Burnley enter the Premier League

Burnley 1 Sheffield United 0. Burnley re-entered the top tier of English football yesterday afternoon when they beat Sheffield United in the Championship play-off, a game that has the potential to earn the small Lancashire club £60m next season. For Sheffield United, the prospect of a another term in the Championship, this time without the parachute payments from their relegation two years ago, proved too much and they lost two men during and after the game to indiscipline.

The Turf Moor club, managed by Owen Coyle, played 61 games over the season year including two cup runs that saw them dispose of Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Fulham on their way to the semi-finals of the League Cup, so they won't feel totally out of place in the Premier League. All season they have played exciting football with a young and tiny squad, and they look a genuine addition to the top tier.

The game's only goal came after just 13 minutes, when Wade Elliot marauded forward with the ball, brushing off Sheffield United players before playing in Chris McCann. McCann's shot was blocked but the rebound cruelly fell to Elliot whose first-time shot flew past a despairing Paddy Kenny.

Burnley could have had more goals to steady the nerves of their Scottish-born manager, with Martin Paterson, Steven Thompson, Joey Gudjonsson and Robbie Blake all going close. Sheffield United's best efforts were two disputed penalties that weren't given by referee Mike Dean to the despair of United manager Kevin Blackwell, who lost out at this stage with Leeds three years ago.

The final whistle saw the travelling Burnley fans erupt into joyous celebration. Burnley will be the smallest town to have sent a football club to the Premier League. All football neutrals will hope that their story ends well.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Dominic Fifield, the Guardian: "The masses that had migrated south were still pinching themselves as they drifted, delirious in their exhilaration, back to the north-west. No town this small has graced the Premier League since English top-flight football ­reinvented itself in the early 1990s. "When Manchester United play at Old Trafford there are more people there than in the whole of Burnley," reflected Owen Coyle in the giddy aftermath. The club's manager is teetotal. His team will awake today having claimed the £60m rewards from this occasion with pounding hangovers but as Premiership League players." ·