Burnley F.C.

Beginnings and the first major honours (1882–1946) in the middle of the photo|alt=A black and white image of the Burnley team with the Lancashire Cup trophy in the middle The club was founded on 18 May 1882 by members of rugby team Burnley Rovers, who voted for a shift to association football as the sport was gaining prominence in the area. The suffix "Rovers" was dropped a few days later. By the end of the year, the club turned professional and signed many Scottish players, who were regarded as the best footballers by the Burnley committee. As a result, Burnley refused to join the Football Association (FA) and its FA Cup because the association barred professional players. In 1884, Burnley led a group of 35 other clubs in the formation of the breakaway British Football Association (BFA) to challenge the FA's supremacy. The FA changed its rule in 1885, allowing professionalism, and Burnley made their first appearance in the FA Cup in 1885–86. In October 1886, Burnley's Turf Moor became the first professional ground to be visited by a member of the royal family, when Prince Albert Victor attended a friendly between Burnley and Bolton Wanderers. In the second match, William Tait became the first player in history to score a league hat-trick, with his three goals against Bolton Wanderers securing Burnley's inaugural win in the competition. Burnley usually finished in mid-table during the early seasons of the Football League, before being relegated to the Second Division in 1896–97. Burnley finished third in 1898–99, their then-highest league finish, It is possibly the earliest recorded case of match fixing in football. The side continued to play in the Second Division and even finished in bottom place in 1902–03—but were re-elected—as the club got into financial difficulties. |alt=A black and white picture of Burnley posing behind a football trophy Harry Windle was named chairman in 1909, after which the club's finances turned around. In 1910, the Burnley directors changed the club's colours from green to claret and blue, and appointed John Haworth as the team's new manager. In 1912–13, the side won promotion to the first tier, and the following season, Burnley won their first major honour, beating Liverpool in the 1914 FA Cup final. The team finished second to West Bromwich Albion in 1919–20, before winning their first ever First Division championship in 1920–21. Nine seasons later, the team were relegated to the Second Division. They struggled in the second tier and avoided a further relegation in 1931–32 by two points. The years through to the outbreak of the Second World War were characterised by mid-table league finishes. Alan Brown, captain of Burnley's 1946–47 side, was appointed the club's manager in 1954, with Bob Lord becoming chairman a year later. Burnley were one of the first to set up a purpose-built training ground, at Gawthorpe, and they became renowned for their youth policy and scouting system, which yielded many young talents. Potts often employed the then unfashionable 4–4–2 formation and he implemented a Total Football playing style. (2017 photograph) was one of the first purpose-built training grounds.|alt=Burnley's training ground at Gawthorpe Burnley clinched a second First Division title in 1959–60. The squad cost only £13,000 () in transfer fees—£8,000 on McIlroy in 1950 and £5,000 on left-back Alex Elder in 1959. The other Burnley players had progressed through the club's youth academy. The following season, Burnley played in European competition for the first time in the 1960–61 European Cup. They defeated former finalists Reims in the first round, but went out against Hamburger SV in the quarter-finals. The team finished the 1961–62 First Division as runners-up to newcomers Ipswich Town after winning only one of the last ten matches, and had a run to the 1962 FA Cup final but lost against Tottenham Hotspur. Adamson was named FWA Footballer of the Year, however, with McIlroy as runner-up. The maximum wage in the Football League was abolished in 1961, which meant that clubs from small towns like Burnley could no longer compete financially with sides from larger settlements. The controversial departure of McIlroy to Stoke City in 1963 and Adamson's retirement in 1964 also damaged the club's fortunes. Burnley retained their place in the First Division throughout the decade, however, finishing third in both the 1962–63 and 1965–66 seasons, and qualifying for the 1966–67 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Potts was replaced by Adamson as manager in 1970. Adamson hailed his squad as the "Team of the Seventies", but he was unable to halt the slide as relegation followed in 1970–71. Burnley won the Second Division title in 1972–73, and were invited to play in the 1973 FA Charity Shield, where they emerged as winners against Manchester City. In 1975, the team were victims of one of the great FA Cup shocks of all time when Wimbledon, then in the Southern League, won 1–0 at Turf Moor. Adamson left the club in January 1976, and relegation from the First Division followed later that year. During this period, a drop in home attendances combined with an enlarged debt forced Burnley to sell star players such as Martin Dobson and Leighton James, which caused a rapid decline. Near oblivion and recovery (1976–2020) in 1888–89 to the present|alt=Refer to caption The team were relegated to the Third Division for the first time in 1979–80. they returned to the second tier as champions in 1981–82. However, this return was short-lived and lasted only one year. Benson was in charge when Burnley were relegated to the Fourth Division for the first time at the end of the 1984–85 season. 