It was the opening day of Burnley's second season in the top flight since 1976. In a cramped stairway of Turf Moor stood a fan wearing what, as it costs per letter stencilled on a top, must rank among the most expensive Burnley shirts ever purchased.
Whereas others simply have a name and a number on the back, his read: “Who needs Mourinho, we’ve got Sean Dychio”.
Sean Dyche, to give him his proper name, acquired the nickname "the ginger Mourinho" during Burnley's promotion to the Premier League. The actual, silver-haired Jose Mourinho defeated Lancashire's answer to the Special One 3-1 in their August meeting. He goes into Saturday's rematch the red-hot favourite.
His Burnley counterpart’s moniker owed something to football fans’ sense of humour. The Barnsley side who were promoted in 1997 were serenaded with chants of “it’s just like watching Brazil”. It was not, of course, but they could be forgiven for dreaming.
Dyche, meanwhile, has confronted the grim realism of the Premier League and is emerging with a reputation enhanced.
Burnley are 19th, have lost four of their past five games, and face Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City in the next four.
The expectation is that they will revert to the Championship, yet their campaign still features the kind of over-achievement that marks Dyche as a manager with the potential to flourish elsewhere. Stay up, and he could be the manager of the year.
Rewind to autumn. When Burnley had taken four points from their first 10 games, the thought occurred that they might complete the season without a victory.
Instead, they have taken 17 points from their past 14 games, coming from 2-0 down to draw at Manchester City and outplaying Manchester United for much of their 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford.
After scoring once in their first six games, they have 14 goals in their past nine.
The scale of improvement during the past six months has been remarkable.
The quality of the football, too, has surprised, and the two goals they scored against West Bromwich Albion earlier this month were wonderfully worked by the side, showing teamwork and no little skill.
In a fundamental endorsement of a manager, Dyche is getting more from these players than anyone else ever has.
Danny Ings was the Championship’s player of the year last season, but he has developed into such an accomplished Premier League footballer that he has attracted Liverpool’s attention.
Ashley Barnes had lost his place in the Brighton team before joining Burnley, but he is Ings’s increasingly effective sidekick.
Record buy George Boyd was a bit-part player at Hull City but is a running machine for Burnley, posting four of the longest six distances run by anyone in a top-flight match this season while allying industry with quality.
Kieran Trippier, Dean Marney, David Jones, Scott Arfield and Ben Mee have all reached new heights under Dyche.
It is all the more admirable because of the constraints. Burnley have a Championship budget and have failed to lure players from second-tier clubs.
Yet that makes it harder to judge Dyche’s credentials as an elite manager.
He has never had the budget to buy big, and neither does he have the cosmopolitan squad contenders enjoy.
While Barnes is an Austria Under-21 international, in reality Dyche’s squad are all British and Irish.
They play a resolutely British 4-4-2 – Dyche has selected a side in only one other formation, and Burnley lost that game 4-0. Not for him the tactical experiments of Brendan Rodgers and Louis van Gaal.
Burnley’s inflexibility was exposed when Crystal Palace changed shape mid-match and when Samuel Eto’o, then at Everton, exploited space between the lines with a sophistication rarely found at lower levels.
More surprisingly, Burnley keep on conceding from corners.
They also keep on running. While most modern managers opt for squad rotation, Dyche, the son of a management consultant, has an infectious positivity and seems to believe tiredness is a state of mind.
His players seem to concur, playing with a unity that is a credit to Dyche.
Yet Burnley are such a distinct, different club in the Premier League that their manager’s true status remains a moot point.
Is Dyche the next major British manager, or simply perfect for Burnley?
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