Burnley Trivia
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59 free Burnley trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Burnley are a mill town of 80,000 people that has twice been champion of England, one of the twelve founder members of the Football League and one of only five clubs to have won all four divisions. This quiz covers the whole story: the rugby club that voted to switch codes in 1882, the royal visit that made Turf Moor a first, the 1914 FA Cup received from King George V, the 30-match unbeaten run of 1920-21, Harry Potts's home-grown 1960 champions, Bob Lord and Gawthorpe, the Wimbledon shock, the 1987 brush with the Conference, Owen Coyle, Sean Dyche, Vincent Kompany's 101 points and Scott Parker's 16-goals-conceded season. Early questions suit anyone who has stood on the Longside; later ones are for Clarets who know their Bee Hole End from their Cricket Field Stand: why the club wore a Prince of Wales crest, what Turf Moor sells that no other British ground does, and which liqueur East Lancashire soldiers brought home from the trenches. Good for a supporters' club night or an East Lancashire pub quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the club, its history and Turf Moor, and each question shows its source.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Burnley Football Club was founded in May 1882 by members of a club that played which sport?
Rugby
Rugby. Members of Burnley Rovers met at the Bull Hotel on 18 May 1882, voted to change codes to association football, and soon dropped 'Rovers' from the name.
Q 02Burnley joined the breakaway British Football Association in 1884 to fight the FA over what?
The ban on professional players
The ban on professional players. Lancashire clubs such as Burnley were already paying Scottish imports, and within a year the FA gave way, voting in July 1885 to allow paid players.
Q 03Which royal watched a match at Turf Moor in October 1886, the first royal visit to a professional football ground?
Prince Albert Victor
Prince Albert Victor. Queen Victoria's grandson was in town to open a hospital, and Burnley, allowed to display the royal arms, were nicknamed 'the Royalites' for years afterwards.
Q 04Which club joined Burnley among the Football League's 12 founder members in 1888?
Preston North End
Preston North End. They beat Burnley 5–2 on the opening day and went the whole season unbeaten; the 12 founders had wanted regular home-and-away fixtures to bring in a reliable income.
Q 05Burnley's William Tait scored the Football League's first-ever what, against Bolton in September 1888?
A hat-trick
A hat-trick. Tait struck three times in a 4–3 win at Bolton on 15 September 1888, a week after the league kicked off, to give Burnley their first-ever league victory.
Q 06Why was Burnley goalkeeper Jack Hillman suspended for a whole season in 1900?
Trying to bribe Nottingham Forest players
Trying to bribe Nottingham Forest players. With Burnley needing a win to stay up, he was said to have offered them £2 a man to 'take it easy'; Forest won 4–0 and he was banned for a year.
Q 07Before adopting claret and blue in 1910, what colour shirts had Burnley worn for the previous decade?
Green
Green. The story goes that it was thought unlucky, so in 1910 the club copied the claret and blue of league champions Aston Villa, and the nickname 'the Clarets' followed.
Q 08Burnley lifted the FA Cup in 1914 by beating which club 1–0 in the final?
Liverpool
Liverpool. Bert Freeman's goal settled both clubs' first final, and days later they met again for charity at Anfield, where the cup was paraded and Liverpool won 1–0.
Q 09Which king handed Burnley the FA Cup, the first reigning monarch to present the trophy at a final?
George V
George V. No reigning monarch had attended a final before, and Burnley, 'the Royalites' since a royal visit to Turf Moor, were allowed to wear the royal arms on their shirts that day.
Q 10Burnley's 30-game unbeaten run in 1920–21 was an English single-season record until which club beat it?
Arsenal
Arsenal. Their unbeaten 'Invincibles' season of 2003–04 finally passed a mark Burnley had set on the way to a first league title, after losing the first three games of 1920–21.
Q 11In 1925 Burnley sold Bob Kelly to Sunderland for a fee that broke what?
The world transfer record
The world transfer record. Sunderland broke the mark they had set three years earlier, yet sold Kelly on within two years.
Q 12Which England winger scored a club-record six goals for Burnley in a 7–1 win at Birmingham in 1926?
Louis Page
Louis Page. His six goals came in the run-in of a season Burnley survived in the First Division by a single point, and the following year he won seven England caps.
Q 13Which forward, rejected by Manchester United after a trial, became Burnley's record goalscorer?
George Beel
Q 21Burnley lost the 1962 FA Cup final to which club?
