I love looking at old photos on the Internet, i was just browsing and came across this cracker of a picture which I'd never seen before,does anyone remember going on the Turf when it was like this....ClaretTony maybe does.
Anyone have any idea what year this would be?

Bob Lord looks in better nick there than it does now

Interesting that Harry Potts Way doesn't bend that not now. I take it the road was straightened when the now BL stand was built?

Still does according to Google earth images.

I think that pic is from around the 1920s but I can remember the Footballers Arms being open.

I can remember the old Brunshaw Rd stand, and also the old Cricket field stand, but in my head I thought the old cricket field stand was bigger than that.
I was very young.

Although I don’t remember the 1920’s, I did live at 120 Brunshaw Rd (4 doors up from the Turf) when I was small - in the 1940’s. I remember the old stand well, with the standing enclosure in front of it. The Cricket Field stand was very small but compact! I even remember the Longside when it was completely open and before the predecessor of the new stand. I started going on the Turf when I was about 7 in 1949 - 50 Jimmy Strong was in goal and Arthur Woodruff and Harold Mather were the full backs, Reg Attwell, Tommy Cummings and Les Shannon were the half backs while the forwards were Jackie Chew, Billy Morris, Ray Harrison, Harry Potts, and my favourite Terry Lyon’s.

I love a picture from 1929 on "Britain from above"
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW030029

edlass wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:30 pm

I love a picture from 1929 on "Britain from above"
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW030029

Looks like the chippy's open!

edlass wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:30 pm

I love a picture from 1929 on "Britain from above"
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW030029

I also love the fact that kids are playing outside and someone inside the ground is doing something that must have mattered at that precise moment almost a century ago.

Interesting to contrast the two photos taken from around the same time. The majority of the buildings from the photo in the first post are still there whereas virtually none of the ones from the overhead shot are (pretty much just the bottom right hand corner left, including the old part of the Park View).

Frenchclaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:29 pm

, Reg Attwell, Tommy Cummings and Les Shannon were the half backs ....

Were Tommy and Les that early? Brown and Bray are in my memory, but it is a long time ago!

Also notice from the aerial photo there are no penalty arcs - these were introduced in 1937 - and the strange centre spot, perhaps one yard in diameter.

Is the white rectangle a roof on the cricket field end or the wall painted white for the cricket?
Looks too low to be the roof but I have no idea when the roof did go on.
Also when did the trams stop using Yorkshire St?

Jel wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:34 pm

Looks like the chippy's open!

The chippy’s not on that pic

My guesstimate would be Edwardian years so maybe approx 1910. Not sure the cricket field end has any kind of roof looking at the main photo. Even the main stand in this pic doesn’t look exactly as I remembered it (was it always the full length of the pitch or was it extended towards the cricket field end at a later date?

Trams we’re still running in Burnley (I think) until early 1930’s?

The childrens’ clothes look to me more like 1910’s though we can’t be certain based purely on one picture.

Superb photo though, thanks for posting.

Tricky Trevor wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:37 pm

Is the white rectangle a roof on the cricket field end or the wall painted white for the cricket?
Looks too low to be the roof but I have no idea when the roof did go on.
Also when did the trams stop using Yorkshire St?

1954 for completion of the Longside according to Wikipedia.

The cricket field was almost up to the Brunshaw Road wall in those days (now occupied by BFC car park). There was also a quaint turnstile into the cricket ground almost at the corner of Brunshaw / Belvedere Road.

Masseys’ Burnley Brewery bought out Grimshaws’ Burnley Brewery (on the photograph) in 1928 so it is probably before then.

http://breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.ph ... imshaw_Ltd

I would agree the 1910s based on the clothing. The trams ran in Burnley from 1901 - 1935. I went in the Footballers Arms a couple of times on my way to the Turf, I think it closed 1967/68. I started watching the Clarets from the Paddock infront of the Brunshaw Rd stand with my dad in the mid to late fifties: I think you paid an extra tanner to go in there. I then moved to the front of the Beehole End with my pals, before being old enough to stand in the Cricket Field to join in the singing. It was then to the Longside when they closed the Cricket Field down to build the all seater stand. When we went all seater I stayed on the Longside right in front of the cameras. I also sat down a few times in the Brunshaw Rd stand, the most memorable being the home games against Reims and Hamburg.

I can remember being stood outside the Footballers Arms, with a few other kids, while my Dad went in to find his mate. That was '67.
My Dad only went back on the Turf again then, after the Jimmy Mac sale.

Just out of interest I’m assuming that the banks that are both the long side and the beehole were both artificial? Imagine trying to stand on those, or were they terraced? I can’t tell

My dad used to stand on the Popular Side (Longside) before it was rebuilt with a roof. He told me that most of it was a slag heap and when it rained heavily his boots would slowly sink into the slag and he would slide forward with the rest of the crowd.