Dan Burn’s long journey to the World Cup finals started with Blyth Spartans Juniors, was boosted at Darlington and received its final touches in the black and white of his beloved Newcastle United. The boy from Blyth has already written his name into Magpies folklore by scoring in United’s historic Carabao Cup final win against Liverpool and he has now featured heavily for Eddie Howe’s side in their last two Champions League campaigns.
That is all a far cry from when Burn was released after a spell with Newcastle’s development academy and was forced to put his football dreams on hold to become a trolley collector at his local supermarket. Far from being disheartened, Burn has shown determination and a strong mentality to forge a career that has now taken him to the top end of the game and he is now in the final stages of his preparations for England’s World Cup opener against Croatia on Wednesday.
Yet for former Blyth Spartans coach Tom Wade, who counts Burn as a lifelong family friend, the defender’s true quality comes in the personal side, rather than the professional side of his character. He told Chronicle Live: “Dan’s just Dan and he’s the Dan we have all known since he was four-year-old and playing football in the street with my son, Matty. He still has his same friends, they are all going to Canada to visit his brother at the end of the World Cup. You look people like Dan, Elliot Anderson is another example, they’ve all had a good grounding, they’ve been well brought up, and they are still humble. They aren’t big-time Charlies. Dan has also been confident in himself - but he’s also humble and loyal and that’s why he won’t be carried away by anything coming his way this summer.
North East non-league stalwart Jamie Chandler, who featured for Gateshead and Spennymoor Town during his career, witnessed the budding of Burn’s renaissance during their time at Darlington. The Quakers offered Burn a chance to kickstart his professional career with an initial YTS deal in 2009 and a first professional contract followed. The big defender grasped the opportunity with both hands and his form in the National League, non-league’s top tier, captured the attention of several clubs - but it was Fulham that won the race for his services.
Burn featured for the likes of Yeovil Town, Birmingham City and Brighton over the following years before making an emotional return to Newcastle in January 2022 - and Chandler believes the mentality he experienced in the Darlington dressing room laid solid foundations for everything that followed. He said: “When you consider where he’s come from, his development and where he has gone, it probably has surprised everyone, especially himself. But he always loved training, he loved doing his extras and he showed the mentality to want to improve all of the time. Being in that dressing room as a young lad, adapting as he did to the National League, he learnt a lot and has taken it forward. It was a tough dressing room, we had some experienced pros that had played in the EFL and training was basically a case of training how you play. He had a good grounding with a Darlington legend in Craig Liddle and his support and guidance has laid solid foundations.”
Chandler still pays close attention to his former team-mate’s progress from the St James Park stands as he attends Magpies matches with his young son. That has meant he has witnessed some criticism and doubts over Burn’s form in a black and white shirt - but he believes that only motivates the defender to keep proving people wrong, just as he has done throughout his career. “I think proving people wrong has kept him going because he always feels he has to prove a point,” explained the former Gateshead midfielder. “I go to Newcastle games with my son, I watch him most weeks and I come away most of the time thinking he has run through a brick wall and that he’s done well. But you see some fans at the game or those on social media questioning him and why he’s at the club. He is thick-skinned, he believes in himself, he gets on with the job and the outside noise has probably helped him to keep proving people wrong and keep moving forwards.”
If Burn’s dreams were realised when he lifted the Carabao Cup and ended Newcastle’s 70-year wait for major domestic silverware, it’s hard to describe just how he would feel if he was to experience glory with England at the World Cup. For Wade, this summer represents an opportunity to firmly put the seal on a story he believes could end up on the big screen. If it's good enough for Jamie Vardy and Netflix, it's good enough for the man from Blyth. “I did an interview with Sky Sports after the Carabao Cup final outside Newcastle Central Station when I got back from Wembley and the guy interviewing me said Dan’s life could be made into a film at some point,” Wade said. “I said maybe if he scores the winner in the World Cup final - so there’s hope yet!”
