WHEN Stan Ternent picked up his Nationwide Manager of the Month award on Thursday afternoon he was quick to dedicate it to the whole club.

"This award is nice recognition for everyone at Burnley Football Club," he said.

"It is for the chairman, it is for chief executive Andrew Watson who looks after everything on the commercial side, it is for the coaching staff and it is for the players."

Despite a couple of near misses it was Ternent's first such award since he was manager of the month in April of the promotion season and he admitted: "I have got quite a few now, I am not sure how many.

"I have still got a couple dating back to Endsleigh, there are two or three bottles of Champagne and a silver salver."

As well as his latest bottle of bubbly he collected a pair of cut glass wine glasses to mark his latest achievement but he knows when he hopes to win his next one. "If we are doing this again in April I will be a happy man," he confessed. The Clarets have had great success in the closing weeks of each season under Ternent and he is aware how important it will be to have another strong finish.

It could prove to be the difference between promotion, play-offs or the agony of missing out as the Clarets did last year in seventh place.

But if they can manage to maintain the pace at the top of the table, the bubbly will no longer be on ice - it will be filling those glasses. Meanwhile at the award presentation a certain reporter's trilby went walkabout, disappearing from its place on the hat stand at the excellent Toby Inn in Edgworth.

A reward was ready to be offered but it reappeared the next day - on Stan Ternent's head.

The verdict from the assembled hacks was that it suited the gaffer better than the reporter. They might just have been right!