Clarets Collected

This Lancashire Archives and Local History project, which involves colleagues from across the county council's Cultural Services and external partners, has brought together a fan-led Burnley Football Club Archive at Burnley Library.

The Clarets Collection is a wonderful resource for everyone with an interest in the club: with its level of support per head of population Burnley is arguably the prime example of a "Football Town".

Burnley FC is one of the original twelve clubs that founded the Football League in 1888. Since 1882 the ups and downs of the club have been a significant thread in the history of our national game. The Clarets won the FA Cup in 1913-1914 and are one of only three teams to have been champions in all four divisions. In 1987, at its lowest point, the club almost dropped out of the league altogether. A home win of 2-1 over Orient saved them on the last day of the season. Now, with Burnley back in the Premier League once again, Clarets Collected is helping to collect and preserve the Club’s story, and make it available for everyone to explore, enjoy and celebrate.

The core of the collection arrived at the library in April 2023 – a small group of Burnley fans have generously donated their personal collections of match programmes, fanzines, photographs, memorabilia. This group includes Dave Thomas, author of over 20 books about the club.

The Friends of Lancashire Archives have generously funded an Engagement Officer for two years to catalogue what’s arrived, store it safely and work with fans to grow the collection further. This has continued throughout the period, with Clarets related donations of all types still being brought in.

We are now into the final stage of our two-year plan of:

  • Making the collection available to anyone who wants to drop-in at Burnley Library
  • Involving volunteers in what we are doing, with them indexing the vast amount of material and taking ownership of their work
  • Developing a new gallery space at the library with a Clarets exhibitions and events programme
  • Exploring ways of making the collection available online
  • Offering sessions to schools so that children can learn about the heritage of the club. Several schools have already taken advantage of this opportunity, which as well as activities around the library collection have included guided tours of Turf Moor, hosted by our partners in this venture Burnley Football Club in the Community

Plus, on the Saturday of every weekend that Burnley FC have a home game we have hosted Family Drop-In sessions where alongside the opportunity to explore the Collection there has been a great range of family-friendly activities and special events – see the Burnley Library Events page for what's coming up next.

There is still lots to do though, and we would love to see Clarets Collected go on though to Burnley's Year of Culture in 2027. To that end we are currently running a Crowd Funding appeal to try and make that happen so that we can deliver more events and exhibitions, more free sessions for primary schools and more volunteering opportunities. You can help by making a pledge. It doesn’t need to be much – even £2 shows your support and encourages others to give.

Clarets Collected has worked closely with Burnley Football Club in the Community and the National Football Museum, and would be delighted if any other individuals or organisations would like to find out more about how to get involved.

Contact us by email archives@lancashire.gov.uk or phone 01254 220606 if you want to know more about the project, or have items you might want to donate to the Collection.

Clarets collected is also supported by the HM Government Know Your Neighbourhood fund

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