MICHAEL Duff has described the difference between the Burnley he joined 12 years ago and the one he retired as a player from this summer as ‘night and day’.

When Duff joined the Clarets in 2004 they had finished 19th in the Championship the previous season and in his first four campaigns at Turf Moor they recorded finishes of 13th, 17th, 15th and 13th.

But he hangs up his boots and starts a coaching role with the club heading for a third Premier League campaign since 2009/10 and without a penny of debt. It’s a far cry from the situation Duff walked into when he made the jump from the fourth tier with Cheltenham Town, his only previous club, as Burnley looked simply to survive in the Championship.

“It’s night and day,” Duff said of the contrast between the club when he arrived and now under manager Sean Dyche.

“You talk about extreme cases, it’s only Bournemouth that are any different. I think we had eight players, favourites for relegation, just survived the year before, conceded 400million goals the year before I came and I think the brief was just stay in the division. We’ve grown and grown steadily.

“Even going up and bouncing, first time we went up we bought back the training ground and debts were paid. The last promotion, the training ground’s been built and this one…we’re in a really strong position now, probably the best opportunity to stay in the league now and we’ve kept the manager, so far.”

Duff completed the hat-trick of promotions since his £30,000 from Cheltenham on the final day of last season, coming off the bench at Charlton for a final farewell as the Clarets clinched the Championship title.

He featured 27 times in the league during the play-off success in 2008/09, and was a regular when Burnley finished second in 2013/14.

The 38-year-old is the first Burnley player to win three promotions to the top flight, a feat that looked unlikely when he joined the club.

“I don’t think anybody would’ve believed that Burnley would be promoted at all,” he said.

“We were looking at one league and that was the one below, trying to stay out of it. That was everybody’s mindset at the time.

“I think at the day out at Wembley everybody thought it was a flash in the pan. The whole town turned at Wembley. They’ll talk about that for years but they would’ve talked about it for another 100 years because everybody thought that it was a free hit, we’d get relegated, it was expected and we’d be back down there again. But to come back again and again is unbelievable.

“I’m finishing on a high note with play-offs, second and first. It’s not a bad little trio.”