Dan Burn towers above FourFourTwo almost exactly a year ago to the day, with a dozen other local journalists huddled around the giant defender at Ramside Hall in Durham.
Burn, fresh from an extra-time defeat to former club Brighton in the FA Cup hours earlier, is suited and booted, ready to collect his ‘North East Football Personality of the Year Award’ at the Football Writers' dinner.
The theme of questions revolves around Anthony Gordon, who was red-carded that afternoon and therefore suspended for the League Cup final, Newcastle’s stuttering form and the quality of Alexander Isak, who Burn described as “the best striker in the world”. No one present felt compelled to ask Burn if he felt he had a chance of being named in Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad in 12 days' time.
England!? Absolutely no chance!’
“I would have said ‘Absolutely no chance’,” admits Burn, eight months on. “I had no idea about it until the day after the West Ham game [nine days after the dinner, and four days before the official announcement], when I got a text off him [Thomas Tuchel].
I think that helped in hindsight, not knowing that the England manager is watching the games. I just went out and did my normal thing.”
Burn had to park his England news to take care of the League Cup final on 16 March, but the day after the historic win, he was being driven to St. Georges’ Park to meet his new international team-mates.
Five days after scoring at Wembley he was back inside the same stadium to make his Three Lions debut. “I wasn't even nervous getting to any of the England games. To everybody else it's a big thing, but to me, I've just played the biggest game of my life. So, England is a bonus. I was never expecting this, so I was just enjoying it.
“It was strange anyway, being in and around that setup when you've wanted to do it your full career. I always thought that I could do it and had the ability to do it, I think there's players been in there that I could have played ahead of, but when you get to 32, you’re like ‘I probably don’t stand much of a chance here, do I?’”
Burn now has a real chance, having been selected in all five of Thomas Tuchel’s squads, with only one to go until the German decides who he will take to the 2026 World Cup. But Burn knows more than most how quickly things can change in football.
Injury to Lewis Hall at the start of the season saw him fill in, not for the first time, at left-back for Newcastle. But he and Eddie Howe knew that wasn't sustainable long term, and that Burn’s best position is centre-back, where the return to fitness and form of Sven Botman threatens to limit minutes.
A loss of form could end Burn’s World Cup dream; he knows it. “I've very, very rarely let the team down at centre half, so I'm confident in my ability and confident in my place in the team, it's just about doing what I can do. If it comes to a time when that's happening [being left out], then it's something that I'll have to deal with and probably have a conversation with people about.”
His friends and family are yet to make arrangements to be at the World Cup, but if Burn makes the plane, he wants his wife and two young children to be there for the duration. “At this point, you've got to try and manifest it a little bit. I think you've got to have that in your head that that's what I'm aiming for and working towards.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I'm never, ever going to do this again. I'm not like Miles [Lewis-skelly], who's 18 and probably going to play at four or five World Cups; it's either I play at this one, or I never play a World Cup again.”
It’s been an incredible fairytale story up to this point, and if he's part of the England team who end 50 years of hurt, Hollywood could be the next big text message that changes his life.
