Burnley star lifts lid on Vegas promotion party with Leeds United rivals and Ashley Barnes' tattoo

The two sides finished first and second respectively to clinch their returns to the Premier League, but it was Leeds who lifted the title following their last-gasp final-day win at Plymouth.

Now Clarets goalkeeper James Trafford has lifted the lid on what went down in Las Vegas when the two sets of players were both in the party capital at the same time.

They weren’t the only celebrating club on the strip either, as Jay Rodriguez and his Wrexham players also toasted their promotion from League One.

Appearing recently on the Fozcast podcast, there was only one topic host Ben Foster wanted to ask about.

“We finished on the Tuesday, we had the parade and then on Wednesday morning we got the bus down to London to fly to Vegas,” Trafford explained.

“We had Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and flew back Sunday morning. My memories of it are actually alright! But it was tough to remember it.

"There were 19 of us, 17 lads and two staff.

“There were some shocking excuses [for the players that didn’t come]. One lad pulled out ill that morning, that was a shambles. He was at the parade but the next morning he told us he was ill. There were some shoddy excuses.

“I can’t remember paying for anything, apart from the Starbucks in the morning. Everything was essentially free.”

From a Burnley perspective, arguably the biggest talking point from the Stateside trip was Ashley Barnes’ decision to get a tattoo.

The 35-year-old celebrated his fourth Clarets promotion by getting ‘UTC’ [Up the Clarets] on his backside, revealing the ink on his Instagram stories alongside the caption: ‘when in Vegas’.

“That Friday, or the early hours of Saturday, they were probably the funniest 24 hours of my life. Just the whole night,” Trafford added.

“So to begin with we were in the beach club with Leeds, which was a good craic. Then we went back, had a power nap and went out at night.

“But Barnesy, he was man of the match. I’d say best achievement in football, just the memories he brought to everyone for those 24 hours.

“He was just being Barnesy, just being a great, great lad. But he got the tattoo when he was on his own at the end of the night, which makes the story. We weren’t even egging him on.

“The next morning we’ve all woken up and had a Starbucks, about six of us and Wozza [Joe Worrall] told us to have a look at Barnesy’s tattoo, ‘you’ll never believe what he’s had done’.

“He put it on his Instagram which was a bit daft. But it said ‘Up the Clarets’ and he lives and dies Burnley, so fair enough to him.

“But I don’t know where the others came from. Another one was a trophy with ‘four’ for his four promotions and then I don’t know what egged him on to do the next one.”