“It’s only about 20 degrees here today,” says a grinning Oli McBurnie.
Christmas is less than a month away, but while Britain is shivering in the grip of an icy winter, McBurnie is topping up his tan at his new home in Gran Canaria, having joined La Liga side Las Palmas in the summer after five years as a bustling striker at Sheffield United.
It feels a long way from Yorkshire where McBurnie grew up and has spent over half his playing career, but if the 28-year-old is homesick he is doing a good job of hiding it.
“I have a Spanish tutor twice a week, my missus (Niamh) does an hour before me and then I do an hour after,” he tells The Athletic, via a Zoom call. “Where I am, in Telde, no one speaks English so it’s made me have to learn it, which is good. I was thrown in at the deep end.”
As well as acclimatising to a new culture, McBurnie is also learning the challenges of his new league.
Las Palmas, who won promotion back to La Liga in 2023, are bobbing above the relegation zone having sacked previous manager Luis Carrion in October and replaced him with Diego Martinez.
McBurnie is still searching for his first goal but he started brightly, producing an assist in the 1-1 draw against Real Madrid early in the season. Game time has been more limited under Martinez but, true to form, he is not daunted.
“It’s about cracking on, figuring out what he wants from a striker and being ready when the chance comes,” he says. “The main difference is it’s more physical in England — whether it’s the Premier League or Championship. When I play a game here, even if I played 90 minutes, my body feels OK.
“I don’t feel like a bus has hit me, whereas after a game in the Premier League that was the feeling for the next two or three days. The intensity of the games is higher in the Premier League but it’s a lot more tactical over here.”
McBurnie playing for Sheffield United in the Premier League in April (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
For McBurnie, his move to Spain marks the latest chapter in what’s already been a colourful career.
He says his highest points to date are his final season at Swansea City — where he scored 24 goals, leading to his £17million move to Sheffield United — and the thrilling 2019-20 season that followed at United when Chris Wilder’s side finished ninth in the Premier League.
“I genuinely think if Covid hadn’t hit that we would have made it into Europe, as it really didn’t do us any favours playing with no fans,” he says. “That and then the Championship promotion season with Sheffield United (in 2022-2023), those are memories that no one will ever be able to take away from me.”
And the lowest point?
“I’ve had lots of tough periods,” he replies. “I had a time at Sheffield United when we got relegated and then the next season, when (Slavisa) Jokanovic was in charge, he didn’t really take to me. That was the first time I’ve had a manager who didn’t really rate me. That was tough, not being in the manager’s plans.”
Yet that pales in comparison to the news that broke last month that George Baldock, McBurnie’s former team-mate at Sheffield United, had died suddenly at home in Greece, aged just 31.
The news cut deep in a squad that had been defined by its collective spirit under Wilder, who would conduct detailed background checks on the players he was signing to make sure they would fit in with the club’s ethos.
McBurnie wrote that his heart had been “broken” in a post on Instagram at the time of Baldock’s death, and several weeks on, the tragedy has yet to fully sink in.
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“When you play with someone for five years, you get to know them so well,” he says. “That’s weekends away with the team, every second game is away so you’re in hotels, you’re on a bus with them for six hours, it’s training, you play a game and you might go on a night out with them afterwards, then you have holidays in the summer.
“Every time I think about him now, I think about Annabel (his fiancee) and his little son Brody and it’s just heartbreaking that little Brody never got to realise what a top person his old man was. When something like this happens, everyone is quick to say nice things, but with George, genuinely, his whole purpose in life was to make other people laugh.
“He grafted his way up — nothing was going to stop him getting there. He got to a period in his life where he got this dream move to Panathinaikos, he’s living in Athens, a beautiful city, he’s made his money in his career, he’s got a nice contract, he’s got a beautiful son who’s just turned one. He should be able to now enjoy the rest of his life and that’s been taken away from him. I think about him every day. It breaks my heart.”
Baldock and McBurnie in 2019 (Paul EllisAFP/Getty Images)
Baldock’s death was not the only tough event that McBurnie has had to navigate this year.
“Having my daughter (Mimi, who was born in June) is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” McBurnie says. “But in the same year, my brother gets cancer, my grandma dies, one of my best friends dies — I think I’ll be glad to see the back of this year, if I’m honest.”
Thankfully, Xander, McBurnie’s younger sibling aged 27 and who plays at a semi professional level, was given the all-clear two months ago. “When something like that happens, you feel helpless. But he’s so strong — he never moaned, he never complained, he got on with his chemo like it was nothing and now he’s flying again.”
In a sport where players can appear ever more detached from fans, McBurnie feels like something from a bygone era — rough, tough and with his socks always rolled down, a superstition that started when he was on loan at Chester.
“I don’t really like wearing shin pads — we never wear shin pads in the training. I want to feel how I train every day, so I wear normal socks,” he explains. “I cut my socks and roll them down and then have little bits of foam that I put in like padding just to feel as comfortable.
“The first time when I was on loan at Chester, they didn’t have any kit and I was even skinnier than I am now, my socks kept falling down, so I kept pulling them up. In the third game I rolled them down and left them there and that’s when I scored my first professional game, so I’ve done it since then.”
And what about that sense that fans can relate to him? Does he feel that?
“I’m just a normal person but I just play football, that’s the only difference,” he said. “That’s why I think I got myself in a bit of trouble because I’ve never really changed in terms of the things I do or the people I chill with or the way I act.
“Sometimes I probably should have done and realised the position I was in. I understand that a bit more now. But it’s still very hard for me to not be that same kid from Leeds who plays with his mates, does what he wants. There’s a few more cameras on me now, so I have to be a bit more sensible. And I’m a dad now too.”
McBurnie challenging Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior earlier this season (Cesar Manso/AFP/Getty Images)
The trouble McBurnie was referring to is his brushes with the law. In 2020, he was fined for drink-driving. The following year, a video emerged of him being involved in a street fight in North Yorkshire. Police later said two unnamed men were cautioned as a result. Then in December 2022 he was cleared of stamping on a pitch-invading Nottingham Forest fan after Sheffield United lost in the Championship playoff semi-finals. He said he has learned from those incidents.
“I learnt that I’m in a position where there’s a lot of eyes on you, where people will want to get you a lot of the time — they want to see the demise of you a lot of the time,” he says. “It’s hard to take because I’m a happy-go-lucky person, but when people have vendettas it’s a weird one for me to take. I learnt to grow up, remove myself from certain situations and detach a bit from normal life and be in my own little bubble.”
Now McBurnie is focused on Las Palmas, trying to force his way back into the side and lift them away from the relegation zone.
He is also determined to put himself back into contention for the Scotland national team, but said he hasn’t spoken to manager Steve Clarke for at least two years.
Next up is a trip to league leaders Barcelona on Saturday, another pinch-yourself moment for the player who was released by Leeds United as a 14-year-old boy for being too small.
“It’s going to be an unbelievable experience,” McBurnie says. “Playing the big teams is one of the one of the main reasons I wanted to come out here.”
(Top photo: McBurnie playing for Las Palmas; by Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images via Getty Images)
