MICHAEL Duff thought he had come to terms with his decision to end a 20-year playing career that had taken in over 700 games in England’s top eight divisions, but the emotion of calling it a day came flooding out the night before Burnley won the league at Charlton.

The 38-year-old had made his mind up to finally call it a day, eager to pursue a coaching career at Turf Moor instead, but as he sat in the Friday night meeting at the team hotel in London the enormity of what was ending was about to catch up with him.

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His 12-year career at Burnley, featuring in 383 games, has seen him end 13th on the club’s all-time appearances list and become the first man to win three promotions to the top flight with the Clarets.

It’s been an incredible career and his teammates were keen to mark it before going on to win the title the next day, in a game that saw Duff come on for the final five minutes, his perfect farewell appearance.

“I’ve known for a long time but on the Friday before the Charlton game we did a pre-match presentation,” explains Duff.

“The gaffer said, ‘We all know Duffo’s retiring’ and the analyst had clipped together five-or-six minutes of footage of my career, not just of Burnley, of Cheltenham and Northern Ireland as well.

“I was sat next to Scotty Arfield and he said, ‘you’re going to go here’.

“I was fine and at the end they presented me with a Rolex watch and I started talking and all of a sudden, I don’t know where it came from, that was almost the moment, it’s happening, I am retiring.

“I was fine after that and then 12 of the lads came up to me and they’d gone as well. It was a surreal moment.

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“Coming on for the last five minutes and knowing it was the last five minutes it was nice but there wasn’t any regret or emotion that I’d had the night before.”

Getting that final appearance at Charlton as Burnley waltzed their way to the title was another memorable moment for Duff.

“When I was named on the bench the gaffer said, ‘If it goes well, hopefully’,” he said. People were talking to me before asking about the last home game. Absolutely not because there’s too much at stake for sentiment.

“Three-nil up, it was nice to play the last five minutes, it was a nice touch but I wasn’t expecting it. Even Tom running up from the goal to the halfway line to give me the armband, didn’t know that was happening. There were a lot of nice touches, a Rolex watch, not a bad leaving present!”

Duff was still a regular in the Burnley side in the first half of this season, starting the first 23 league games before making way to accommodate Ben Mee’s move from left-back to the centre of defence.

With James Tarkowski also signing in January it increased competition for places and Duff didn’t feature again until that joyous day at The Valley.

He admits that making the decision to hang those boots up was tough, but he also knew this was where he wanted to take his first steps into coaching.

“I had quite a few conversations with the gaffer since I came out of the team,” said Duff.

“He knows it’s been something I wanted to do, wanted to get into. Ultimately I had a decision to make. He said he wanted to keep me at the club but it had to be in a coaching capacity.

“I’ve had the same decision to make in the last couple of years but I’ve decided to play on and he was fine with that. The playing option got taken away, he said he wanted me about and I just think, I’ve got to 38-and-a-half, another year, two years, where ultimately it’s not a bad place to be at the minute.

“There’s the new training ground being built, we’re in the Premier League and the manager’s one of the best young managers in the country. It ticked all the boxes. I suppose there was a little bit of infighting with myself because I know I could play on physically.

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“I spoke to a lot of people because you always hear the old adage ‘play as you long as you can’. But that’s normally aimed at 32, 33 year-olds, not 38-year-olds.

“They said, ‘do what I’m doing’. You might not enjoy going somewhere else where it’s a totally different environment for one more year.

“I’ve been planning for this moment since I’ve been 29/30, since I did that knee injury. It’s been planned and I think it’s the right time.”

It’s been a Burnley career of many highs and a few lows for Duff, but one of the highlights was an unforgettable Turf Moor night that ended in heartbreak, as Burnley went out of the League Cup at the semi-final stage to Tottenham after clawing back a three-goal deficit, and had away goals been in play after 90 minutes they would have gone through.

“You’re talking about highs and lows within seconds,” he said. “To come back against a Premier League team but then go out to the most bizarre away goals ruling, which is still in play, was a tough one to swallow. It was an unbelievable night though. It was great.”

Duff’s three promotions also stand out, although under Owen Coyle and Sean Dyche they were achieved in very different ways.

“The first promotion the dressing room was unbelievable,” he said. “Coyley got the best out of that dressing room because we weren’t the best group of players.

“We had some good characters back then with people like Blakey, Stevie Jordan, Stevie Caldwell. It was a unique group. We were the most unprofessional group of footballers you’ve ever seen. Somehow – by hook or by crook – we produced. We used to eat donuts on a Friday and drink cans of coke but whatever the formula was for that it worked.

“Compare that to this squad now. It’s the most professional squad that I’ve ever worked with. You talk about drive, desire and professionalism. It’s got everything. We’ve got a good core of lads.

“The gaffer spends a lot of time in his recruitment because the personality needs to fit. It doesn’t matter how good you are because the manager or the lads won’t have you in the team if you’re not prepared to do all the dirty work which all the other lads are.

“I can’t see many players coming in who’ll just do what they want and rely on the other 10 to do it. The way the whole ethos is, the togetherness as a team, we work hard.”

It’s an ethos that Duff will now seek to impart on the club’s stars of tomorrow.