Do you actively try and promote Burnley FC to the locals and have you had any success in gaining interest or got people to support us as a result?

Cricketfields the worlds ambassador on recruiting from foreign parts...

yes...but i do live in burnley.

I wear my Burnley gear regularly, but I never get a reaction. Even people who know football confuse Burnley with Barnsley.

Even with increased TV coverage on Saturday mornings, we're constantly being patronized by the talking heads, even with Steve Caldwell one of the members.

I do, and with success. I don't impinge, but folk ask if I like football when they suss I'm English. Until recently I was living in Denver. A work colleague took an interest and now owns 2 shirts, other gear and subscribes to Clarets Player. His kid also now watches BFC. I've since moved to San Diego and he still goes on his own to the local "English Pub" to watch Burnley.

A Mexican mate now also supports us- and my American wife (nurse) was treating a guy living in Boulder, who also turned out to be a Claret. We watched games together. He runs a football school in Boulder- who he says has 5 other Burnley fans working there. Think some are English, and some are yanks.

Interestingly here, many are quite new converts to watching and don't have a perception of club size / history- they just know what they see on NBC. Some would perceive us to be no different to Southampton or Sunderland, size wise. Quite an opportunity to expand our overseas fan base, social following etc.

There is an established base here in Canada, in Barrie, Ontario. For some bizarre reason, 20 Burnley families took up residence in the same small (50,000) town, back in the '60s-'70s. It was even smaller then. They even take over a certain bar on game days. Unfortunately, it's a 2 hour drive for me.

ontario claret wrote:There is an established base here in Canada, in Barrie, Ontario. For some bizarre reason, 20 Burnley families took up residence in the same small (50,000) town, back in the '60s-'70s. It was even smaller then. They even take over a certain bar on game days. Unfortunately, it's a 2 hour drive for me.

Possibly related to cotton/mills. My grandfather moved over to Canada for that reason back in the 70s to oversee a new factory and the looms if I recall correctly. He was down in Cambridge Ontario

Down here in Melbourne Australia, Melbourne Clarets is slowly growing. We have several Aussies among our large contingent of ex-pats. Friends and partners of Clarets, some converted from other clubs, plus a couple of out and out Aussies. We started out 3 years ago now when a post was put on the old CMif any clarets wanted to meet up for the Blackburn game. Six of us turned up. Two ex-pats, an Aussie partner, an Aussie convert, and two sisters in Melbourne on holiday. From that night we decided to form Melbourne Clarets. We now have 36 signed up members, but there are at least another dozen or so clarets around that I know of. We watched games originally in the Charles Dickens pub, this was shared with supporters of several other clubs. This year we moved to the Sherlock Holmes were we have exclusivity. We get on average 15-20 to games. Tonight for Swansea we're expecting about 10-15. Kick off times of 2am don't help. You can see more about us on here https://www.facebook.com/groups/106505273127899/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also http://www.uptheclarets.com/supporters-clubs-directory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

UTC.

A few disciples in Perth Western Australia (39C here today). I take every opportunity to spread the good word - enclosed spaces like lifts are best so potential converts cannot escape easily. See myself as a Clarets Eric Oldfield for those of you who remember Ripping Yarns.
1-0 win tonight.
UTC

Most people in the area of Thailand where I live support either Liverpool or Man Utd so no surprises there. There's even a Kop Cafe which is a bit like a shrine to Bill Shankley. The main difference now is that people no longer say "where" when I tell them I'm from Burnley. Barton and Heaton seem to have made the biggest impression on Thais where I live.

Let'sChaseTheDragon wrote:I do, and with success. I don't impinge, but folk ask if I like football when they suss I'm English. Until recently I was living in Denver. A work colleague took an interest and now owns 2 shirts, other gear and subscribes to Clarets Player. His kid also now watches BFC. I've since moved to San Diego and he still goes on his own to the local "English Pub" to watch Burnley.

A Mexican mate now also supports us- and my American wife (nurse) was treating a guy living in Boulder, who also turned out to be a Claret. We watched games together. He runs a football school in Boulder- who he says has 5 other Burnley fans working there. Think some are English, and some are yanks.

Interestingly here, many are quite new converts to watching and don't have a perception of club size / history- they just know what they see on NBC. Some would perceive us to be no different to Southampton or Sunderland, size wise. Quite an opportunity to expand our overseas fan base, social following etc.

Where abouts in SD are you? I was in Carlsbad area over Christmas and then drove out to Joshua Tree. Amazing part of the world. I took Benedictine and good beer. They loved it

I was walking down the Las Vegas strip the day we won the league last year wearing my Burnley shirt with pride - 2 random blokes across the street starting shouting "Champione Champione ole ole ole" at me - it was superb and worth at least another 3 beers to me that night !

I play EVE and through Teamspeak i've got a German, a Scot and an American paying attention to Burnley's exploits this season. I've told that that makes them fans.

The number of Burnley fans is growing fast in Mauritius due to TV coverage of their matches .

ontario claret wrote:I wear my Burnley gear regularly, but I never get a reaction. Even people who know football confuse Burnley with Barnsley.

Do you ever get the sadly standard reaction of people thinking that you are wearing either a West Ham or Aston Villa top?

When I lived in the UK, I lived in Manchester for a time. Because I never lived in one place for too long, I usually say I'm from Manchester when people ask (never lived in Burnley). Every single time the question is the same: United or City?

Neither! Burnley!

There will either be a glazed look on the person's face (100% of the time when female and about 50-60% of the time when male).

I usually proudly tell people that Burnley are now in the Premier League and compare us to Villareal in terms of the small size of the town and attendance. If their interest hasn't wavered by this point, I'll mention our fine history etc.

Not managed to convert many but my in-laws look out for Burnley results (they're Espanyol fans) and now support Burnley as their second team. Got a couple of mates who keep an eye on us as well but they can never understand our suffering since they support FC Barcelona!

Got 3 Australian converts and an American so far. Still working on it but now I'm back in the UK it is much more difficult.

The English are sooooo stayed in my humble

Impossible really as everyone is either a Man Yooo or Liverpool fan here in Ireland .

No Celtic fans, then?

It's like a foreign land down here in Kent and I often meet several fellow Clarets on the train heading into and out of London when attending away matches.

South West Claret. wrote:The English are sooooo stayed in my humble

I can assure you, SW, that personally I'm not stayed in anyone's humble.

So there.

Not writing everything out that i just lost in typing, but will be watching from The Lounge on Bonanza Square Benalmádena Spain with about a dozen other Clarets here's hoping for our first 3 away points of the season today

Redbeard wrote:No Celtic fans, then?

Yep there sure are they are both Man Yoooo and Liverpool fans also

_Soclaretes_ wrote:Where abouts in SD are you? I was in Carlsbad area over Christmas and then drove out to Joshua Tree. Amazing part of the world. I took Benedictine and good beer. They loved it

I'm close to downtown / coast, in South Park. Love Joshua Tree, Yosemite and Sequoia- all within striking distance- as you say, an amazing place to live!

I'm back in East Lancs now but I managed to get a few Brazilians interested last year over in Rio. I'll be taking a few half price home shirts out on my next visit in a couple of weeks.
It helped that the only championship game of ours that was shown on Brazilian TV was friday night away at Brentford. I forced a few work colleagues to watch that and we were brilliant first half. 'Like watching Brazil' one of them said when Arfield put it in the top corner.

No Ney Never wrote:Do you actively try and promote Burnley FC to the locals and have you had any success in gaining interest or got people to support us as a result?

I have a challenge on my hands promoting Burnley FC to my nephews and they live in Leeds!

I love this thread. I always try to promote bfc wherever I can.

I'm presently having a 3 week holiday around Cape Town. I wear Burnley tops all over the place and the number of people who recognise the team shirt and want to talk about our club amazes me. I expected to see lots of Man U.and LPool but the only shirt I see is Chelsea. The Cape Town Clarets does not appear to be any longer in existence.
With what I've seen from a English football mad nation is the potential to build a good fan base of Burnley supporters.

Yes, johndeary, that's EXACTLY the reaction. I put it down to the Prem taking over the world. The Toronto Star used to run the results of all 4 League divisions, but no longer. Not since a long time ago. It implies that all that is worth watching is the Prem, which is the exact opposite of the truth. Sportsnet, the main carrier of the Prem on Saturday mornings, even takes it one step further by only displaying the banners of Liverpool, ManU, Chelsea, and Arsenal behind their panel discussions. It makes me think that they're just preparing us for a permanent Champion's League.

Further to that, I used to work with a guy who wore a West Ham top occasionally. Even he thought it was a West Ham shirt. (Well, he was a West Ham fan. Obviously not the sharpest knife in the drawer.)

And there never were any cotton mills in Barrie. A big tire factory (since closed), and sundry other manufacturing jobs. But it DOES have a physical similarity to Burnley, with a big east-west valley running down the middle. They also had a big tornado go through part of the town back in the '80s. Several people died.

Tribesmen wrote:Impossible really as everyone is either a Man Yooo or Liverpool fan here in Ireland .

True Tribesmen- but the Irish lads in the team have made Burnley a lot of people's second favourite side..!

Winston Salem NC. Not sure if I'm laughed at, but sitting in Juggheads watching Burnley @ 10.00 am Saturday on my third beer and making every pass, every tackle. Yeh, I exported you lot. You are probably all f**king crazy like me though......

Must be a decent boozer, triad, none of the blighters will serve until 11am here, so I watch from home

irishhorsey, there's always been a traditional link between Burnley and Ireland, although it used to be with the north. It's not really anything new.

ontario claret wrote:I wear my Burnley gear regularly, but I never get a reaction. Even people who know football confuse Burnley with Barnsley.

I could understand if your gear is confused with West Ham or Villa, but Barnsley? Who is Barnsley?

Vegas Claret wrote:I was walking down the Las Vegas strip the day we won the league last year wearing my Burnley shirt with pride - 2 random blokes across the street starting shouting "Champione Champione ole ole ole" at me - it was superb and worth at least another 3 beers to me that night !

My husband and myself (he is scouse) were walking through Alnwick Northumberland (okay I know this thread is Clarets around the World) on the day we won the league at the end of last season, but we had Burnley gear on but at least 2 cars went past pipping like mad and giving us the thumbs up (being Burnley born and bred I was well proud!)and one local guy smiling and shaking my husbands hand and saying Well Done Burnley Championies, to which my husband replied "cheers La"!

Who is Barnsley? More like WHAT is Barnsley? It's somewhere in South Yorkshire. They had a year in the Prem once. (ONCE!)

Ukrainians were always non-plussed when we were championship because a championship team in Ukraine usually plays at a ground that resembles The Crown or the Shay.

After Euro 2016 and the clarets league position more people have taken notice. They've been coined 'the team that ruins bets' quite pleased with that.