Dave Thomas - Who Says Football Doesnt Do Fairytales?: How Burnley Defied the Odds to Join the Elite

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2014
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

DAVE THOMAS, 2014

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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library

Print ISBN 978 1-90962-669-0
eBook ISBN: 978-1-909626-84-3

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CONTENTS

Moving On Up
Burnleys Post-War Promotion Parades

A Good Day Out:
Burnley 4 Sparta Rotterdam 1

Adventures With The NHS:
Burnley 1 Bolton Wanderers 1

Ooh Are We Going?:
Sheffield Wednesday 1 Burnley 2

The Curse Of Amazon:
Burnley 2 Yeovil Town 0

A Joy To Watch:
Derby County 0 Burnley 3

We Shop At Tesco Not Harrods:
Burnley 1 Blackburn Rovers 1

I Turn My Back For Two Weeks:
Burnley 3 Birmingham
Leeds United 1 Burnley
Burnley 2 Nottingham Forest
Burnley 3 Charlton Athletic 0
Doncaster Rovers 0 Burnley 2

Waxing Lyrical:
Burnley 2 Reading 1

All Noses In The Same Direction:
Ipswich Town 0 Burnley 1
Burnley 2 QPR 0

Toothaches And Penalties:
Burnley 0 West Ham 2

The Quest For Pie And Mash:
Millwall 2 Burnley 2

Pondering On The Nature Of Things:
Burnley 1 Bournemouth 1

Sean Dyche And Winter Arrives:
Nottingham Forest 1 Burnley 1

A Letter From Old Bob:
Huddersfield 2 Burnley 1

Culinary Treats And Cometh The Kightly:
Burnley 0 Watford 0
Burnley 1 Barnsley 0

You Know Its December:
Leicester City 1 Burnley 1

We Dont Need Gaviscon And Henry Winter On Sean Dyche:
Burnley 2 Blackpool 1

Twas The Night Before Christmas:
Middlesbrough 1 Burnley 0
Wigan Athletic 0 Burnley 0

Goodbye 2013:
Burnley 3 Huddersfield Town 2

Into 2014 Cups And Re-Unions:
Southampton 4 Burnley 3

Breakfast With The Galacticos:
Yeovil 1 Burnley 2

Calm, Pragmatic And Down To Earth:
Burnley 1 Sheffield Wednesday 1

Ormskirk With Chums:
Burnley 0 Brighton
QPR 3 Burnley 3

A Seven-Year-Olds Big Day:
Burnley 3 Millwall 1

The History Boys:
Bolton 0 Burnley
Bournemouth 1 Burnley 1

Its Tough Being A Man:
Burnley 3 Nottingham Forest 1

A Bargain At The Crooked Billet:
Burnley 2 Derby County 0

Dyche, Moneyball And Rovers:
Blackburn Rovers 1 Burnley 2

Written In The Stars:
Birmingham City 3 Burnley 3

Massimo Massimo Wherefore Art Thou:
Burnley 2 Leeds United 1

Tasteless Sandwiches And Reggae Music:
Charlton Athletic 0 Burnley 3

Sean Dyche And Old-Fashioned Values:
Burnley 2 Doncaster Rovers 0

Back To Earth With A Bump:
Burnley 0 Leicester City 2

Battered And Depleted:
Watford 1 Burnley 1

Barnes Makes The Difference:
Barnsley 0 Burnley 1

Everything Back On Hold:
Burnley 0 Middlesbrough 1

Blackpool Rocks:
Blackpool 0 Burnley 1

The Burnley Lord Mayors Show:
Burnley 2 Wigan Athletic 0

This book is dedicated to the memory of supporter John Markey and Victor Collinge of the Border Bookshop who was so helpful; two good friends.

Gordon Harris, a great player for Burnley, and Arthur Bellamy, an unsung hero and a lovely man I met several times.

The players in 2013/14: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Dean Marney, Sam Vokes, Danny Ings, David Jones, Michael Kightly, Scott Arfield, Ross Wallace, Danny Lafferty, Junior Stanislas, David Edgar, Ashley Barnes, Chris Baird, Kevin Long, Brian Stock, Keith Treacy, Alex Cisak, Luke ONeill, Cameron Howieson, Steven Hewitt, Ryan Noble, Cameron Dummigan, Nick Liversedge and Jason Gilchrist.

The first-team staff: Sean Dyche (manager), Ian Woan (assistant manager), Tony Loughlin (first-team coach), Billy Mercer (goalkeeping coach), Mark Howard (head of sports science) and Alasdair Beattie (head physiotherapist).

Special thanks go to Alastair Campbell, Darren Bentley and Adam Riding in the Burnley media department, Mike Garlick, John Banaszkiewicz, Chris Boden and Daniel Black of the Burnley Express, Suzanne Geldard of the Lancashire Telegraph, Henry Winter of The Daily Telegraph, Juliette Ferrington at Football Focus, Tim Quelch, Matt Rowson at Watford, Dean Standing at Millwall, Tony Scholes, Tom Morton, Mike Smith, Ian Brookes and www.dnapeople.co.uk, Richard Walker from Watford FCs media department, David Blackburn, Tony Dawber, Clive Holt and www.sportnw.co.uk.

PART ONE

FOREWORD BY
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

W HEN Burnley were promoted via the play-offs in 2009 it felt like a miracle. Somehow and this really is a miracle as the 2013/14 season wore on, automatic promotion under Sean Dyche felt like it was never in doubt. It is a truly remarkable story.

Dyche can now rejoice in the chants of Ginger Mourinho, though I suggest we change this to salt and pepper Dychio when we play Chelsea. But it is fair to say there was a mixed reaction to his appointment following Eddie Howes departure back to Bournemouth.

Equally, as the season started, I cannot be alone in having thought that another mid-table finish would be the best we could hope for, with the season made or broken for many according to whether we managed finally to beat Blackburn Rovers after a drought lasting more than three decades.

Data can tell a lot of stories, especially in sport. Small squad, low wage bill compared with Championship big boys, small town with several bigger clubs within an hours drive, limited funds for transfers, not a Qatari or Russian in sight; these are all data points pointing in one direction the likelihood that an exciting end to the season was going to be a battle for survival rather than promotion. Oh we of little faith.

A lot of the credit must go to the board for the decision to hire Sean and for running the club in a sensible way. It is brilliant that we have a board made up entirely of Burnley fans. Barry Kilby was a hugely popular chairman and one of the highlights of our last season in the Premier League was the trip to Old Trafford and amid the anti-Glazer protests the chanting of only one Barry Kilby and weve got more cash than you. John Banaszkiewicz and Mike Garlick have been a great double act as co-chairmen and their passion for the club is never in doubt.

The players too if I may make a statement of the obvious have to take a lot of the credit. Go through the entire squad and you see stories of excellence and improvement. It was right that Danny Ings and Sam Vokes got all the awards and accolades for their goalscoring exploits but from back to front we had a team of players who played at the top of their game week after week.

To get a team playing better than the sum of its parts, to get players who had been six out of ten to regularly hit eight out of ten; that is down to leadership and management and that is down to Sean and his staff. Arsene Wenger once said, If the manager isnt the most important person at the club, why is he the one who gets the sack when things go wrong?