Oakwell loan star Ramage has fond memories of Watford win

For the Barnsley defender was in the Crystal Palace squad that beat the Hornets at Wembley in the Championship play-off final on May 27 to secure promotion to the Premier League.

The 29-year-old Geordie missed out on playing, he was an unused substitute despite playing 43 games for Palace in their promotion campaign, but fondly recalls that Wembley triumph as the “highlight of my career”.

He never got the chance to play with Palace in the Premier League, a solitary appearance in the League Cup, a 2-1 defeat to Bristol City, before he returned to his native north and a loan switch to Barnsley.

Today, Gianfranco Zola’s Watford arrive at Oakwell in the Championship and Ramage – who started his career at Newcastle United before spells with QPR and Birmingham – predicts a tough game for the Reds.

“Palace were fortunate to come out of that play-off final victorious, but take nothing away from Watford they were probably one of the stand-out teams in the Championship last season,” admitted Ramage.

Kevin Phillips netted an extra-time penalty to deny Watford a return to the Premier League.

“They have followed that up this season too, they got a good win the other night against Doncaster,” he said.

“We know it’s going to be tough but this is a horrible place to come to play football isn’t it?

“Nobody likes to come up north from the south, so hopefully we can make it as difficult as we can and get the three points.

“That memory (of the play-offs) will be with me for the rest of my life. It’s the highlight of my career so far, just the whole occasion.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play but I was involved on the bench. It was a tough game for us and we know on Saturday we will get a similar sort of side that will come here and try to play football. We have just got to try and make it as difficult as possible.”

Barnsley are second-bottom in the Championship after a slow start to the season, but Ramage points to a similar poor opening for Palace last year.

And while he is quick to dampen any thoughts of another promotion campaign, he sees plenty of similarities between the Selhurst Park and Oakwell squads.

“At Palace we were bottom after four games, shipping goals in left right and centre,” he recalled. “But there was hard work on the training pitch which got us to where we ended up.

“I am not drawing comparisons between last season this, because they are two totally different groups, but there is comparisons I have seen in how we work hard on the training pitch.

“It’s a similar group of players who work their socks for each other.

“We didn’t have any egos in that dressing room last season, and in the couple of weeks I have been here, there are no real egos here either.

“They have earned their bread, worked their socks off to get to where they are and, I am not saying we are going to get promoted, but hopefully we can use that togetherness to finish as high as possibly we can.

“There’s still plenty of points to play for, but it would be nice to get a victory and push away from that relegation zone.”

Ramage’s first two games in a Tykes shirt ended in away defeats at Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, but the defender hopes that run will end today as he makes his Oakwell debut.

“It’s early doors,” he said. “I am not going to tear trees up with flicks and tricks, I am just an honest hard-working player who gives 100 per cent.

“Hopefully that’s enough for people to be happy with me. I try to keep clean sheets, stop the ball going in the back of the net, that’s what I am paid to do. If it’s a 0-0 I go off happy knowing I have done my job, that’s how I look at it from a personal point of view.

“Clean sheets is what I am about and hopefully we can start getting some.

“We have been disappointed with the goals we have conceded, but we are working hard to try and stop them.

“It’s a good group of players. They are a similar group to the one we had at Palace last year.

“Nobody thought we would achieve what we did, because we just had a group of hard-working players and that’s what we have here.

“We had a group last year that stuck together – both on and off the pitch – which they do here. Listen, I am not sat here saying we can get promoted or anything like that, just drawing comparisons on the two groups of players. Hopefully we can strive to do better than they did last season.”

On loan until the end of the season, Ramage still has another year left on his Palace contract, but for now he just wants to concentrate on playing and put his long-term future to one side.

“I just want to help Barnsley finish as high as they can,” he said. “It’s not about me, my personal gain from this is to play as many games as I can.

“But I have not come here with a guaranteed slot, I have to work my socks up to earn the right to be in that team.

“Anybody that knows me knows I am one of the first in, last out. I don’t like to waste my days and will be working as hard as i can to get in the starting XI as many games as I can.”

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