Once again we visit beautiful Burnley, this time with a 8pm kick off on Monday evening, thanks once again to our very good friends at Sky Sports. You’ll find Turf Moor about a mile to the east of Burnley town centre.

If you're coming by car you need to leave the M65 at Junction 10 and follow signs for Towneley Hall. This road eventually goes past the ground, where there is a car park at the cricket ground behind the visitors' turnstiles, costing £6.

There is also a private car park available on Doris Street, off Belverdere Road (BB11 3DL), which is around 400 yards from the stadium and costs £5, and a bit further away there are 200 spaces next to the Reel Cinema on Manchester Road, which is handy for getting back to the motorway after the game. Otherwise there is plenty of street parking, but it's recommended that you remove any Leeds colours from your car, as there have been problems in the past with damaged motors.

There are two railway stations that are in walking distance of Turf Moor, Burnley Central (20 minutes walk from the ground) and Burnley Manchester Road (15 minutes walk). Anyone coming from Leeds will arrive at Manchester Road, as Central station is on the branch line to Colne and is only served by local trains coming from the Blackburn direction. There are trains back from the Manchester Road station at 22.20 and 22.59, both going direct to Leeds.

Leaving Manchester Road station you need to cross the main road towards the cinema, and the ground should be clearly visible in the distance straight ahead. Turn left down the 'Centenary Way' dual carriageway (A682) going downhill towards the ground, and in a few minutes you'll come to a roundabout where you should turn right under the canal bridge into Yorkshire Street (A671). Continue down this road and you will reach Turf Moor on your left, with the away stand being the first one you come to.

The pub which is recommended for away fans is the clubhouse at the Cricket Club (by the car park mentioned above), and another option is the Park View, opposite the other end of the ground. Also worth mentioning is the ‘Queen Victoria’ (about half a mile from the ground heading north on the A6144 Belvedere Road).

The best bet in the town centre is the ‘Bridge Bier Huis’ (and yes, it really is spelt like that) which is in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and serves real ales and a large selection of bottled beers from around the world. Sadly, most of the other pubs in the town centre are best avoided, along with the Turf Hotel' on Yorkshire Street.

The capacity of Turf Moor has been 22,546 since half the ground was rebuilt in the mid 1990's at a total cost of £5.3 million. The two new stands, The Jimmy McIlroy & James Hargreaves stands were built on two large former terraces at one end and one side of the ground, and were completed by September 1996. Away fans are in one of the older and smaller stands, the David Fishwick Stand (formerly the Cricket Field Stand).

When we last came to Burnley in the Championship we used to get the whole of this end, which amounted to 4,125 seats, but we’ve only got an allocation of 2,283 this time, amounting to roughly half the stand. Obviously Burnley fans are still clamouring for tickets despite Scott Parker’s desperately dull football, thinking they might make a quick return to the Premier League.

And of course the Leeds allocation has now sold out. The view and legroom are pretty good, although the seats are made from wood. When this stand opened it was the first in the country to have central heating installed with hot pipes under the seats, but they have never been used, even when this area was for home fans!

There are two small stanchions to spoil the view for some, though they are away from the centre of the pitch. There are several snack bars, but they don't usually serve beer to away fans, although the pies are pretty good. The concourse can get really crowded at times and the toilets are fairly basic. At least the ticket prices are £35 for adults. With concessions at £28 and £18.

Burnley are gradually modernising bits of Turf Moor, but unfortunately this won’t lead to any increase in capacity, though they are getting on with the really important stuff. They have now got a premium dining space called a ‘Super Box’ and they’re claiming to have one of the most ‘digitally advanced stadiums in Europe’. Which is nice, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get a bigger allocation any time soon.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com.

Reuters

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