IT begins here. By road and by train, and perhaps even by plane. It’s not the European flyaway destination many Clarets were hoping for, but Thursday’s trip to Aberdeen is the latest peak in a journey that even Michael Palin might have shirked.

Where do we start with this story? Turf Moor, May 9, 1987. Burnley 2 Orient 1 has to be the first chapter. It’s the sliding doors moment to Burnley’s modern history, to all that has come since.

For a football club to go from the brink of ruin, from departing the Football League - perhaps forever - to European football within 32 years is remarkable.

The Clarets were, of course, back in the top flight as soon as 2009, but it’s on October 30, 2012, that the latest and greatest chapter begins.

It was on that day that Sean Dyche was appointed as Burnley manager and it’s the presence of Dyche in the dugout that allows us to think that this European campaign is not yet the pinnacle, given the miracles worked in just under six years. There could yet be more chapters to be written, more storylines to marvel at.

But for now it’s the highlight. At Pittodrie on Thursday, Dyche will become just the second Clarets manager to lead the club into battle on the European stage, following the great Harry Potts in 1960/61 and 1966/67. It’s not bad company to be keeping.

When the teams walk out of the tunnel it will be a pinch yourself moment for Clarets fans, the 2,000 in the ground, all those watching back at the fanzone at Turf Moor and in living rooms and bars across Burnley, East Lancashire and beyond.

Having worked out so hard to end last season as the seventh best team in the country, nobody wants the journey to end here. This squad gave too much to the cause last season to allow this opportunity to drift away.

Make no mistake, Burnley are ready. Aberdeen might have been back in pre-season training nine days longer than the Clarets, but the Dons have had a difficult summer. Derek McInnes has a defensive headache with injuries to key men, with one friendly postponed due to fitness concerns, while another, at Cove Rangers, was abandoned just short of the hour mark due a serious injury to a home player. Aberdeen have also lost top scorer Adam Rooney, who departed for the fifth tier of English football and Salford City.

Not that everything has gone Burnley’s way either, Dyche would have liked new faces in by now, while injuries to Steven Defour, Ashley Barnes and Robbie Brady are a blow, but the first team have got the required minutes in and with them has come match sharpness.

In the two outings last Friday and the 55 minutes at Preston on Monday the Clarets players looked up to speed. There was a crispness to the passing and a confidence to the play.

If all goes well at Pittodrie and back at Turf Moor next week then a trip to Istanbul awaits.

It would be another tough challenge for the Clarets, but they’re yet to shirk one under Dyche, even if he admits holding the third qualifying round draw before the second qualifying round has even begun is unusual.

“I’m learning as I go about this but it is an odd one,” he said,

“It’s one game at a time, that stays the time. I didn’t pay any attention to the draw.

“I’ve got enough people who tell me, it’s not like I sit there having to watch it every time it happens, I’ve got 15 people around the club and another thousand texting going ‘oh look, look who you’ve got’”

On Thursday Burnley have got Aberdeen. It begins here.