The lowdown about Tuesday nights visitors.

Burnley is believed to have got its name from the ancient term Brun Lea which means "meadow by the river Brun" which is a right out haul, so having flirted with Bronley and Brumeley before settling on common old Burnley.

The town relied heavily on cotton during the industrial revolution and survived the collapse of the collapse of the Holgate Bank in 1824 and the Cotton Famine 1861-1865 which was caused by the American Civil War.

Although the Cotton Mills have long gone, Burnley boasts an impressive 191 listed buildings including Grade I listed Towneley Hall, which was sold by the family to Burnley Corporation in 1901.

During the Great War 1914-1918 Burnley lost over 4000 of its men, an estimated 15% of the working population. Burnley largely escaped bomb damage during the Second World War as the Luftwaffe had bigger fish to fry such as Manchester just 24 miles to the south.

The 1960's started in some style with Burnley beginning the decade as league Champions, thus prompting a visit from the Queen the following year. Redevelopment was the key word for the rest of the decade and in 1971 more out with the old came with the closure of Bank Hall Colliery, Burnley's largest in April 1971 with the loss of 571 jobs.

The turn of the new Millenium saw a million trees planted under the "Forest of Burnley" scheme but in 2001 Burnley hit the national headlines for the wrong reasons due to the race riots that summer.

The town has been featured in many films and tv drama's including "Whistle down the wind" (1961), the town's fire station and library were used as part of the fictitious Lancashire town of Hartley for the BBC's Juliet Bravo series between 1980-1985. No doubt like me, those of you who can remember back to the good old Tuesday nights of not so long ago when we rarely played on a Tuesday night and won if we did would remember "All quiet on the Preston front" a series about members of the Territorial Army, which too was partly shot in the town.

The great and the good of Burnley include actor Sir Ian McKellen, actor Jody Latham, Shameless creator Paul Abott, Broadcaster and former Sunday Sport editor Tony Livesey and group Chumbawamba, who although it was widely reported hailed from a squat in our very own great City were actually anarchist migrants from Burnley, including Alice Nutter, Lou Watts, Boff Whalley and who could ever forget Danbert Nobacon?

Another tenous link with Yorkshire is the unfavourable term "Dingles" labelled on Burnley fans, usually by reference from rival Blackburn and Preston fans. The best answer I could find is that Blackburn fans likened them to the notorious Emmerdale clan and it sort of caught on and that's about it really!

Photo: Action Images

Oscar_Oddd added 22:53 - Apr 17 The name Burnley sounds great in that central Lancashire accent. Burrrrrrrrrrrnley!
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