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Dan Burn never played academy football. The closest he got to it was Newcastle United's ‘development squad’, a group of players deemed not good enough to sign for the academy itself, but sufficiently talented for the club to monitor them via training sessions a couple of times a week, with occasional games.
Released from that setup at the age of 11, Burn played Sunday League football, and by 16, when most players sign their first professional contracts, he was struggling to pin down a place in an amateur Saturday team.
“Everybody had left school and started their YTs, joined clubs, signed contracts, and I hadn’t done that,” he says now. “I wanted to stay within football. I went to Cramlington High School, who were meant to have an academy for football, but it didn’t end up happening. But they were offering the course I wanted to do, so I just played football at weekends.”
Burn's trolley dash
At the time, Burn was playing for New Hartley Juniors, the club that three-time European Cup winner Ray Kennedy was turning out for when Arsenal spotted him in the 1960s.
“I wasn’t playing and getting much game time,” Burn admits. “I was travelling around and just sitting on the bench, so I ended up sacking that off to work at Asda."
"My dad had worked there, he got me an interview. The only thing they needed was a porter to push trolleys.
"It was just money to do stuff with my mates. I worked with older guys – I remember there used to be a limit to how many you could push, but I used to get a bit bored, so I’d try to push the limit. I always got told off.”
Burn’s performances in Sunday League earned him a couple of trials. One was at Darlington, who offered him a deal in the summer of 2009, even though it actually meant a drop in wages. “It was £9.23 an hour. It was decent. But I tell you what, I got more working four days a month at ASDA than I did when I first signed for Darlo. I was on £55 quid a week at Darlington and worked 10 hours!”
Burn played four games in League Two for the Quakers during 2009-10, all of them defeats, as they were relegated from the Football League. The following year, in the Conference, he was given more opportunities, making 10 league appearances over the second half of the campaign as the club finished seventh and also won the FA Trophy.
Burn didn’t feature in the final at Wembley, but had shown enough talent for Premier League Fulham to offer a life-changing contract.
Interestingly, Newcastle made a late attempt to hijack the deal by matching Fulham’s offer. “I felt it was a bit of a token thing where they didn’t want to lose a local lad,” Burn says now. “If I’d signed for Newcastle then, I don’t think I would have had the career I’ve had.”
Burn admits he's returned to his former employer, ASDA, a few times since leaving and taking a drop in wages. "I get recognised very quickly when I go back."
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