Our flat’s like The Young Ones: sofa, TV and no frills!
BURNLEY No 2 IAN WOAN ON LIVING WITH SEAN DYCHE
There is an element of mischief bubbling inside Ian Woan as he delivers a line of selfdeprecation. Sean Dyche’s assistant manager is describing the pair’s shared apartment in a village a few miles outside of Burnley.
‘honestly, it’s like The Young Ones in there,’ Woan says. ‘A couch, a big screen, two beds — done. That’s it. No frills. You don’t really want to go back there, it’s one of those.’
Dyche’s family remain in Northampton, while Woan’s are in Nottingham. The pair stay in the flat three nights a week, allowing themselves a glass of wine at their favourite local restaurant every Thursday.
Dyche is apparently a handy cook but most meals are taken at the training ground at Gawthorpe hall.
That has been the routine for almost six years. Like so much about Burnley it feels unorthodox but it is clearly working as the Clarets embark on a first european campaign in 51 years at Aberdeen tonight.
‘I’ve known Sean since 1990,’ Woan adds, referring to their time at Nottingham Forest, Dyche a trainee, Woan a first-team regular. ‘he was still in the digs when I signed. I bought a house in Nottingham and he lived with me for about four years. We’re best mates really. I was his best man. I know who the boss is but I can’t tell you what I call him in the flat! ‘We watch a lot of box sets —
Blacklist and Ray Donovan at the moment. We kind of got into
Breaking Bad but only got halfway through.’
They are linked by Forest and therefore the genius of Brian Clough. ‘he was special, there is no doubt about that,’ says Woan. ‘An aura. I think those morals and manners — please, thank you, excuse me — rubbed off on us. hotel staff have told us our lot are the best behaved group they’ve ever had.
‘That makes you proud. Premier League players are notoriously not like that but this group are.
‘We never got any praise from him, that’s for sure. Playing in a Brian Clough team was praise enough. he never said well done.
‘every home game there was a towel folded in the middle of our changing room with a football sitting on it. he’d point at it. “That’s your friend, look after it”. he’d have a tennis ball that would be thrown at players, catch it, throw it back. The bell would go. “All the best”.
‘The door was always left open so the opposition could see us. It just seemed to work.’
Clough’s philosophy of ‘just win’ is adhered to at Turf Moor. Woan talks about being told his best skill was the ability to ‘pass to the same coloured shirt’ and the importance of ‘doing the basics better than anyone else’. That ethos lives on in east Lancashire.
Woan heads into the europa League at Pittodrie this evening with first-hand experience of reaching the UeFA Cup quarter-finals with Forest in 1996 under Frank Clark, Clough’s replacement.
They were knocked out by a Bayern Munich team boasting Kahn, Matthaus, Scholl and Klinsmann, but beat Lyon and Ligue 1 champions Auxerre on the way. Woan remembers walking out at Lyon.
‘Pearcy (Stuart Pearce) turned around, looked at us all, and screamed, “We’re f****** english!” You could see all the French lads looking and thinking, “OK!”
‘he was so patriotic. A great captain. So passionate about the country. his house was the only one in Nottingham that had the flag flying in his garden. You want to go and play those games, don’t you? If you fear it you’re in the wrong sport.
‘We need to make sure our lads look forward to it. This is what we worked so hard for. You want the plaudits but you want to go and sample europe.
‘You know the gaffer. We’re giving it the lot regardless of the competition. We’ll be full tilt, don’t worry about that. The Premier League and survival is your bread and butter. We need to protect that but we want that experience (of europe).’
Dyche is clearly energised by Woan and vice-versa. ‘The gaffer’ messages Woan at least twice during our conversation. ‘he gets the hump if I don’t pick the phone up,’ Woan grins, self-deprecating as ever.
If Dyche is Burnley’s Clough, maybe Woan is their Peter Taylor.