's goal earned Burnley a 1–0 victory over Sheffield United in the 2009 Championship play-off final.|alt=A football player in a red and white shirt and a football player in a light blue shirt are watching the ball approaching the goal, while the goalkeeper is diving to his right-hand side In 1988, Burnley played Wolverhampton Wanderers in the final of the Associate Members' Cup but lost 2–0. The match was attended by 80,000 people, a record for a match between two sides from the fourth tier. The team won the Fourth Division in 1991–92 under manager Jimmy Mullen. He had succeeded Casper in October 1991 and won his first nine league matches as manager. By winning the fourth tier, Burnley became only the second club to win all four professional divisions of English football, after Wolverhampton Wanderers. Burnley won the Second Division play-offs in 1993–94 and gained promotion to the second tier. Under manager Stan Ternent, Burnley finished second in 1999–2000 and won promotion to the second tier. In early 2002, financial problems caused by the collapse of ITV Digital brought the club close to administration. Ternent was sacked in 2004, after he avoided relegation with a squad composed of several loaned players and some players who were not entirely fit. The 2008–09 campaign, with Owen Coyle in charge, ended with promotion to the Premier League. Sheffield United were defeated in the Championship play-off final, which meant a return to the top flight after 33 years. Burnley also reached the semi-final of the League Cup for the first time in over 25 years but were beaten on aggregate by Tottenham in the last minutes of the second leg. guided Burnley to two promotions to the Premier League.|alt=Sean Dyche during an interview Promotion made the town of Burnley one of the smallest to host a Premier League club. The team started the season well and became the first newly promoted side in the competition to win their first four home games. However, Coyle left the club in January 2010 to manage local rivals Bolton Wanderers. He was replaced by former Burnley player Brian Laws, but the team's form plummeted and they were relegated after a single season. Sean Dyche was appointed manager in October 2012. In his first full season in charge, Dyche guided Burnley back to the Premier League in 2013–14 on a tight budget and with a small squad. The team went down after one season but won the Championship title on their return in 2015–16, ending the season with a run of 23 league games undefeated. In 2017, the club completed construction of Barnfield Training Centre—the replacement of Gawthorpe—with Dyche being involved in the training ground's design. The team failed to reach the group stage as they were eliminated in the play-off round by Greek club Olympiacos. Foreign owners (2020–present) In December 2020, American investment company ALK Capital acquired an 84% stake in Burnley for £170 million. It was the first time the club was run by anyone other than local businessmen and Burnley supporters. In 2021–22, Burnley were relegated back to the Championship after they lost on the final matchday and finished in 18th place. In June 2022, the Belgian Vincent Kompany was appointed Burnley's manager, becoming the first person from outside the British Isles to manage the club. During his first months in charge, he rebuilt the squad on a budget, signing mostly young and foreign players. Kompany also implemented a possession-based, attacking style of play. Burnley secured promotion back to the Premier League in 2022–23 with seven matches remaining—a Championship record—before winning the Championship title following a 1–0 victory at local rivals Blackburn Rovers. The following season, Burnley were relegated again from the Premier League, finishing 19th with a club record low tally of 24 points. Shortly afterwards, however, Kompany went to Bayern Munich for a fee of £10.2 million, which made him one of the most expensive managers in history. Burnley won promotion back to the top flight at the first attempt under Scott Parker, ending the 2024–25 season with a club record 33-match unbeaten run. The team conceded just 16 goals in 46 matches—an average of 0.35 per game—setting the best defensive record in English league history, among several other records. Despite these accomplishments, they finished second behind Leeds United on goal difference, becoming the first team in Football League history to earn 100 points without winning the title. The following season, they went down again. == Kits and colours ==

