Back on the pitch: how Burnham’s chief of staff pick reunites late-90s Labour football team

‘Very, very competitive.’ Andy Burnham plays football for the Labour party parliamentary team against the press lobby in 2011. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy View image in fullscreen ‘Very, very competitive.’ Andy Burnham plays football for the Labour party parliamentary team against the press lobby in 2011. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy Back on the pitch: how Burnham’s chief of staff pick reunites late-90s Labour football team Some worry choosing James Purnell, former Demon Eyes teammate, would show Labour struggling for new talent The most powerful football team in the country is getting back together. Andy Burnham’s decision to appoint James Purnell as his chief of staff should he become prime minister will reunite not only two old friends and former Labour ministers but two of the linchpins of the famous Demon Eyes team set up in the late 1990s. Burnham’s pick for chief of staff led firm that advised BP, Apple and Amazon Read more That team, whose members have included Burnham, Purnell, the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls and the former foreign secretary David Miliband, was originally formed by New Labour advisers in the early years of the Blair government. Many of its players would reach the heights of ministerial office, though in the intervening years most have left Westminster politics for other careers. But the reunification of Burnham and Purnell at the heart of what is likely to be the next government shows how Labour’s modern history is still being written by those who first propelled it to power in 1997. As for their skills on the pitch, Patrick Hennessy, a former Labour adviser and now a senior director at Hanover Communications, said: “Andy was technically a good player, a fast attacker with good finishing.” View image in fullscreen James Purnell: ‘a decent centre-back’. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy Hennessy, who captained a rival team of political journalists, added: “James was a decent centre-back – he wasn’t the most physical, but he was very, very dogged. Those two were at the core. “But the main thing about the team is it was very, very competitive. You knew when you were playing against them it was going to be a hard match – they were determined to win.” One former teammate joked that the positions Purnell and Burnham played on the pitch would be reflected in their roles in the coming government: Purnell, a determined but un-showy defender; Burnham, an attacker who seemed to enjoy the attention he got from scoring goals. The team, which was set up in 1998 and named after the Conservative attack poster depicting Tony Blair with devilish red eyes, played its home matches in the Labour heartland of north London. View image in fullscreen Ed Balls also played for the Demon Eyes team. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy It was set up by Purnell and Tim Allan, who went on to be Keir Starmer’s director of communications. Its early incarnations included Purnell, Allan, Miliband, Balls and the journalists David Goodhart and Liam Halligan. Other pr