Josh took a pounding in home dome
KID BROWNHILL’S TURF WARS
JOSH BROWNHILL has graduated to become a Burnley regular thanks to his brothers’ school of hard knocks at their ‘Poundland Soccer Dome’.
Brownhill’s dad built a mini football pitch in the back garden for him and older brothers Lewis and Joel to play on as kids.
He put down artificial grass and netting to prevent the ball flying into neighbouring gardens and Lewis dubbed it the ‘Poundland Soccer Dome’.
“We used to be on that all the time from when I was five,” said the Burnley midfielder.
“I remember when I first came through at Preston at 17 and I was getting kicked because I was quite small.
“It was exactly the same as what happened in our back garden. My brothers would treat me as if I was their age.
“If I scored or did something against them, they didn’t like it because I was younger than them and they would let me know about it.
“They both have plenty of nonLeague experience so that side of it, needing to be tough, they helped me with that.”
The brothers also played indoors when their parents were out, ruining some of their mum’s prized mini jazz band figures. “There are a lot of stories of us breaking things,” said the 25-year-old Brownhill.
“I was way too young to fix them so Lewis would glue them back together. For ages my mum and dad did not have a clue what we were doing.
“Looking back, it was great fun but the moments we broke stuff were quite scary.”
Brownhill is key to the Clarets in the middle of the park and was the only player in the Premier League to make 60 interceptions and 60 blocks last season.
Burnley entertain Crystal Palace at Turf Moor today and boyhood Manchester City fan Brownhill remembers watching Eagles manager PatrickVieira, above, when he patrolled the midfield for the Citizens a decade ago.
Brownhill said: “He’s had an unbelievable career. You take things from players subconsciously and he’s one I’ve taken things from.
“He’s done a great job so far at Palace, I’ve not been surprised. But hopefully we can cause an upset against them.”