Play-off Final | Wade Elliott puts Burnley in dreamland
Football League Championship Play-Off Final
Burnley – 1 Elliott 13
Sheffield United – 0
* Dominic Fifield at Wembley
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 May 2009 17.04 BST
After 33 long years, and a season that has now encompassed 61 energy-sapping matches, Burnley are a top-flight club once again. A small Lancashire town that has endured life in the shadow of Blackburn Rovers too long burst back into the limelight here, their elevation back to the elite constituting a staggering performance by one of the Championship’s thinnest squads and brightest managers. The Premier League is coming to Turf Moor.
Wade Elliott’s early goal proved sufficient to blunt Sheffield United at Wembley yet, while the scoreline ensured nail-biting moments in the frantic latter stages, the better side prevailed. Other chances were passed up or denied by desperate United defence. The Yorkshiremen bemoaned the denial of penalties in both halves but their frustration saw them reduced to 10 before the end, Jamie Ward’s dismissal for two bookable offences adding to Kevin Blackwell’s fury at the performance of the referee, Mike Dean.
Reunions with West Ham United and an opportunity for revenge after the Carlos Tevez fiasco will have to wait. This was Burnley’s day. Some 22 years ago, this club teetered on the brink of non-league before goals from Ian Britton and Neil Grewcock against Leyton Orient sent Lincoln City down on the season’s final day instead. Expectations have changed since and this season’s finale has thrust the Clarets back among Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea.
Their campaign’s decisive goal was gloriously crafted and ruthlessly executed. Burnley had been becalmed, concerned only with dealing with United’s early urgency, when Wade Elliott collected a throw-in near the halfway line and charged forward at pace. Stephen Quinn and Nick Montgomery melted in his slipstream, the latter recovering only as Elliott slipped Chris McCann into the area at his side. Matt Kilgallon’s challenge on the midfielder sent the ball spinning away from goal yet Elliott, ever alert, clipped a first-time shot from 25 yards before any Blade could recover that arced wonderfully into the top corner with Paddy Kenny aghast.The concession deflated United, their performance suddenly ragged as Burnley’s slicker approach threatened further reward. Martin Paterson might have added a second, looping a shot just over the bar, with Steve Thompson unfortunate to guide a header just wide of the far post. Even after the interval, with United more energetic and crying foul after seeing penalty appeals against Graham Alexander and Paterson denied, the better chances were Burnley’s. That they were not taken left a season on edge.
Those in claret and blue wailed at the misses. First Paterson’s cross found Thompson at the far post for the Scot to nod back across goal, by-passing Kenny, and Gudjonsson to swivel and tap in. Somehow Montgomery, his head turned, deflected that attempt just wide of an upright. Yet if that owed everything to fortune, Kyle Walker’s excellent recovery to choke Robbie Blake’s side-foot from Thompson’s centre was staggering and so timely. When Kyle Naughton repeated the trick to charge down Paterson’s shot on the break, United breathed again.
Yet their outlook was increasingly tinged with rage. Blackwell had been hugely critical of the appointment of Dean in the build-up, a legacy of Kilgallon’s dismissal in the Sheffield derby at Hillsborough last October, though the United manager whipped himself up into another frenzy in his technical area as his team’s penalty appeals continued to fall on deaf ears. Alexander’s first-half trip on Brian Howard was contentious. Christian Kalvenes’ barging of Walker off the ball as the full-back sprinted to the touchline seemed clear-cut.
Both appeals were waved away. The substitute Ward’s dismissal for two deliberate handballs, the second to collect a pass chipped into the area, crystallised the Yorkshire club’s opinion of the referee. Not that Burnley cared. The Premier League awaits.
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