Following on from my post the other day on our great 1921 side, another copy and paste of text from Facebook.

I'd never seen a colour version of this before.

'THE BURNLEY F.A. CUP WINNING TEAM OF 1914

In front of over 15,000 travelling Clarets in a crowd of 72,778 at The Crystal Palace grounds, and the first final to be watched by the reigning monarch (King George V) Burnley finished victorious against a Liverpool side which already had two League titles to its name in the last ever final at this venue.

A hard fought contest was settled by a fierce 58th minute strike from Burnley's Bert Freeman (middle row, centre), who had scored 88 goals in his first 3 full seasons at Turf Moor, and finished with 115 goals in 189 appearances. World War One halted the latter end of his career, and who was quoted as being "an artist with the ball at his toes", and who could "burst through with the best".

Were it not for the Great War, I'm sure that much more silverware would have been won by our great team of that era.

We have a history to be truly proud of Clarets.'

Superb post. Superb photo. The bloke back row, top left must be John Haworth.

Like others have mentioned, we won the cup just before the war and won the league just after, I often wonder what that team would have achieved. Bloody Germans.

Yeah I think we got a bit unlucky during our history in some way. Our first great side was interrupted by World War 1, and our next great side got unlucky with big city club exerting their authority, and the abolition of the maximum wage meaning we struggled competing.

Take a look at Blackburn though, and their main success mainly all came prior to World War 1, they had a benefactor named Lawrence Cotton (the Jack Walker of his day), and won their FA Cups by spending lots of money for that time, which even the first powerhouse in Blackburn, Blackburn's Olympic, couldn't compete with an eventually folded. We were skint in comparison. Haha.

Claretforever wrote:Yeah I think we got a bit unlucky during our history in some way. Our first great side was interrupted by World War 1, and our next great side got unlucky with big city club exerting their authority, and the abolition of the maximum wage meaning we struggled competing.

Take a look at Blackburn though, and their main success mainly all came prior to World War 1, they had a benefactor named Lawrence Cotton (the Jack Walker of his day), and won their FA Cups by spending lots of money for that time, which even the first powerhouse in Blackburn, Blackburn's Olympic, couldn't compete with an eventually folded. We were skint in comparison. Haha.

There's only 2 jack walkers!!

Names again please, Royboy.

Superb photo Claretforever.

In response to # post2 Quicknick, the gentleman top left of the picture is actually trainer Ernest Edwards.

It seems, brilliant manager though he was, that John Howarth must have been somewhat camera shy.

Back Row.......left to right......Ernest Edwards, Tom Bamford, Ronnie Sewell, David Taylor.

Middle Row.......Willie Nesbitt, Richard LIndley, Bert Freeman, Teddy Hodgson, Eddie Mosscrop.

Front Row........George Halley, Tommy Boyle, Willie Watson.

Royboyclaret wrote:It seems, brilliant manager though he was, that John Howarth must have been somewhat camera shy.

I'm sure I read on one of Mike Smith's brilliant books that John Haworth rarely allowed himself to be photographed.


Brilliant thread by the way.

I'm not sure i'm a fan of modernising all these photos with colour. I'd much rather see these historical photographs like everyone at the time saw the world before colour was invented.

My Dad never stopped going on about 'Halley, Boyle and Watson'. As has been mentioned, we will never know what greatness they could have achieved!

There was a video put together by BFC back in 2014 that featured the 1914 Cup win, Bert Freeman as well as an image of his surviving shirt - shown on the big screen on matchdays

Does anyone know where I can get hold of it or view it at least?

Oh and I'm still miffed we didn't release a replica of the 100 years anniversary shirt

I often wonder what chaps like those would think of the BFC of today and of their part in the history and in creating the club we love. I also wonder if they knew they'd always be revered.

Without John Haworth, there would be no clarets.

Just posted on the Burnley Now and Then Facebook page


32,734 att. Sat 21 Feb 1914
Burnley 3 (Freeman, Hodgson and Halley), Bolton 0

Not much room on the Beehole end that day!!

******* hipsters