Burnley's Mike Garlick on his decade at the helm, why Dyche was always No.1 and nearly getting kicked out of Ewood Park...

Outside there is already an unmistakable buzz around Turf Moor. It is still two-and-a-half hours until the Clarets kick-off against Crystal Palace, but Premier League matchdays come alive a lot earlier than in the Championship.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Behind the James Hargreaves Stand there are dozens of TV trucks that will beam the thrilling 3-2 victory over the Eagles that lifts Burnley into the top half of the Premier League, around the world.

Garlick will watch the game sat next to England manager Gareth Southgate, there to watch two Clarets players who go on to be named in the Three Lions squad a day later.

A lot has changed since October 2006.

“We’d just sold Ade Akinbiyi to Sheffield United at the time, the fans weren’t happy about that but quite simply the club needed the money to survive,” explains Garlick of his early steps into the boardroom after writing to then chairman Barry Kilby to offer his help.

“I think we were regarded as a survivor in the Championship, trying to keep our head above water.

“People hadn’t given up hope of promotion but it was seen as a very distant prospect.”

A decade later Burnley have won promotion from the Championship three times, completing the full set of play-offs, runners-up and champions last year when they romped to the title.

“At some point someone had to give it a bit of a jolt and we managed too with the extra cash we put in,” said Garlick.

“We got to the Premier League, unexpectedly I guess, and a few unfortunate events that year (2009-10) meant we couldn’t sustain it.

“It was the first part of the journey. We were fortunate financially that when we went down they increased the parachute payments from two years to four, that gave us an extra cushion to try and rebuild again.”

It could have been a very different Burnley though, had a plan that saw Garlick and John Banaszkiewicz jet off to Rome come to fruition.

They went to discuss a deal that would have seen the Clarets link up with a Serie A giant in a partnership agreement that could have resulted in a string of Italian youngsters heading to East Lancashire.

“Before we got the first promotion we were looking at tying up with a foreign club to access good quality players,” said Garlick.

“Me and John, when John was co-chairman, were in Rome with one of the Rome clubs, and the then owner of this particular club was being threatened by the mafia element of the ultras, so we got a police escort through Rome with flashing lights.”

It was a far cry from a few grumbles from the Bob Lord Stand, and as the Clarets soared to that first promotion the plan was shelved.

That negotiation may have come to nothing, but Garlick pulled of what he believes was a major step on the road to a brighter future when Burnley bought Turf Moor back in 2013, seven years after the ground and the Gawthorpe training base had been sold to resolve financial problems caused by the collapse of ITV Digital.

“When I joined we’d sold the ground, we didn’t even own our ground, that was one of my most satisfying moments, negotiating with the then landlord to buy the ground back,” beams Garlick.

“We thought we had an option to buy it back, but due to a legal cock-up we didn’t. He could have held out and never sold us the ground back, but I managed to persuade him to sell it back.

“That was one of the first steps on the road to recovery.”

He added: “You want your own home don’t you? It’s just like buying your own house. If you don’t own it anything you develop is for someone else.”

On the pitch there is an obvious nod to Tom Heaton, signed on a free and now one of the Premier League’s best goalkeepers, as the best value signing, but it is a deal completed under former boss Eddie Howe that Garlick has a particular fondness for.

“Buying Sam Vokes, that was the best signing, for £350,000, from a value perspective,” he said. “Eddie said ‘Mike, he’ll contribute but he won’t score many goals’, look how it’s worked out, he’s done fantastic. Tom Heaton as well, that was a good one.”

In the dugout there is an obvious turning point. Howe was tempted back to Bournemouth just months after Garlick had stepped up to become co-chairman.

The Clarets were drifting in the Championship but, after a thorough interview process Garlick knew they had a man in Sean Dyche who could turn the club around.

All he needed to do now was convince the other members of the board.

“We had a long interview process, we saw about 15 candidates and we whittled it down to two,” he said.

“I had a difficult evening the night before convincing the other directors that there was only one choice, and then I got up in the morning and told them that there was only one person, and thankfully they went with it.

“I had a personal connection (with Dyche) through a guy who I’d done business with who knew him very well.

“He said he couldn’t recommend him for his qualities as a football manager because he knew nothing about football, but he could recommend him as a person in terms of his ethics, integrity, and behaviour.

“I thought that was really important. He’s turned around everything slowly but surely.

“He’s had his tough moments as well, but we stuck with him and we never questioned him. We could see he was trying to do the right things.”

Dyche has set new benchmarks and new landmarks at Turf Moor on a regular basis.

In March 2014, as Burnley closed in on their first promotion under his guidance, he steered his team to a 2-1 win at Ewood Park against Blackburn Rovers, the club’s first victory over their fierce rivals since 1979.

It was a moment that every Claret was going to toast, and the chairman was no different, although he had to wait to raise a glass to the conquerors.

“I remember almost getting kicked out of Ewood Park the day we beat them 2-1,” Garlick laughed.

“We were in the boardroom and they said our celebrations were over exuberant. We noticed they had some champagne and we tried to buy some but they refused, they didn’t want to sell us any champagne.”

Thankfully, there have been plenty of champagne moments for the Clarets in the past decade.