When did the enmity between the towns actually begin. Was it just football rivalry or did it start long before then, such as the civil war (bothering the kings horses) etc ?

I would genuinely be interested to know.

For me 1960, FA Cup Burnley 3 Blackburn 3 following awful penalty award against Alex Elder. Blackburn went onto the final and lost to Wolves when " you know who" broke a leg!
It's an ill wind ......

It goes back a lot further than that,i think the rivalry started with Burnley cotton mill owners losing out on a big contract to the Blackburn mill owners.
I'm sure C T will have the exact details.

Who broke a leg ? Do we know him ?

Funkydrummer wrote:Who broke a leg ? Do we know him ?

I think he was called Derek Wheelbrace.

You'd think there would be a strong bond really, the Accrington Pals was made up from lots of Burnley and Blackburn lads.
Imagine that, then the stupidity of hatred over football !!! beggars belief.

gawthorpe_view wrote:I think he was called Derek Wheelbrace.

That's him, bit of a crank !

In the history of the club there's a story about Rovers crying off in the snow.
I believe the FACup 3-3 draw upset a few but am too young to remember.
The first football violence I saw was when they won 4-1 ont'Turf and Mike England played up front and scored twice.
The return match was a war.

I'm sure I've read about some tasty games between the two sides going back as far as the earliest days of the football league.

I'm sure every local game had some needle both on and off the pitch, even before the days of full-on hooliganism on the terraces.

It started when people from Burnley formed the RSPCA having witnessed what that lot up the road were doing to horses.

Don't think there's a specific reason or point of origin. You've just got to have someone to hate and they were there from the start of the football league. Like He Man and Skelator.

Pure dislike from both sides. Let's be honest we are very similar town wise etc and both football teams gives us an excuse for us to vent are anger towards each other fantastic really because although I can't do with them down the road great to know there struggling and in are shadow ha