The Friends are excited about a brilliant new Lancashire Archives project bringing together a fan-led Burnley Football Club Archive at Burnley Library. The collection is a wonderful resource for everyone with an interest in the club and has huge potential in terms of community engagement. We’re leading the campaign to raise £70000 to make Clarets Collected happen.
We have have got the ball rolling by contributing £20000, but we need your support to raise the rest!
Burnley is most definitely 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 1913-14, 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, on the eve of its return to the top flight, Clarets Collected is helping to collect and preserve the Club’s story, and make it available for everyone to explore, enjoy and celebrate.
Creating a football town archive at Burnley Library
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 etc This group includes Dave Thomas, author of over 20 books about the club
The Friends are funding a project officer to catalogue what’s arrived, store it safely and work with fans to grow the collection further.
That’s only the start though. Over the next two years the plan is to:
- make the collection available to anyone who wants to drop-in at Burnley Library
- involve volunteers in what we are doing
- develop a new gallery space at the library with a Clarets exhibitions and events programme
- explore ways of making the collection available online
- offer sessions to schools so that children can learn about the heritage of the club
Key project partners are Burnley Football Club in the Community and the National Football Museum.
Contact us if you would like to make a donation or know more about the project.
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