Vital Statistics
Founded: 1882
Chairman: Barry Kilby
Last Season: Championship - 8th
Nickname: The Clarets
Rivals: Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End, Bolton Wanderers
Major Honours
League Champions: 1921, 1960
FA Cup: 1914
Scheduled Matches
Burnley vs Portsmouth: Saturday, December 10th (3pm)
Portsmouth vs Burnley: Saturday, March 31st (3pm)
Transfers In
Ben Mee (Manchester City - Loan)
Keiran Trippier (Manchester City - Loan)
Keith Treacy (Preston - Undisclosed)
Transfers Out
Kevin McDonald (Released)
Stephen Thompson (St. Mirren - Free)
Remco van der Schaaf (Brondby - Free)
Michael King (Released)
Graham Alexander (Released)
Clarke Carlisle (Preston - Loan)
Chris Iwelumo (Watford - Undisclosed)
Tyrone Mears (Bolton - Undisclosed)
Chris Eagles (Bolton - Undisclosed)
Probable Starting XI
GK: Brian JENSEN
RB: Keiran TRIPPIER
CB: Ben MEE
CB: Andre AMOUGOU
LB: Danny FOX
RM: Keith TREACY
CM: Chris McCANN
CM: Kyle BARTLEY
LM: Ross WALLACE
CF: Martin PATERSON
CF: Jay RODRIGUEZ
The Manager: Eddie Howe
Howe will be known by all Portsmouth fans as the promising young player who could never beat his injury curse, making just two appearances for Pompey before returning to Bournemouth where he had to take early retirement.
He then became Cherries manager and took them from the depths of League Two to League One promotion contenders before leaving Dean Court for Burnley. Howe is now seen as one of the brightest young managers in the game and will be expected to do good things at Turf Moor.
The Fans
Most Burnley fans I've spoken to are genuinely decent people but there still seem to be a few that have a chip on their shoulder from when Pompey took six points from them in the 2009/2010 season which contributed to the Clarets' relegation when our club could have gone bust and helped their situation.
Cricketer Jimmy Anderson and Alistair Campbell are famous Burnley fans whilst there are a few Corrie actors who also claim to support the Clarets.
Burnley fan Ben Redman on the upcoming season:
As far as season expectations go, it's a difficult one. Many supporters have had a disillusioned pre-season having seen the likes of Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, Chris Eagles and Tyrone Mears leave for one reason or another, as well as missing out on the permanent signing of Jack Cork.
Meanwhile, up until recently, we'd only bought in a couple of loan signings. A vocal minority of supporters seem to think the Premier League money is being held back to go in director's pockets, but the fact is not one of us really understands the finance aspect of football and we can trust our chairman and directors, as fans of the club, to do the sensible and right thing.
The board have pulled their fingers out to secure Keith Treacy from Preston and Howe insists there's more signings to come, so I'm perfectly happy going into the season.
I'd say our squad now is better than the one we got promoted with, it will just come down to team ethos and managerial decisions how far we can go. I'll be happy with top ten again this season as Howe is still assembling his squad and stamping his mark on things at the football club. I think we can only judge him fairly in a couple of years.
The usual cliches are falling into place; it'll be a tough league this season, on our day we can beat anyone, etc, but it's just great to have club football back and I'm sure everyone else is with me there! Up the Clarets.
The Ground: Turf Moor (Capacity: 22,500)
Turf Moor is one ground I can definitely say is worse than Fratton Park. The away end (David Fishwick Stand) is reminiscent of a freezing cold garage interior with some nasty wooden seats that ended up blurring the camera!
This stand will eventually be replaced with a new single tier stand with a cricket pavillion on the back.
This is the Bob Lord Stand, another very old stand in an era where not many of them exist nowadays. This stand is set to be refurbished.
The Jimmy McIlroy Stand, it seems to be the equivalent of our Fratton End.
The James Hargreaves Stand, it's certainly much better than the other parts of the ground and the fans sitting in this part of the ground seem to be the most vociferous.
