Bamford, his time at Burnley and the clash of classes

The Leeds United striker is enjoying the best season of his career so far, establishing as one of the highest goalscorers in the current edition of the English Premier League, but it hasn’t been a conventional career to the top. And when we talk about Patrick Bamford, we talk about a football player with a background that has become the topic of discussion a lot of times and often in quite an unfairly manner. Today we’re going to remember his torrid time at Burnley and his clash with manager Sean Dyche.

The now-27 year old striker started out as one of Chelsea’s most promising players in their youth system and he would go on loan several times, like it’s the tendency at the Stamford Bridge club. And one of those loan deals would be at Burnley where he would have a clash with manager Sean Dyche not because of poor performances or off-field antics, but rather something that should be less important: his background.

Football by and large is filled with players that come from the working class, but Bamford’s case is quite different as he comes from a wealthy family, studied in private schools and was able to learn several languages and instruments like saxophone, guitar and especially violin. And this kind of life has become the topic every time he signs for a new club, with Burnley being the case where that really became an issue.

Sean Dyche is widely known for preferring hard working players with a lot of commitment and willing to tackle, clash and fight on the pitch. His Burnley is a total representation of old school English football and that starts with the mentality. And the manager thought that Bamford, coming from a background where he had a “silver spoon”, based on what the Leeds striker claimed he said, was not going to make it in football.

Bamford has obviously stated that his background didn’t matter because he had to work as hard as any other player and the reality is that that is the case–no player is chosen because they come from a wealthy family. All teams want to win and all teams want to be successful, so they are going to pick the players that can make that happen, which makes Dyche’s comments and treatment of Bamford all the more baffling.

And even if Dyche’s comments were true, that makes Bamford’s 12 goals and 5 assists in 22 games all the more impressive in this current season. It is true that the former Chelsea striker struggled for a few years, but the fact he managed to overcome that and have the best season of his career in the English Premier League, that goes to show his strength of character, his perseverance and his strong mentality, wealthy family or no wealthy family.

A gentle reminder that every player has his own set of challenges in this sport and they all have to work hard to achieve a certain level of success.