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs won 3–1 at Wembley to end a painful spring for Burnley, who had chased the double and also finished runners-up in the league, behind Ipswich Town.
Q 22The controversial 1963 sale of playmaker Jimmy McIlroy took him to which club?
Stoke City
Stoke City. Chairman Bob Lord let him go for just £25,000, to the fury of Burnley fans, and within months he and Stanley Matthews had helped Stoke win promotion to the First Division.
Q 23Which England star joined Burnley from Everton in March 2002 to boost their push for the play-offs?
Paul Gascoigne
George Beel. He arrived from Chesterfield in 1923, and his club-record 35 league goals in 1927–28 kept a struggling side in the First Division by a single point.
Q 14Which goalkeeper, signed in 1907, made a club-record 522 league appearances for Burnley?
Jerry Dawson
Jerry Dawson. He stood down injured from the 1914 FA Cup final, yet the FA still gave him a medal.
Q 15Which future England centre-forward made his Burnley debut aged 16 in March 1936?
Tommy Lawton
Tommy Lawton. He scored twice in his second game, and within a year Everton had paid £6,500 to make the teenager Dixie Dean's successor.
Q 16Burnley's 1946-47 defence conceded only 29 goals in 42 games and earned what nickname?
The Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain. Behind it Burnley won promotion in the first season after the war and reached the FA Cup final, where Charlton needed extra time to beat them 1–0.
Q 17Burnley's pioneering purpose-built training ground, opened under Bob Lord in the 1950s, was called what?
Gawthorpe
Gawthorpe. It was set up in 1955, when training away from the stadium was almost unheard of, and first-team players helped dig its ditches.
Q 18Who managed Burnley to the 1959-60 First Division title?
Harry Potts
Harry Potts. His side took the title by winning their final match, having not led the table at any point since the opening week of the season.
Q 19Burnley's 1959-60 title-winning squad cost only about how much in transfer fees?
£13,000
£13,000. Only Jimmy McIlroy and Alex Elder, both bought from the Belfast club Glentoran, cost a fee; every other player had been found young and brought through at Burnley.
Q 20Which club knocked Burnley out of the 1960-61 European Cup quarter-finals?
Hamburger SV
Hamburger SV. Burnley won the home leg 3–1, but Uwe Seeler scored twice as the West German champions won the return 4–1 and went through 5–4 on aggregate.
Paul Gascoigne. Gazza played six league games, but Burnley finished level on points with sixth-placed Norwich and missed the play-offs by a single goal, and he left that summer.
Q 24Which then Southern League club shocked Burnley 1-0 at Turf Moor in the 1975 FA Cup?
Wimbledon
Wimbledon. One goal and the heroics of goalkeeper Dickie Guy did it for the non-league side, and in 2017 another, Lincoln City, knocked Burnley out at Turf Moor by the same score.
Q 25Which Conservative politician opened Turf Moor's Bob Lord Stand in 1974?
Edward Heath
Edward Heath. The stand opened weeks after Burnley sold Martin Dobson to Everton for £300,000, and fans who blamed the chairman for the sale dubbed it the 'Martin Dobson Stand'.
Q 26Burnley stayed in the Football League in 1986-87 with a last-day win over which club?
Orient
Orient. More than 15,000 came, over four times the season's average, to see Burnley win 2–1, and Lincoln City went down instead in the first year of automatic relegation from the League.
Q 27Burnley's 1988 Wembley final, watched by a record 80,000 for two fourth-tier clubs, came in which competition?
Sherpa Van Trophy
Sherpa Van Trophy. Burnley lost 2–0, but the day out came just a year after they had needed a last-day win to stay in the Football League at all.
Q 28Which manager won his first nine league games in charge of Burnley on the way to the 1991–92 Fourth Division title?
Jimmy Mullen
Jimmy Mullen. He was only the caretaker when the run began, the assistant asked to fill in after Frank Casper resigned, and by May Burnley were out of the bottom division after seven years.
Q 29The collapse of which broadcaster in 2002 plunged Burnley and other Football League clubs into financial trouble?
ITV Digital
ITV Digital. It went into administration in March 2002 with most of a £315m, three-year deal for Football League rights unpaid, money that dozens of clubs had been counting on.
Q 30Which manager took Burnley back to the top flight in 2009 after 33 years, then soon left for Bolton?
Owen Coyle
Owen Coyle. He left in January 2010, halfway through the Premier League season, calling his new club 'five or 10 years ahead' of Burnley, who were relegated that spring.