Wearing the captain’s armband when called upon has been something of a regular occurrence for Preston North End midfielder Alan Browne over the last 12 months
Browney, who has made over 250 appearances for the Lilywhites since joining the club in 2014, spoke to iFollow PNE about his pride in regularly leading out the team and being a senior figure in the dressing room ahead of his side’s trip to Brentford this weekend.
“It’s always an honour for me. I’ve been here for that long I’ve really taken to the club. I love everything about the club and to wear the armband is a massive privilege for me."
“The feeling never grows old so it would be a massive boost for me going into the international games and then afterwards to try kick on again, but we’ve just got to focus on the result and getting the three points.
“Especially the first time you get it, it gives you a bit of a shock. You look around and you’re the senior player of this group, not in terms of how old you are or anything, but the fact that people look to you as the captain, as the one who’s going to take the armband and going to lead us.
“I think that first time will never be beaten, but like I said, every time after that it never grows old and the feeling remains the same.
“There’s been a few new faces to get it of late, especially with Clarkey leaving and when he was out injured so yeah it’s a proud moment for anyone who puts it on.”
PNE travel to the brand new Brentford Community Stadium on Sunday afternoon to face Thomas Frank’s side who moved out of Griffin Park this summer – which wasn’t a particularly happy hunting ground for North End.
Browney said: “It could kickstart something new. It’s obviously going to be a tough game, it’s always a difficult venue as you’ve said they’ve changed ground now so we might have a bit more luck there, but it’s been really tight so far.
“Games are decided on nothing really so as disappointing as it’s been results wise, we know that there hasn’t been much in the games and we’ve been a bit unfortunate, but we’ve got to put them behind us now and go to Brentford with the belief that we can get the three points which is what we do in every game and hopefully we can take them away and kickstart something new.
“Even the Swansea game I think there wasn’t much in it but I don’t think we can have too many complaints about that one, we didn’t play well I don’t think they did either but it is what it is.
“The last two games I think apart from the red card (Tom Barkhuizen’s against Stoke City) we’ve dominated the game and obviously when the red card happens it’s always difficult so we could’ve easily got six out of the last two, but that’s just the way this league goes.
“We’ll probably pick up six where we don’t deserve it somewhere in the season so it’ll even itself out, but we’ve just got to pick up points as soon as possible because that’s obviously the main thing.
“You can’t dwell on performances; you’ve got to get the points which is all that matters.”
Following Sunday’s game, Browney will join up with the Republic of Ireland squad who will be preparing for a massive tie on Thursday 8 October as they face Slovakia in their European Championship qualifier.
When he returns to club football, he’ll be meeting up with the PNE team at their new home in Euxton as the first team say goodbye to Springfields in the coming week.
Alan looked forward: “I think it’s something that the boys have obviously been speaking about the last few weeks.
“We’re looking forward to it now. I think a change of scenery will be good for us and as you say [this is] one of the last interviews here, it’s probably the one thing that we know.
“It’s going to be a bit different for us but I think change is always something that you need to take on board and look forward to and try take the positives out of it.
“We’re going to miss this place but hopefully the next one will be better. I haven’t seen the training ground myself but I imagine it’s probably better than this given that the clubs who have used it have been Prem standard and I’ve only heard good things, so I’m sure it’s an upgrade from here and I think it’s what the boys deserve for their hard work to upgrade facilities because that’s only going to benefit us and improve us more going forward.”
Watch Browney’s full interview at the top of the page as he talks more about Brentford, the upcoming international break and more.