In the early decades, Burnley used a variety of home kit designs and colours. During the first eight years, they used various permutations of blue and white, the colours of their forerunners Burnley Rovers. In the late 1890s, the club used an all-red shirt and from 1900 until 1910 it wore an all-green jersey. The change in colours also contributed to the emergence of Burnley's nickname, "the Clarets". Burnley's kits have been supplied by various manufacturers since 1975, when Umbro produced the club's jerseys, and have featured shirt sponsors since 1982. The club's longest-running shirt sponsorship was with Endsleigh Insurance, lasting from 1988 to 1998. == Crest ==

Burnley's jerseys first sported a crest in December 1887, when the team wore white shirts with a blue sash featuring the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales, commemorating Prince Albert Victor's visit to Turf Moor the previous year—the first by a member of the royal family to a professional football ground. and the town's arms became a permanent feature on Burnley's jerseys for nearly a decade following their 1959–60 First Division title win. From 1969 to 1979 on home kits, and until 1976 on away shirts, the team wore a stylised "BFC" cypher. The resulting crest was officially adopted by the club in 1973, and first appeared on Burnley's away kits at the start of the 1976–77 season, before being introduced on the home shirts in 1979. In 2023, the crest's elements were rendered in white and placed on a claret shield, appearing on the home kit from the 2024–25 season. The club's current badge is based on the town of Burnley's coat of arms. The stork at the top of the crest refers to the Starkie family, who were prominent in the Burnley area. In its mouth it holds a Lacy knot of the de Lacy family, who held Burnley in the Middle Ages. The stork stands on a hill and cotton plants, which represents the town's cotton heritage. The hand below symbolises the town's motto "Hold to the Truth", derived from the Towneley family. The two bees reflect the town's hard work ethic, the lion represents royalty, and the chevron symbolises the River Brun, which runs through Burnley. == Stadium ==

The team have played their home games at Turf Moor since February 1883, which replaced their original premises at Calder Vale. The Turf Moor site has been used for sport since at least 1843, when Burnley Cricket Club moved to the area. In 1883, they invited Burnley to a field adjacent to the cricket pitch. From the mid-1940s until the mid-1960s, crowds in the stadium averaged in the 20,000–35,000 range, and Burnley averaged a club-record attendance of 33,621 in the 1947–48 First Division. The attendance record for a single match was already set in 1924 against Huddersfield Town in an FA Cup third round tie, when 54,775 spectators attended. In 1960, in an FA Cup fifth round replay game against Bradford City, there was an official attendance of 52,850. Some of the gates were broken down, however, and many uncounted fans poured into the ground. Turf Moor's field had a slope until 1974, when the pitch was raised to minimise it. In 2019, the club built two corner stands for disabled home supporters between the Jimmy McIlroy and both the North and Bob Lord Stands to meet the Accessible Stadium Guide regulations. Turf Moor currently has a capacity of 21,944 and consists of four stands: the North Stand (formerly the Longside), the Jimmy McIlroy Stand (formerly the Bee Hole End), the Bob Lord Stand, and the Cricket Field Stand for home and away fans. During a pre-season friendly against Italian side Lazio at Turf Moor in August 2025, Burnley became the first football club in history to live stream a game in immersive virtual reality. == Supporters and rivalries ==

Supporters Burnley's supporters are mainly drawn from East Lancashire and West Yorkshire. The club is one of the best supported in English football per capita, with average attendances of around 21,000 in the Premier League in a town of approximately 78,000 inhabitants. Burnley's first supporters' club was formed in early 1932, and since then, numerous supporters' groups have been established across the United Kingdom and overseas. The club's fans have had a long-standing friendship with supporters of the Dutch team Helmond Sport since the 1990s, and several Burnley and Helmond fans regularly make an overseas journey to visit each other's matches. For 2022–23 and 2023–24, Helmond Sport adopted a claret and blue away kit in tribute to Burnley. A frequently sung chant since the early 1970s is "No Nay Never", an adaptation of the song "The Wild Rover", which has lyrics to offend main rivals Blackburn Rovers. In the early 1980s, a hooligan firm known as the Suicide Squad emerged from within Burnley's fanbase. The group later featured on the 2006 hooligan documentary series The Real Football Factories. In 2011, 12 members were sentenced to jail for a total of 32 years, after a high-profile incident with Blackburn Rovers supporters in 2009. The firm disbanded after the verdict. Notable Burnley fans have included football pioneer Jimmy Hogan, who was a regular attendee at Turf Moor; journalist Alastair Campbell, who has been regularly involved in events with the club; and cricketer James Anderson, who also worked in Burnley's ticket office on a part-time basis. King Charles III is also a supporter of the club, as is the South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier. In 2019, Burnley fan Scott Cunliffe was honoured by the UEFA with the #EqualGame award "for his work as a role model highlighting diversity, inclusion and accessibility in football"; he ran to every away Premier League ground during Burnley's 2018–19 campaign and raised more than £55,000 for Premier League clubs' community trusts and community projects in Burnley. A popular drink served at home matches since the First World War is "Béné & Hot"—the French liqueur Bénédictine topped up with hot water. The East Lancashire Regiment soldiers acquired a taste for the drink while stationed at the birthplace of the beverage in Fécamp, Normandy, during the war. They drank it with hot water to keep warm in the trenches, and the surviving soldiers later returned to the East Lancashire area with the liqueur. In excess of 30 bottles are sold at each home game, which makes the club one of the world's biggest sellers of Bénédictine; Turf Moor is the only British football ground to sell it. Rivalries Association football was first played in Burnley in the early 1880s, and by 1883 the town already had more than 20 clubs. One of Burnley's earliest rivals were Burnley Union Star, Union Star were regarded as one of the most prominent local teams. Their rivalry peaked during the 1886–87 Lancashire Cup, when a first-round fixture between the two sides ended 2–2. A replay was not held, as the Stars were expelled from the competition after a complaint by Burnley to the Lancashire FA over the use of an unregistered player; they were also suspended for one month. The incident deepened tensions, with the Football Field newspaper writing that "a certain section of the Union Star supporters seem to be possessed of the very essence of rudeness when viewing matches at Turf Moor". Union Star disbanded in 1891, and Burnley soon bought the "Star Stand" from their ground, relocating it to Turf Moor. Another early rival were Padiham, with one fixture in 1884 attracting a then record crowd of 12,000 at Turf Moor. Both are founder members of the Football League and have won the First Division and the FA Cup. Four years earlier, however, they had met for the first time in a friendly, Burnley hold the better head-to-head record, as the side have won 45 games to Blackburn's 41. Other rivalries include those with nearby clubs Blackpool, Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End. Burnley also share a Roses rivalry with West Yorkshire sides Bradford City and Leeds United. The team contested heated matches with Halifax Town, Plymouth Argyle, Rochdale and Stockport County in the 1980s and 1990s during their time in the lower leagues, although feelings of animosity were mainly one-sided; according to the 2003 Football Fans Census, both Halifax and Stockport supporters regarded Burnley as their main rival, whereas Burnley fans did not include either club among their top three rivals. == Players ==

