said he was stunned by some of the packages being offered to players by rival clubs, but was confident that other players would arrive at Burnley before the end of the transfer window. There were, however, no plans to join the big spenders. It was a model that Leeds manager Rosler alluded to on the day of the game; that Burnley were the club to copy, that Leeds had a small squad, that Burnley had proved what was achievable without being reckless and with just a small group of players.

Players might have left Burnley but George Boyd insisted the team mentality and the work ethic remained. Duff had said something interesting too about Trippier; saying that the players had as good as kicked him out of the door when the Spurs offer came along. While Ings had a definite career plan, Trippier on the other hand would have been quite content to stay at Burnley where he was settled and happy. But Duff and others had as good as told him the Spurs move could not be turned down, he had to take it, chances like that did not come along every day.

KERCHING went the tills and cash registers at Elland Road. ‘What sort of ID do you need to get into Elland Road?’ someone asked on FB. Basically just a wad of £20 notes was the answer.

A hot, blue sky day, expectation and anticipation at every ground in the country. It’s the day of the season when everyone is level pegging and can hope that this will be their year. For some it’s just to avoid relegation, for others it’s loftier things. At Elland Road both sets of fans looked for pointers to what the season might bring but you couldn’t say there was anything conclusive. This was a dish of crash, bang, and wallops, an attritional battle with extra added bruising.

From the sofa in front of a huge TV set, a burger in one hand and Buck’s Fizz in the other,