There will be a minute's silence ahead of kick-off at Burnley todayin memory of former Burnley Chairman Frank Teasdale and former player Ray Pointer who both recently passed away.
Several Burnley fans have tweeted stuff like this... Massive respect to the hull fans at Burnley today. Respected the minute silence fully @hullcity
I enjoyed the 30 mins silence from the home fans in the second half too as City monopolised possession.
I thought their support was very good in the first half, far better than we manage at home and far better than most of the other clubs we've played away this season.
Burnley have always been passionate in the support of their club , gave good backing at the KC last season .
I remember someone told me that when Burnley were in the old Div.1 back in the 70 ' s they were the best supported team in the country re. per head of population of the town/city they play in . Not sure if that stat. would still be valid today but with a population of 70,000 the crowds they get are very good when you look at the other teams that are local .
It still will be. Just after the war Burnley averaged 33,000 and often averaged 25,000 up,toy the 1970s. If we had the same proportion just from the city boundaries going as Burnley got in PL we would have been getting 70,000-80,000 (double that if the urban area is taken into consideration). Leeds would have to get about 130,00 ( nearer 200,000 if the Leeds metropolitan area is used), Middlesbrough were probably the club with thr best support per head of population when they were in PL.
Burnley have fantastic support because they have a fantastic history of overachieving as a football club to their size. The other factor intrinsically linked to small pennine towns along the M62 corridor is Burnleys success as a football club helped prevent the scourge of Rugby League taking hold. If Hull City had had half the success Burnley had had in the 20th century than Hull KR & our other eggchasing club may well be only the size of Burnley & Pendle Sheepdogs.
Or maybe they overachieved as they had fantastic support relative to the size of the town. They had a football club for 30 years before Hull and were founder members of the league. Hull, which had a population 5 or 6 times that of Burnley, behind the trend as usual, had 2 rugby teams whilst other similar sized and smaller towns and cities were setting up football league teams. The only other city to have 2 rugby teams before they had a football team in the league was Leeds.
Football clubs were everywhere before the various code splits. All clubs were football clubs. Some became Rugby Football clubs, some in 1895 became Northern Union (RL), some became Association football clubs. Yorkshire, Sheffield apart, was Rugby. Hull was no slower than Leeds or Bradford- it was just the way rugby was in this county. Football was bigger in the NW and Midlands because the directors wanted local derbies, bigger crowds and low travelling expenses. They all wanted to keep the Cockneys out.
The football league was founded in 1888, seven years before the Northern Union was formed. I didn't say Hull was slower than Leeds or Bradford, Hull City was formed a year before Leeds City and only a year after Bradford City. Leeds City struggled in a rugby city and only averaged 10,000, crowds not picking up until after they restarted as Leeds United. Bradford City were formed from Manningham, the first RL champions, changing codes. This rather worried the RL authorities. Hull FC were at one time toying with the idea of changing their second team to football. Which is why when City started attracting decent crowds they brought in a ruling where you couldn't use a RL ground for football. Hull FC had been quite happy with the arrangement.
Recommended reading: Beastly Fury:The strange birth of British Football by Richard Sanders Hull Football Club was founded in 1865. The FA was formed in 1872. The Football League was in 1888. Bradford City got straight in the Football League without even playing a game. Ditto Chelsea. The FL was very keen to expand and couldn't wait to get clubs like these into the fold.
As you said before, they were all football clubs. FC were started by some public schoolboys from,York. I know Bradford City went straight into the league. In fact they hadn't played a game when they registered. They did jeep Manningham's colours though. Chelsea were formed as Fulham didn't want to use Stamford Bridge. I think the original idea was to call them London FC. Which might have been a good idea as very few capital cities don't have a club bearing their name.The FL was keen to expand and the ones in charge of both codes were equally keen for them not to.
