Long before Burnley’s charge to the Championship title brought a century of points and perhaps even more plaudits, Alan Pace experienced a different kind of charge. It was a more unwelcome sight. Some 15 months ago, before the game against Newcastle that decided their destiny, the Burnley chairman declared they would remain in the Premier League “for a long time.” A couple of hours later, they were relegated.
Cue the rancour. “To have people come up to the directors’ box on their way out and almost charge at the directors’ box, and yell and scream and tell you to eff off and go die, I don’t think people are really ready for that,” Pace reflected. “I know I wasn’t. And then walking down the street and people are waving with one of their five fingers and yelling stuff. The hardest part was being with family when people were telling us to go home: this is home.” It is safer for him to show his face in public now. “It is way, way better when things are going well. People are very respectful and kind.”
Pace can look back smilingly. Burnley’s swift return to the top flight can seem a redemption story for him and a tale of the remarkable reinvention of a traditional club whose identity seemed set in the stone houses that surround Turf Moor. It was the club of 4-4-2, of Sean Dyche and his band of unglamorous, and overwhelmingly British, senior professionals, of rain descending from the Pennines and a microclimate that made it a still less welcoming destination for visitors. And, with the notable exception of the weather, that has changed at an astonishing, well, pace.
Dyche, who Pace once said had a job for life, was sacked in April 2022. Vincent Kompany has proved an inspired appointment. His charisma is a reason why Burnley have been selected to open the Premier League season, in a reunion with his former club Manchester City. “The No 1 decision-maker, the No 1 salesman,” Pace calls Kompany in the new Sky documentary Mission to Burnley. The No 1 buyer, too: he made 16 signings in his first transfer window, transforming a style of play in the process and making Burnley the purists’ choice. “Turnover is really dangerous in this business,” Kompany reflected. “It makes or breaks you.” It made him. “When you go into Burnley and almost half the squad, if not more, are leaving it creates a lot of empty spots but also creates the opportunity to make change happen faster.”
The necessity of turning Burnley back into a Premier League club is a theme. The leveraged buyout by Pace and his partners in ALK Capital meant they had £65m to repay after relegation. The chief financial officer, Morgan Edwards, described last season as “a bet on coming back up”. Kompany downplayed that. “The club wouldn’t collapse if we didn’t get promoted,” he said. But Pace seems to admit they overspent last season. Kompany argued his January buys were a way of avoiding the Premier League tax on signings. “It is a big boys’ table, let’s be clever and do it before,” he rationalises.
Pace and Kompany – long known to everyone at City as “Vinnie” but who the American invariably refers to as “Vince” – may seem an odd couple but theirs has been a successful partnership and could be an enduring one: the Belgian’s exploits last season attracted the attention of the national team he used to captain, then Chelsea and Tottenham, but he signed a contract extension to stay at Turf Moor.
Kompany is the visionary, the man with plans both financial and footballing: he conducts psychological studies of prospective signings and tells the board the only way to make money in the Championship is to develop young players. He says it will take 120 training sessions and 100 meetings for the players to fully understand his methods; after an early-season spate of draws, they go on a winning run. Players get better under his tutelage, with the prospect of more improvement to come. “I believe that we have players in the squad right now who one day will be the next Jack Grealish,” he says.
Vincent Kompany led Burnley back into the top flight at the first time of asking— (Mission to Burnley - Sky Sports)
Pace is part businessman, part dreamer. His explanation of his motives owes less to the world of leveraged buyouts he experienced on Wall Street and more to memories of his late father. “He lived here when he was 19 as a missionary for our church,” he said. His father became an evangelist for England’s north-west, the reason that, taking their culinary inspiration from the other side of the Pennines, they had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Sunday dinners. Pace has found it “fantastic” to meet people in England who remembered his father as a teenager.
The reference to his religion is no coincidence. Pace dealt with the backlash to his initial missteps, when a well-run Premier League club ended up relegated and in debt, when a host of long-serving and well-respected staff were culled in a clearout, by going to church. One of Burnley’s most famous fans, New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, once told his more devout employer, prime minister Tony Blair, “We don’t do God”. Pace does God. A member of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, the Mormon says he would be lost without his ability to go to worship. His daughter, Ashlynn, suggests even demotion was part of God’s idea for Burnley. “Being able to get his take on things is like a superpower,” she says. “From a faith perspective, I would say God has a plan. Even if we couldn’t see it when Burnley was getting relegated and Sean Dyche was being let go, we had to have faith that something greater was coming.”
That something greater may have been Kompany. Pace was supposed to catch the train back from their first meeting when trying to find a successor to Dyche. Blown away by the “dynamic, creative, thoughtful” Belgian, he missed four trains. There is a cameo in the documentary for another big name he lured, the Hall of Fame-bound NFL player JJ Watt, who became an investor. A few weeks later, the former Houston Texan presented Burnley with the Championship trophy, the sort of honour that might have been reserved for a great from the club’s past.
Watt feels part of an attempt to rebrand Burnley. Pace presents himself as a reluctant participant in the documentary, pointing out Burnley had rejected several other offers. He once planned to make Burnley, in his words, everyone’s second favourite club; their style of play in the Kompany era has brought more admirers. Off the pitch, they have generated more exposure – social-media videos to announce new signings can go viral – though whether that has translated to more supporters or extra revenue is not yet clear. Thus far, Wrexham seem to have captured more hearts and minds among those looking for an outsider to support.
Vincent Kompany delivered the Championship title in his first season at Burnley— (PA Wire)
There are times when it feels Kompany seems to have a firmer grasp than Pace of the ethos that long underpinned Burnley, of its history and community, and how to ally that with his ideas. “The core of the club is still there,” he said. “I think you get a long way in Burnley and in this part of the north-west by working hard and being honest. I feel I’m just trying to continue what was already a great time under the previous manager, Sean Dyche.”
But in a very different way, in a manner that has generated intrigue, questions if Kompany is bound for managerial greatness and the sense Burnley has come to stand for something more enterprising and exciting. “Hope is a big, big thing in life,” said Kompany.
Pace concurs. Rewind 15 months and his legacy could look disastrous. Now it can feel far more positive. “I hope that what we do stands out to people as being something special, and something that is always reflected upon as being more happy than sad, and more joy than sorrow,” he said. The abuse has been replaced by acclaim, some of it from his former detractors. “A number of those same people have come up to us and apologised, which I would never have expected or asked for,” he said. “That has been amazing.” Back in the Premier League, Burnley have come full circle but Kompany and Pace’s mission remains incomplete.
‘Mission to Burnley’ launches at 10pm on August 10th on Sky Documentaries and Now as a boxset and weekly episodes
