AFTER suffering the disappointment of relegation last season, Clarets new boy Dean West has backed himself to bounce straight back up by re-joining Stan Ternent at Turf Moor.

West won a Second Division championship medal under Ternent's guidance at Bury in 1997.

But the defender's two-year stay in Division One ended with the drop last season and with his contract up at Gigg Lane, West has opted to hit the promotion trail with Burnley instead.

"Things have been set up for success here. I want to get back into the First Division.

"Once you have played there you want to play there all the time, and possibly even higher," insisted West after completing his move to Turf Moor under the Bosman ruling yesterday.

"I'm delighted," he added. "It gets my career back on track.

"I didn't really enjoy the last few months at Bury. Getting relegated didn't help but I wasn't playing regularly and then not playing in my best position.

"I was playing in midfield and I have been a full-back for the last three or four years.

"But I shouldn't really grumble too much. I had been out injured and I was back playing so I had to be happy at that."

Bury was good for West and vice-versa after Ternent took him to the club from Lincoln City early in the 1995/96 season. His 37 appearances helped the Shakers win promotion from Division Three and he didn't miss a game the following season as Bury won the Second Division title.

His luck with injuries then ran out as hernia problems laid him low for a long spell before he returned to the fray mid-way through last season to help Neil Warnock's Bury fight an ultimately unsuccessful relegation scrap. The Shakers tried to keep the Wakefield-born full-back with a new contract offer.

But with Burnley beckoning and an attractive deal on the table, West followed a well trodden path from Gigg Lane already taken by Ternent, assistant Sam Ellis and former Bury team-mates Gordon Armstrong, Lenny Johnrose, Peter Swan and Ronnie Jepson.

"This is a fresh challenge and playing under the gaffer again was a big incentive," said West, an attacking right-sided defender who will fill the breach left by Ally Pickering's departure from Turf Moor.

"There were a couple of other clubs interested but again there was the draw of playing for Stan and this is a big club. It was a good opportunity to play for a big club."

And West, who yesterday put pen-to-paper along with Mitchell Thomas, Paul Cook, Tom Cowan and Mark Robertson, is itching to kick-off what he hopes will be another title tilt when the Clarets report for pre-season training next Monday.

"Burnley finished last season with a flurry with some good results and performances to give a good base.

"I can't wait to get started. I haven't looked forward to a pre-season as much as this in a long time," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.