82 June 2022 FourFourTwo
Stoney and a couple of others – Gary Charles
perhaps. He’d have you smelling the roses,
asking what we all thought. He’d bring out
the coffees, chocolate biscuits.
“Sometimes he’d cook us lunch. We could
eat, but you wondered sometimes how many
he was cooking for – there was enough for 10
people, rather than three or four. Then he’d
often call us in to watch an episode of Only
Fools and Horses.”
Clough stories are myriad (see page 60) but
the reverence Dyche reserves for his former
gaffer resembles a father-son relationship.
“Once, we found a tennis ball,” remembers
Dyche. “There was a small hedge separating
his garden from his neighbour’s, so we leapt
over it and started playing head tennis, using
the hedge as a net. He spotted us and said,
‘Hey, s**thouses, get out of my neighbour’s
garden!’ When he saw we had a tennis ball,
his mood changed. He said, ‘Well done, you’re
practising your trade’.
“One time in the dressing room, he told me
to take off Des Walker’s boots. I was waiting
to brush up the dressing room. Cloughie says,
‘Young Ginger, take Desmond’s boots off,
he’s been carrying the group all season.’ Des
was so humble – his eyes were telling me to
leave it, but Cloughie insisted.
“After another match, he came down the
long tunnel at the City Ground, which we’d
brush and then mop. I had my toes on top
of the big wide brush we were using, and as
he went by I said, ‘Afternoon boss’. Without
turning around he shouted back, ‘Hey Ginger,
get your feet off my brush’. He had this aura.”
Dyche was desperate for first-team football
and a loan spell with Chesterfield turned into
a permanent move. “I could have gone back
to Forest, who were willing to give me a deal,
but I probably would have just ended up as
a maybe,” he reveals. “Going to Chesterfield
had given me the bug for first-team football.
I was 18. I thought, ‘This is me, I don’t want
to play A-team football and nick another
contract for a couple more quid’. I wanted to
get out there and play.
“The Forest lads used to rip me when I went
to Chesterfield – I envisaged it as a stepping
stone. I’d go over there and make my name.
I got to play at Wembley in the 1990 Fourth
Division Play-off Final against Cambridge at
18 – Dion Dublin scored for them off his ear.
We lost 1-0, but I thought I was on my way.
I suffered loads of injuries, the club had been
up and down and, after seven seasons, Steve
Stone would say, ‘Some stepping stone, seven
seasons at Chesterfield!’”
Dyche’s last Spireites campaign in 1996-97
was also his most memorable, as the plucky
minnows reached the FA Cup semis.
“We had a good thing with the FA Cup run
under John Duncan, and reached the last
four as a third-tier side,” he says. “We were
a bunch of waifs and strays on low money.”
A couple of months after scoring a penalty
in the semi-final defeat to Middlesbrough,
a 26-year-old Dyche joined Bristol City, also
of the third tier. But his time at Ashton Gate
proved far less enjoyable.
“They were a much bigger concern,” says
Dyche. “It was a good decision in the sense
that we won promotion, but a bad one in that
I had a lot of injuries, a lack of form and gothammered by the fans. I learned more in
those two years than I’d done all my career- about myself, people, the treatment of
people, the treatment of the pros around you.
“You glorify things over the years, but that
really was awful. I’m a pretty hardy fella, but
let me tell you, no one wants to get battered
by their own supporters. Your mum and dad
are there, and people are calling you names.
You get back home and your mum is crying,
saying, ‘Why don’t you leave football?’ Your
dad is telling you to just, ‘F**k them and get
on with your football, it’s your job’. It’s hard,
I don’t care what anyone says.
“Now, I wouldn’t be bothered five per cent.
It was a massive learning curve – it helped
tremendously for the rest of my career and
what I do today. I can handle things now.”
LEAKING CLARET
Dyche became Burnley boss nearly 10 years
ago, replacing Eddie Howe in October 2012.
“At first, some fans weren’t having what
I was trying to achieve – some wanted me
out,” he says. “It all seemed to change before
the start of the next season. We were looking
really good after an incredible pre-season –
Danny Ings and Charlie Austin were flying.
“Then we sold Charlie two days before the
start of the campaign, and that seemed toIt’s 25 years since Sean Dyche put
Chesterfield 2-0 up in the FA Cup
semi-final against Middlesbrough –
no third-tier team has ever come so
close to reaching the final.
The Spireites were the seventh side
from that level to reach the last four,
after Millwall (1937), Port Vale (1954),
York (1955), Norwich (1959), Crystal
Palace (1976) and Plymouth (1984).
Millwall and Vale both held single-goal
leads in their semi-final fixtures, but
eventually suffered the same fate as
the other four underdogs.
Chesterfield progressed to the semis
in 1997 thanks to wins over Wrexham
and Dyche’s former club Nottingham
Forest, then took the lead against Boro
at Old Trafford. Step forward Dyche to
make it 2-0 after an hour with exactly
the sort of penalty you’d anticipate –
thundered straight down the middle.
Fabrizio Ravanelli pulled a goal back
before the game’s infamous moment –a Jonathan Howard shot that hit the
underside of the bar and appeared to
cross the line, only for Chesterfield to
be denied a 3-1 advantage. Dyche soon
felled the nippy Juninho for a spot-kick
that Craig Hignett sneaked in. Following
a 3-3 draw after extra time, Boro won
the replay at Hillsborough 3-0.
Wycombe and Sheffield United have
also reached the semis from the third
tier in the ensuing quarter-century, but
similarly slipped to defeat.SEAn
DYCHEDYCHE’S BRUSH WITH FA CUP HISTORY
“nO OnE WAnTS TO BE BATTERED
BY THEIR OWn FAnS – YOU GET
HOME AnD YOUR MUM’S CRYInG”
Above Dyche is an
idol in Burnley and
he adores the club
Right He even has
a pub in his name