London Clarets 25th
anniversary
The Burnley London Supporters Club (commonly known as the
London Clarets) was founded in 1976 by a small number of fans on their way back from a
match at Norwich City, who wondered why they kept seeing the same faces on trains from
London when Burnley were playing!
The club was formally established during
season 1976-77 with the blessing of the legendary Burnley Chairman Bob Lord. Lord was not
noted for his tolerance of supporters' organisations, and at the time Burnley did not even
have an official supporters club. However, it's said that Lord decided we were too far
away to interfere in anything!
That makes us the oldest of the many Burnley
supporters groups around today.
Our membership has grown to a present day
level of around 400, and we have published over 140 editions of our newsletter / magazine since our
early days. More than anything, we have enabled hundreds of people to get to see Burnley,
and kept the Claret flame burning in the South East. That said, although the main focus is
on the south, we have members all over the country and overseas.
The club has always been an autonomous body, but has
generally enjoyed a good and supportive relationship with Burnley Football Club. A lot of
this is thanks to our Honorary President, Peter Pike, the MP for Burnley.
A sum of over £7,000 has been raised during recent years
and donated via various forms of sponsorship to Burnley FC. In the dark days of 1986-87,
which culminated in The Orient Game, the London Clarets made a straight cash gift to the
club, but since then we have sponsored matches, match balls, players kit, programmes and
the community scheme. It was recently decided to concentrate our sponsorship on the
Gawthorpe redevelopment scheme.
In 1998 we launched our website, which has now grown from
an initial handful of pages to its present massive incarnation.
London Clarets 25th
anniversary celebrations in the Silver Selection
