The Train Keeps Rolling
Pop the champers, and get Everton Stadium ticked off the ground hopping list - we're off to the Premier League...
What a way to start the blog, eh?
I had an inkling that my timing would be spot on for my first post to be a ‘promotion special’, of sorts, after the all-important Sheffield United game. We’re the Championship locomotive that keeps on running when the going gets tough, and after that win against Norwich - followed by the Blades getting themselves clotted in all sorts of cream in Devon less than 24 hours later at Home Park - I think most Clarets, no matter how ‘glass half empty’, had a feeling that we’d be celebrating a return to the Premier League at some point in the coming weeks.
That feeling of going up never gets old. It was on the cards for quite a while under Vincent, but the celebrations at Middlesbrough once it was finally confirmed didn’t wane whatsoever, despite the writing being on the wall from January onwards. It may have tasted sweeter under Sean in the 23-undefeated season, when the squad we had wasn’t quite as luxurious and without doubt more industrious - and even more so when the Ginger Mourinho took us up in 2013/14 against the odds, when a Premier League place looked like a mere pipe dream just months before the season began.
Yes, you can talk about Scotty’s defensive record for years to come. But for me, the fact we’ve lost just 10 games in nigh-on three Championship campaigns remains the most impressive statistic of the plenty that we’ve conjured up As I’ve mentioned above, there’s something about Burnley in this division and it isn’t something we should take for granted. We haven’t yet.
But this season, barring defeat to QPR or Millwall, will be the most successful of them all in that regard.
I was there in the Royal Dyche after we hoisted the title against Cardiff almost two years ago, the pub filled with fans who’d been treated to caviar tiki-taka all season, and it got wild in there; Jordan North showing his face for a surprise two-hour DJ set in the beer garden, one Irish Claret who turned up, somehow, with Ian Maatsen’s boot, buying jäger as though it was going out of fashion and drinking it from the now-Champions League finalists’ shoe - I’m sure there are many more stories.
But this team, this squad, this season - that unity simply feels more tangible. The inages of Connor Roberts, as wild as ever, drinking in our most famous watering hole with the Sky Sports News clock ticking past midnight, joined by our supremo captain and man of the hour Josh Brownhill, goalkeeping wunderkind James Trafford, loanee-turned-permanent Jaidon Anthony and of course, club legend, Ashley Barnes. You simply don’t get that in football anymore, least not at the top level - barring Wolves boss Vitor Pereira wandering down to Wetherspoons for a few pints after a win.
They’ve all been cornerstones of the campaign, each with their own subplots. Roberts coming back from Leeds United with his future uncertain, before going on to sign a new contract - despite his previous complaints that the club was in disarray in that final week of the summer window. Browny embarking on his best-ever goalscoring season, becoming the captain that we so desperately needed after Ben Mee departed almost three years ago. Traff pulling off world-class saves such as the one at Watford on Good Friday. Jaidon turning on the style, becoming the goalscoring winger we needed in the run-in, providing a weekly update on his Instagram with a grin from ear-to-ear knowing that the word ‘vibes’ would appear in the caption. Barnesy? Well, we all know what he brings.
They’re as barmy as us. Our hallowed Turf was rocking on Monday evening, and with good reason; despite these relegations, and the threat of becoming a yo-yo club, we’re still in the best era we’ve had since the seventies, and maybe even the sixties. Eight Premier League campaigns from 12 attempts, two titles to boot, and that could even increase to three by next Saturday.
The players simply just get it, and not even those aforementioned. They get the promotion slog, the trials and tribulations of what it can bring. They get the three fist pumps after a huge win, the geeing up of the Claret Armada. They get the annual win at Ewood Park and how to wind the Riverside Stand up. They get us.
You don’t want to say never, but it’s times like these that you can’t sniff at. I’ve been a season ticket holder with my Grandad in the Jimmy Mac for two years now, and he’s seen us in Europe, down to the doldrums and back into continental football again - and he’s hammered that message to me, as have the Foo Fighters in the build-up on a match day.
Of course, it brings us onto next season. We all know it’s going to be difficult. But I’ll get to that in the next post, or maybe after Millwall, once we’ve all revelled in our return to the top-flight. For now, let’s enjoy the moment and create a party atmosphere in the Big Smoke on Saturday.
Who knows, we might even have another title to celebrate in two weeks…