CAR SHARE’S THE TIME WE ALL LOVE AT OUR BIG FAMILY CLUB
Burton players bond every day on drive to the training ground, insists Bywater
IT’S the 15-minute morning commute, all the lads in their cars, that could create a second Burton Albion miracle this season.
Burton’s players have to get changed at the ground and then car-share to the training pitch at the FA’s base in the Staffordshire countryside as the club can’t afford to pay for the dressing rooms.
Then, sweaty and muddied up, it’s back in the car to the Pirelli Stadium.
Goalkeeper Stephen Bywater paints the picture of life with the Brewers and explains why they won’t be going for a Burton.
He’s the last line of defence in their continuing Championship dream.
Ahead of yesterday’s game at Reading, Burton were five points worse off than at the same stage last season.
They had won one game less and lost three more, making manager Nigel Clough’s job even tougher second time round. Miracles don’t come easy.
“The gaffer makes it work on a shoestring budget against all the big- hitters in the Championship,” says Bywater.
Bywater made an outstanding double save from David Wheater and Darren Pratley last week to protect Burton’s 1-0 win over fellow relegation candidates Bolton, a huge boost towards safety.
Now 36, Bywater does extra training in his gym at home at 11pm in a bid to both extend his own career and Burton’s unlikely Championship life.
Burton have never been close to being giants, never mind the faded ones like Aston Villa, Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Wolves, Sunderland and the rest who they have to try now to beat.
“When I got up after making those saves against Bolton and the lads were all around me, I thought ‘Yes. This is what we are about’,” says Bywater.
“I said to my wife as we were watching it on the TV ‘This is what we are like’.
“The lads were so relieved. We are a team. I love it.
Tougher
“It’s tougher this season than last. Everybody’s just bought big, haven’t they? But I think that’s brilliant. When we go into games now, we are even more the underdogs. I thrive on that.” When Bywater started 20 years ago on his 15club career, he was painting the goalposts at Rochdale. It was what apprentices did back then. It hasn’t changed all that much. Not at Burton anyway. What he enjoys, says Bywater, is the small ‘clubness’ of Burton.
He’s played for West Ham, bought for what was quoted as £250,000 when he was 16 years old, but, he says, rose to something like £800,000.
Or, as he puts it, paid for a stand.
So, Bywater knows what the bigger club mentality is.
He got into the Premier League with the Hammers, the same with Derby and helped start Sheffield Wednesday’s comeback from the wilderness with promotion to the Championship.
“I want to be at Burton because everyone knows everyone. It’s a family club,” says Bywater.
“At these big clubs, I don’t know who does the tickets. I don’t know who does the club shop. I don’t know the chef. Here, I know them all.
“It’s like being a family and, if it’s family and you are up against it in life, that family means more to you than anything else.
“I go from my family at home to this family at the club.”
The Championship has gone Billy Big Time, with the foreign ownership and the money being spent, just as the Premier League has.
So where can Burton fit into that? Just watch the morning players’ car cavalcade.
“The Premier League? It’s a billionaire’s playing field, isn’t it? The Championship? What can Burton offer a player compared to Wolves, Derby, Villa?
I’ve not been to Derby’s training ground since I left, but I’m told it’s excellent. Us? We change at the ground then it’s cars to training and back.
“But that is the best thing.
Discuss
“That car time gives us talk time because changing rooms nowadays are all people on the phone, social media. You get to a point and you look round and he’s on his phone, he’s on his phone…
“They are not talking to each other and that’s the way the world is going. So that time there in the car, I like that time because I talk to my mates.
“We discuss training, the games. We talk points per games, to keep a constant target going. That 15 minutes to work, the 15 minutes back, I think, is crucial for a team like Burton.
“At clubs now, it’s train and go home. You have your lunch but you don’t really talk.
“But in the car it’s ‘What about training today? Cor, he wasn’t great. What about Saturday? How we going to approach that?’
“It’s an inter-action. A team spirit. It’s a bond.”
When a new player comes in, Bywater will talk to him. He will say they will enjoy it. He will point out that everyone mucks in together.
“There might be a shortage of socks. They are getting less and less. They might not be the ones you normally use, but there’s always enough,” he says. “Trust me. Players love it here.” Time ticks on, though. Bywater’s son is a Manchester City fan and he took him, for a birthday treat, to do the stadium tour.
“I looked at the City players and I said to my wife, ‘I’m competing against that because these younger lads are likely to be loaned out and I could be up against them. I have to be better’.”
Bywater got that dedication to work from a West Ham dressing room that had Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Jamie Redknapp and Michael Carrick in it. All of them, he says, athletes.
Supportive
“I’ve got a gym at home. I have a supportive wife.
“At 11 o’clock at night, if we are watching the TV, I’ll say I’m just going into the gym. I’m doing it aged 36 at 11 o’clock at night. Who else in the Championship is doing that?
“At my age I have to do that extra bit more. But I know that. I’m ahead of the game, I’ve been doing yoga, strength, diet, since I was 28.
“I have to do the extra because I don’t want to let our ticket office down. I don’t want to let the chairman down. I don’t want to let the manager down.
“I’ve done 20 years. I want to do another ten. Kevin Poole did it at Burton, didn’t he? I could play into my 40s. If someone wants me I could, 100 per cent.
“My lad will say ‘You are playing Bristol City. They’ve got this Bobby Reid. He’s got a lot of goals’. Then I’ll get home and I’ll say ‘Son, did he score past me today?’ That’s my buzz.
“It’s a tough gig being a manager anywhere, but at Burton at times we don’t get even 4,000 for home games. But that’s the beauty of it. A small squad that pulls together.
“We will stay up because the gaffer will do his genius in January. If he did a miracle last season, he’s got to do a double miracle this time.”