First-team squad Out on loan Academy == Management ==

Football management Source: Owners In 1897, the club incorporated as a limited company. From their establishment until 2020, Burnley were run by local businessmen and supporters. In May 2023, J. J. Watt, a retired defensive end in American football's National Football League, and his wife, former United States women's national soccer team international Kealia Watt, were announced as new minority investors. YouTube group Dude Perfect also became minority investors in the club later that year. In July 2025, ALK Capital, through investment arm Velocity Sport Limited, acquired a majority stake in Spanish side Espanyol, bringing Burnley into a multi-club ownership model. Board of directors Source: Chairmen The following have been chairman of the club's board of directors: == Honours ==

Burnley were the second, and are one of only five teams to have won all four professional divisions of English football, along with Wolverhampton Wanderers, Preston North End, Sheffield United and Portsmouth. League • First Division (level 1) • Champions: 1920–21, 1959–60 • Runners-up: 1919–20, 1961–62 • Second Division / Championship (level 2) • Champions: 1897–98, 1972–73, 2015–16, 2022–23 • Promoted: 1912–13, 1946–47, 2013–14, 2024–25 • Play-off winners: 2009 • Third Division / Second Division (level 3) • Champions: 1981–82 • Promoted: 1999–2000 • Play-off winners: 1994 • Fourth Division (level 4) • Champions: 1991–92 Cup • FA Cup • Winners: 1913–14 • Runners-up: 1946–47, 1961–62 • FA Charity Shield • Winners: 1960 (shared), 1973 • Runners-up: 1921 • Texaco Cup • Runners-up: 1973–74 • Anglo-Scottish Cup • Winners: 1978–79 • Associate Members' Cup • Runners-up: 1987–88 Regional • Lancashire Cup • Winners (13): 1889–90, 1914–15, 1949–50, 1951–52, 1959–60, 1960–61, 1961–62, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1969–70, 1971–72, 1992–93, 2022–23 == Records and statistics ==

holds the record for most Burnley appearances, with 569.|alt=A black and white image of Jerry Dawson posing and staring in front of him The record for the most first team appearances in all competitions for Burnley is held by goalkeeper Jerry Dawson, who played 569 games between 1907 and 1929. The club's top goal scorer is George Beel, who scored 188 goals from 1923 to 1932. Willie Irvine became top goal scorer in the first tier in 1965–66 with 29 goals, also a unique feat in the club's history. Jimmy McIlroy is the most capped player while at the club, making 51 appearances for Northern Ireland between 1951 and 1962. The first Burnley player to play in a full international match was John Yates, who took to the field for England against Ireland in March 1889. He scored a hat-trick but was never called up again. In January 1957, 17-year-old Ian Lawson netted a record four goals on his debut for Burnley against Chesterfield in the FA Cup third round. The youngest player to play for the club is Tommy Lawton, who was aged 16 years and 174 days on his debut against Doncaster Rovers in the Second Division on 28 March 1936. His debut made him the then youngest centre-forward ever to play in the Football League. The oldest player is Len Smelt, who played his last match aged 41 years and 132 days against Arsenal in the First Division on 18 April 1925. The club's largest win in league football was a 9–0 victory against Darwen in the 1891–92 Football League season. Burnley's largest victories in the FA Cup have been 9–0 wins over Crystal Palace (1908–09), New Brighton (1956–57) and Penrith (1984–85). The highest transfer fee paid by Burnley is the circa £23 million paid to Chelsea for midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu in 2025. Bob Kelly broke the world transfer record in 1925, when he moved for a fee of £6,500 () from Burnley to Sunderland. == Notes ==