In a team packed with big characters, Big Dan Burn is the bee’s knees | OneFootball

We live in extraordinary times, as the phenomenal Newcastle United victory parade and Town Moor trophy celebrations proved on Saturday.

Residing in West Sussex and playing host to family for the weekend, I couldn’t be there in person.

Technology came to the rescue, with a bit of help from daughter No2, who found the club’s official YouTube feed on my smart television set.

Yes, there was a bit of buffering, blurring, loss of sound and the occasional frozen screen but nothing could diminish my happiness.

If there’s a Feeling Good Division, Newcastle United have been top of the league since March 16. Long may that continue.

These extraordinary times seem to have increased the amount of traffic on my smartphone. Smart TV? Smartphone? Not bad for a dumb old fool who struggles with even basic technology.

On Sunday morning I responded to a “You have a message on Facebook” and stumbled across assorted reels. There were clips of interviews with Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United players by Tyne Tees TV, the BBC, Sky Sports News and the club’s official channel, as well as lots of little videos from individual fans who are clearly comfortable with mini-cams, thank goodness.

So much pure, unadulterated fun. Remarkable footage that should reverberate around the world. In some ways unbelievable, though anyone who recalls the “welcome home” crowds when United lost finals in the Seventies and Nineties would not have been surprised.

Amid the scenes of packed streets, deafening noise and smiling faces, one video stood out more than most. It was apparently posted soon after the final at Wembley. It was filmed in United’s dressing room before kick-off. It was not loud. It was not rabble-rousing. It was simply brilliant.

Now I have to find it again on my phone, so every word can be faithfully reproduced. This might take some time . . .

Big Dan Burn was saying his piece to the other players, hoping to inspire them before one of the biggest matches of their careers.

What a leader! What a speech! No politician, no orator could have done a better job. The boy from Blyth certainly has a way with words.

Except I have fallen into a common trap always likely to confuse the unwary when delving into the worldwide web.

First, the clip was two seasons old, filmed for an Amazon Prime series before United were beaten by the club formerly known as Newton Heath. Beaten but by no means outclassed, unlike the scenario on March 16 this year when Liverpool were also-rans by a country mile.

Second, the words were originally uttered more than 100 years ago by a United States president in Paris rather than by a current presidential United player in northwest London.

Take a bow, Theodore Roosevelt, whose other claims to fame include lending his name to the toy bear every little boy and girl calls Teddy.

The famous passage from Citizenship in a Republic is known as The Man in the Arena. It fitted the occasion. Though perhaps more in 2025 than in 2023.

Burn recited part of it, stating that the critics cannot influence events. Only the men in the arena can. He bookended the speech with the phrase: “I truly believe we will win.”

Here is the excerpt now used widely as a motivational tool:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

What nobody can dispute is that BDB deserves massive credit since signing up for Eddie Howe’s rescue mission on the last day of January, 2022.

He has now made more appearances for his home-town club than for any other in a professional career that started with Darlington and included spells at Fulham, Yeovil, Birmingham, Wigan and Brighton.

To say his debut was no dream would be an understatement: beaten 5-0 at Torquay on December 12, 2009. The coach trip back to Darlo from Devon must have been a barrel of laughs…

Three more matches, all at home, ended in three more defeats that season as Darlington fell out of the Football League. Dan Burn made 10 appearances for Darlington in the fifth tier in 2010-11, enjoying a handful of wins, but that was a bit of a false dawn.

He joined Fulham in July 2011. Before playing for the Cottagers, however, he spent a season on loan with Yeovil, scoring their second goal in a 2-1 Wembley win that earned the Somerset club promotion to the second tier. He also had five months on loan with Birmingham in the Championship.

A belated Premier League debut followed for Fulham in January 2014 but that season ended in relegation. One step forward, two steps back for Big Dan.

Aged 24 and out of contract, he was signed by Wigan in June 2016. Two seasons with the Latics brought 97 appearances, seven goals and another relegation. One with Darlington, one with Fulham and one with Wigan.

The Blyth Colossus was clearly doing something right, because in August 2018 he joined Brighton for an undisclosed fee. After four seasons away, he was back with a Premier League outfit, though before his second shot at the big time he spent another five months on loan at Wigan. Has there ever been a more unpredictable route to an England cap than this?

He made his Premier League bow for the Seagulls in August 2019, the first of 34 league appearances in that Covid-disrupted season. Another 32 games followed in 2020-21, then his final 16 for Brighton in 2021-22 before the Magpies swooped. The £13m we paid in January 2022 was widely questioned, even mocked in some quarters.

Who’s laughing now? He was a vital cog in the mean machine that pulled away from what had seemed certain relegation. United gleaned 31 points from the 16 games Burn played in his first half-season.

What followed was our most successful domestic campaign in a generation: a fourth-place finish and a League Cup final. Big Dan made 44 appearances at left-back or centre-half and scored his first two United goals. The second of those was, almost inevitably, against Brighton in a 4-1 victory that essentially secured our place in the Champions League.

Last season had fewer highlights for a squad stretched beyond breaking point by injury, suspension and spending restrictions. It was, in short, a struggle, a fight, with nobody fighting harder than Burn to defy the odds. The ups and downs of a footballer’s lot were epitomised by his goal against PSG on October 4 and his forced replacement exactly a month later. Injured by Kai Havertz making a dangerous aerial challenge (not the first time those two have clashed) our towering defender returned to action against Milan in mid-December when he clearly needed more time to recuperate.

Despite that injury, reported to be three fractures near the base of his spine, Burn clocked up 43 appearances in the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup and the League Cup. There was no Wembley final, no qualification for a Uefa competition, just a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. No man could have given more for the cause than Big Dan.

This is what Eddie Howe told the media on November 6, 2023, when he predicted Burn would be missing for two months:

“It’s a huge blow. He’s been gigantic for us since he signed, for lots of different reasons as I have continually said. His character, his determination to win, his experience and his versatility.”

All those qualities were there in abundance for everyone to appreciate on March 16.

The latest Freeman of Northumberland has travelled a long and winding road since he was released as a lad by Newcastle United.

The boy from Blyth was deemed not good enough. He will turn 33 on May 9 but only a fool would expect this season to be his last at St James’ Park. In all likelihood, he will play more games in 2024-25 than in any previous campaign.

The closing words should be his, from an interview he gave days before United won the League Cup final: