Don't want clarets getting too down or emotional about this news, but Dale Stephens has just announced his retirement

Does he still have any boots to hang up? I doubt that he's needed to buy any new ones since leaving Brighton in 2020.

He’s retired two years after he finished playing?

No takers then ?

Farewell to a Turf Moor icon. You’ll always be a claret, Dale.

One of Sean's mistakes.Dale was signed 5yrs past his best

Boss Hogg wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:17 pm

No takers then ?

Hes obviously been looking since his well publicised shock, that he heard third hand he was not getting a new contract at BFC. So 10 months later he has arrived at this decision

Woodleyclaret wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:20 pm

One of Sean's mistakes.Dale was signed 5yrs past his best

Was he a Dyche signing?

He wanted him years before (when he would have been a damn good signing) but I thought the view was that he was a Garlick signing during that really poor window.

Good for dressing room morale apparently.

Surprised Remco could not find him a club

Free now to concentrate on his real passion - women's hairdressing.

I haven't got a clue how Chester does the behind the pay wall links so i have copied and pasted the article from the Athletic -

Dale Stephens has felt the cold reality of being a footballer without a club.

Released by Burnley last summer, the midfielder has decided to retire at the age of 33.

A major factor has been the difficulties he’s faced as an out-of-contract player — football’s version of the scrapheap — relying on favours from former managers and training alone on a cricket pitch close to his home near Manchester.

It’s been a soul-searching experience for Stephens. He has decided to end a 16-year playing career that culminated with six seasons in the Premier League at Brighton & Hove Albion and Burnley, in order to pursue a move into coaching.

“There’s probably not enough being made of players who are out of contract, because there’s not really a facility that players can go to,” Stephens says in an exclusive interview with The Athletic.

The Englishman had no inkling of hard how it would be after he was limited to ten Premier League appearances over the course of a two-year contract with Burnley under Sean Dyche, which ended in June.

It left him without security and the benefits of a club’s facilities, including medical care to manage a long-standing ankle injury from his time at Brighton which has also contributed to his retirement decision.

He stepped into unchartered territory, having risen through the divisions with Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Southampton, Charlton Athletic and Brighton to the top tier.

“I think I had one day after we got promoted (at Brighton) where the season had finished, but I was obviously still under contract,” Stephens says.

“That’s as much of being in the unknown that I’d felt. When I left Burnley, I thought I would get the pick of a group of Championship clubs. I’d played in the Premier League for the last five years, but I understood I hadn’t played much for two.

“I thought people would see the reasons behind it and that I’d get the opportunity to play at a club that wants to try to get promoted.”

Starved of minutes at Burnley, Stephens was motivated by the possibility of bowing out on a high note, rather than the size of the pay packet.

He was close to a move to Middlesbrough in the summer. Watford and West Bromwich Albion also showed interest, but nothing materialised.

He spent three weeks of pre-season back at Brighton, training under Graham Potter, the last of the four head coaches he played under during his time at the club.

Another previous connection yielded six weeks of training at Stockport under Dave Challinor, his former captain at Bury. Other than that, it was the grind of working in isolation.

“The mainstay was training on my own, on an old cricket pitch, just around the corner from where I live,” Stephens says.

“I know the training schedule, the numbers you should be hitting, so I was doing that week by week if I wasn’t training at Stockport or at Brighton pre-season.

“I did the same programme as I would if I was training (at a club). On a Monday it would be running, covering 6km, on a Tuesday it would be a more intensive work day, a Wednesday off like you’d normally have and then train Thursday, Friday and Saturday if possible.

“It’s tough. Two months was all right, six or seven months it’s difficult. To get the numbers in terms of being ready to go into a football club as an out-of-contract player, you need to be ready to play.

“The longer that period went on, the harder and more risky it became for a club.

“I had issues in terms of training to try to get into a club. My ankle would react, I pulled my calf, because the training loads differ, the pitches are changing. All this took its toll over a four-month period.

“Trying to see people in terms of physios when you are out of contract, strength and conditioning people, that’s a challenge.

“It’s a difficult one. I speak to players now who are out of contract and the best thing is to try to affiliate yourself with a football club, but it’s not always possible.”

Stephens isn’t quite hanging up his boots for good. He’s found comfort in recent months in a WhatsApp group of non-contracted players that meet every Tuesday on an AstroTurf pitch in Cheadle, a 30-minute drive south of Manchester, for a game of nine-a-side.

Stephens was introduced to the sessions by former Burnley team-mate Phil Bardsley, who has returned from injury to play for Stockport County in League Two.

“It itches that scratch of playing football, plugs a hole for a few players,” he says.

Playing regularly had been a familiar experience until the move to Burnley in September 2020.
He’d made at least 25 league appearances across eight out of nine seasons with Brighton and Charlton in the top three tiers.

Returning to his roots in the north-west of England to join a club that competed in the Europa League in 2018-19 via a seventh-placed finish in the Premier League, seemed a sensible choice. Dyche had attempted to sign him from Brighton in 2016 and 2017. So, what went wrong?

“Everything,” Stephens says. “I was excited about going. I had a year left at Brighton. My children, my partner, are from Brighton. My decision was purely football. We had a really good player coming through, Yves Bissouma.

“I had an honest conversation with Graham. I’d been a mainstay of the midfield for a long time. He told me I probably wouldn’t start the season. It hurt my ego and I let that get the better of me.

“I should have taken that better, that was my first mistake. The driver to move to Burnley was to extend my Premier League career, play as many games as possible.

“I was going to a club that had wanted me twice before. When I finally went, I didn’t speak to him (Dyche) prior to going. I only thought about it afterwards.

“It wasn’t a normal way of signing. It happened quickly and they had a game in the evening.”

Stephens struggled to adapt from the style of playing out from the back which Potter introduced at Brighton to the more traditional methods used by Dyche.

“I was almost institutionalised to the way they (Brighton) did things,” Stephens says. “When I walked through the door at Burnley, it was completely different.

“I’m not saying it was any worse or any better, just very different. It was very much about survival in everything they did. Nothing really changed in terms of training, trying anything new.”

The prospect of Stephens working his way into Dyche’s plans was affected by seven months out as a result of surgery in the summer of 2021 on the ankle he first injured at Brighton seven years earlier.

To make matters worse, he was banned from driving for 12 months in April last year for drink-driving.

“I’d gone out to dinner,” Stephens says. “It was a Monday. A complete lapse in judgment. I had a couple of glasses of wine, tried to drive home, which I wouldn’t advocate to anybody.

“It was out of character, but I felt as if I was out of character. It was how I dealt with it, rebelled from not playing after being used to that for 14 years.

“That period was tough. Not playing, not having a connection with team-mates, the manager, coaching staff. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I felt like I had no purpose.”

It wasn’t all bad. Stephens used the period when he was out injured to watch games from the perspective of a coach, a route he first became interested in pursuing under Potter at Brighton.

“Since working with Graham and having conversations in his office about how tactically he saw games going, I took that with me,” he says.

“I sat in my crutches (at Burnley), watched the opposition manager and Sean and the way we were doing things, to take something out of a bad situation. I did that even when I got back fit.

“I was trying to see how (Mikel) Arteta was different. Why was he screaming at people during a passage of play? That became my motivation.

“I listened to the manager’s meetings (with the players). He’s got a real aura about him. If I didn’t always agree with his message, the way he delivered it is something I learnt from.”

Stephens will take those experiences with him as he strives to become a fully qualified coach, beginning in May on one of UEFA’s B licence courses.

The ending at Burnley won’t taint what has otherwise been a progressively satisfying playing career. He made 414 appearances for seven clubs in all four divisions of English football, won the League One title with Charlton and helped Brighton under Chris Hughton to promotion back to the top flight after a wait of 34 years.

It’s been an eventful journey since leaving Manchester City at the age of 12 and looking for an apprenticeship in the building trade until his Sunday League manager fixed up a trial with Bury, which led to a debut in League Two at 17.

“That’s why I can retire a happy man,” Stephens says. “That’s where I’ve come from and I’m quite happy to finish how I’ve finished. I’m proud of what I achieved.”

DCWat wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:24 pm

Was he a Dyche signing?

He wanted him years before (when he would have been a damn good signing) but I thought the view was that he was a Garlick signing during that really poor window.

All the poor signings are accredited to Mike Garlick

boatshed bill wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:53 pm

All the poor signings are accredited to Mike Garlick

Dale went to hang up his boots and missed. That would sum up his career at Burnley.

Good luck to him. I find it curious and quite sad that a player who seemingly didn’t do anything wrong is treated with contempt and derision by some of our fans. Yet someone like Bobby Thomas, to use a completely random example would no doubt get much warmer wishes.

Bobby Thomas would also have an excellent career in Ladies hairdressing should he later chose that path.

In the absence of Beamish

Shows how bad our recruitment was, 2 of our last signings under Dyche have recently retired mid season because no other club would take them.

Interesting interview. Two things that stand out to me are his comment about not speaking to the manager before signing, and the other about his 'not always agreeing with the message'. On the signing, it was a shambles of a window and the fact we couldn't even show him the courtesy of arranging a five minute conversation between him and Dyche is indicative of how bad we were at that point in our recruitment practices. On his comment about not always agreeing with the message, I find that quite revealing about his mindset. There's an undercurrent of entitlement (only very slight) in that interview. If you contrast the way he expresses his views on (and therefore thinks about) our tactics at the time, to say, Defour, you get two very different mentalities. By his own admission Defour took a bit of time to adjust to our style, but he said in an interview that when it clicked for him he was all-in on our approach. Total enthusiasm. He 'got it'. No hint of disagreement, just total commitment to the way we played. A few things went badly for Stephens in the early days, but aside from his injury issues which can't be helped, he probably could have achieved more with us with a better mental approach. For example, he admits his drink driving moment was a mishandling of a bad situation. Like, yeah, no $hit Sherlock. You could've killed someone. It's like saying, 'the world is pushing against me so I'll push back'. That kind of mentality is one of someone who isn't completely committed to helping themselves.

A good career overall but a disastrous last couple of years, a very poor signing for him and us. Neither party did their homework!

We all did our homework, it was just turned in a few years too late!!!

karatekid wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:17 pm

He’s retired two years after he finished playing?

Some may say he retired two years before he finished playing

Wrong signing for us at the wrong time, but he had a decent career tbf. Much better than certain players who have been blessed with much more natural ability.

A bit worse than signing Brian Stock.

Good player in his prime, however by the time he arrived at Burnley he was clearly past his best and increasingly injury prone.

One that didn't work out and even at the time it seemed a bizarre signing.

tiger76 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 9:33 pm

Good player in his prime, however by the time he arrived at Burnley he was clearly past his best and increasingly injury prone.

One that didn't work out and even at the time it seemed a bizarre signing.

You didn't say it was bizarre at the time

taio wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 9:42 pm

You didn't say it was bizarre at the time

Well I don't recall raving about him, and if he was brought in as experienced cover that ship soon sailed.

CM is an area where our recruitment hasn't been great, Danny Drinkwater being another prime example.

Yes one was a relatively cheap signing, well the other was only on loan thankfully, however we must have forked out a good wedge in wages for virtually no return.

AGAIN…!


I’ll get me coat…

tiger76 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 9:55 pm

Well I don't recall raving about him, and if he was brought in as experienced cover that ship soon sailed.

CM is an area where our recruitment hasn't been great, Danny Drinkwater being another prime example.

Yes one was a relatively cheap signing, well the other was only on loan thankfully, however we must have forked out a good wedge in wages for virtually no return.

Nothing wrong with suggesting he'd be a decent signing back then, but just wondering why you'd now suggest you knew it was bizarre at the time when thats not what you were saying:

tiger76 wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:34 pm

Stephens for that money would be a decent short term signing, we need players for the here and now, and if it's only a 2 year contract, he won't be a millstone round our neck, should we get relegated, and crucially we need a CM, Cork might not be seen this side of Xmas, and relying on Brownhill & Westy to play every game is asking a lot of them.

The club can't win with some of you, they bring in a smattering of youth players, and people moan they're not ready for the 1st team, then we're linked with a experienced PL midfielder who knows what's required at this level, and people still moan, who exactly do folks expect us to be signing?

equinox wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:17 pm

Bobby Thomas would also have an excellent career in Ladies hairdressing should he later chose that path.

Is it just me that's getting your hairdresser name vibe?

Disaster of a signing. Was obvious before we signed him that he would be.

