He says that process of building year-on-year was key to the success, as was giving young players a chance to play regularly and learn their trade.
"I think every manager’s got to have that at a club like Ipswich” he said. "I was lucky I was at clubs like Southampton and Derby which are similar. You’ve got to look to build a club and I think Frank Lampard should get a bit of credit at Chelsea because he’s trying to build the club bringing young players through.
"I was brought up with Sir Bobby who played me at 17 week in and week out and when I see some managers saying ‘We can’t play them too much, we’ve got to rest them’, that’s how you learn, you make mistakes when you’re young and you go out on the training ground to get it right for next Saturday, you don’t get left out for six months.
"And that’s happened week in, week out over the years at Ipswich. Sometimes when you get into the first team and you play, and then all of a sudden they drop you back to the reserves, getting into the first team can be the worst thing to happen to you because it really just sapped your confidence and you don’t get back again.
"I feel that’s happened over the last 10 or 12 years at Ipswich, it’s been frightening really. I think Sir Bobby showed that, he stuck by the youngsters.
"You’re going to make mistakes. ‘OK, you’ve made a mistake, let’s get out there and put it right for Saturday’. That was our philosophy. Not ‘You’ve had enough, get back to the reserves’.
"For me, [it’s about] having faith and when young players make mistakes that’s why you appoint a manager, to get them out on the training ground and believe in them and work with them and give them the opportunity to get a good run. It’s up to the manager to try and get those mistakes out of their game and make them better players.
"I was out on that training ground. I used to work with Kieron and Titus and all of them on that training ground to get those habits day in and day out.
"I could give you a list of all the players that made their debut at 17, Kieron, Richard Wright, Titus Bramble, Richard Naylor, James Scowcroft, Darren Bent, Darren Ambrose, Matt Richards. At Southampton I had Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana, at Derby Tom Huddlestone and a few others, I gave Wilfried Zaha his full debut at 17 and I played him every game I was at Crystal Palace.”
Another key element to Burley’s success also owed much to his mentor Bobby Robson: "Passing the ball. We used to do passing all the time, to get that touch of the ball, which was how I was brought up as a player at Ipswich and that was the way I believed it should be done.
"Hermann Hreidarsson was at the Ex-Players’ Dinner last year and he was asked ‘What did the gaffer used to say to you?’. And he just said I said ‘Hermann, pass it! Hermann, pass it!’ because Hermann just loved to run with the ball at 100 miles an hour. I just kept saying to him ‘Hermann, get the ball, pass it fast!’.
"That was Ipswich for me, and the style. My style was passing the ball and that’s what Bobby Robson taught us to do.
"Every week, every session had different areas for passing the ball. Passing it and passing it, so it was drilled into you. You could chip it, drive it, touch.
"And like playing golf if you practice enough that will get better. Passing the ball is so important in football.
"And that was the way we tried to bring the players up, that was the philosophy of Bobby Robson. All that’s changed and it saddens me at times. But there you go, you’ve got to move on and the times I had as a player and a manager were special.”
Where does that play-off final at Wembley rank among all those special times? "I think for the enjoyment or whatever it’s the best really. As a player it was fantastic at Wembley, but taking your team year in and year out, building that team, to work with that team and coach the team as a young manager [surpasses it].
"I came into the job very young and I wanted to do everything, I wanted to do every training session, I did everything on the training ground. As a young manager that’s what you did.
"As you get a bit older, you tend to delegate a bit but in those years I just loved being out on the training ground and doing everything. That for me that was a special occasion.
"Even when I walk about town now people keep saying that that was the best day of their lives. It was such a special feeling to win at Wembley in the play-offs. It was great.”