Burnley U21

Long before there was a first team to feed, a group of rugby players at Burnley Rovers switched codes and gave the town its football club in 1882. The academy itself dates to the 1935/36 season, and Tommy Lawton broke into the first team at sixteen, the youngest centre-forward in the Football League at the time, and by 1959/60 the championship-winning side was built almost entirely on players who had come up that way, with only three signings brought in from outside.

The current U21 side plays in Premier League 2 Division One and the Premier League Cup, and an FA Youth Cup in 1967/68, won by beating Coventry City 3-2, and a Premier League Cup in 2013/14. The status of the academy behind it has moved more than most: upgraded to Category 2 in 2017 after a £10.6 million rebuild of the Barnfield Training Centre, lifted provisionally to Category 1 in 2020, dropped back to Category 2 in 2022, and restored to Category 1 in May 2025 once the first team returned to the Premier League. Chris Casper has run the academy since 2024, working alongside Paul Jenkins as Director of Football Development.

Matches are mostly staged at Turf Moor, though the County Ground in Leyland and Barnfield itself see their share of fixtures too. Jay Rodriguez and Dwight McNeil both came through this pathway before making their names well beyond Burnley.

Two First Division titles, three Second Division titles, one FA Cup, two Charity Shields — that is what the first team the academy still feeds has built since 1882.