Whoever was responsible for that last transfer window or two under the old regimes was responsible for the mess we started this season in. Fortunately we got the right man in as manager and a forward thinking chairman before him.

equinox wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:42 pm

Free now to concentrate on his real passion - women's hairdressing.

He was once on homes under the hammer, so might be into property development

I get the mockery and a bit of resentment as Burnley fans. He offered virtually nothing, didn't handle the situation well and there's no excuse whatsoever for the drink driving.

But it's also yet another slightly sad story of a player apparently struggling to cope with the end of their career. I know, he's earned loads of money, lived the dream etc. Still sounds like a very tricky time for the majority of ex-pros. His transfer to Burnley also sounds bizarre, not even speaking to Dyche. Genuinely appears to be a transfer nobody really wanted to happen.

taio wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 10:08 pm

Nothing wrong with suggesting he'd be a decent signing back then, but just wondering why you'd now suggest you knew it was bizarre at the time when thats not what you were saying:

Well it was certainly bizarre in the sense that it seemingly came completely out of the blue.

And he did tick a couple of boxes. PL experience and a modest fee, plus it was clear to all and sundry that we needed competition in CM.

And it appeared it was sign Dale Stephens or sign nobody given Garlick was tightening the purse strings.

Sadly it soon became clear that the Dale Stephens we'd signed was a shadow of his former self.

And the fact he was our only major signing in that window highlights just how poor our recruitment was.

A reminder on how far we have come in our networking, scouting and recruitment. Perhaps more significantly in the synergy between present day manager and chairman. I suspect once we paid Brighton another million for staying up (part of the deal) that he cost us more than the likes of Zarroury or Benson, and no doubt their wages are lower than those of DS. The fact he thought he was getting a new contract (if you can believe that), then as a PL footballer being caught for drink driving says a lot about him to me

I found this part a bit surprising (and probably part of the reason he didn't get a new club):

When I left Burnley, I thought I would get the pick of a group of Championship clubs

Woodleyclaret wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:20 pm

One of Sean's mistakes.Dale was signed 5yrs past his best

Chairman Garlick, methinks.

NottsClaret wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:55 am

... He offered virtually nothing, didn't handle the situation well and there's no excuse whatsoever for the drink driving.

gone out to dinner...had a couple of glasses of wine, tried to drive home and scored 59 on the intoximeter, which suggests they were very large wine glasses

chipbutty wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 11:02 pm

Is it just me that's getting your hairdresser name vibe?

Looks like it.

Sam Vokes, for example, wouldn't be interested in women's hairdressing, Charlie Taylor might?

Can't believe the grief Dale Stephens is getting it should be aimed at those that signed him which was a few years late unfortunately.

Clive 1960 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:07 pm

Can't believe the grief Dale Stephens is getting it should be aimed at those that signed him which was a few years late unfortunately.

Where is this 'grief' he's getting that is so bad you can't believe it?

Your post actually has two swipes at him!

He hung his boots up the day he signed for us,one of the poorest signings our club has ever made...and we have name some shockers.

IanMcL wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:08 am

Chairman Garlick, methinks.

Sean Dyche chased (if that's the right word) Stephens for years.

Woodleyclaret wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:20 pm

One of Sean's mistakes.Dale was signed 5yrs past his best

Not sure it was Sean who signed him, it was 2016 & 2017 when Dyche wanted him.

Clive 1960 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:07 pm

Can't believe the grief Dale Stephens is getting it should be aimed at those that signed him which was a few years late unfortunately.

Popularity or the opposite , comes with the territory or profession, particularly as a PL professional footballer. DS did very little to endear himself to the fans when he got the opportunity and he was here for two seasons, at a time when we had a ridiculously small squad. On top of that he got caught for drinking and driving.I am not surprised at the comments made on this post directed at him

boatshed bill wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:53 pm

All the poor signings are accredited to Mike Garlick

We’ll read that and it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t signed by Dyche

boatshed bill wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 4:36 pm

Sean Dyche chased (if that's the right word) Stephens for years.

But wrote him off and then Garlick decided he was cheap enough and did appear on past lists if wanted players!

I love how under both Garlick and Pace, Dyche made the ‘good’ signings and the owners made the ‘bad’ ones.