King Charles reaffirms his love for this Lancashire football team while on royal visit
King Charles has reaffirmed his surprising love for a Lancashire football team.
The monarch took part in some football banter while on a visit to aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales this week as the Royal Navy finalises preparations for a major global deployment to the Indo-Pacific this spring.
While there he chatted to personnel gathered in the hangar, including Able Seaman Marc Rutherford, who met the King on the bridge. He said: “It was the proudest day of my life since joining the Royal Navy, I’m still in shock, he was funny and I was surprised he would support a team like Burnley – Newcastle would be much better.”
The King’s fondness for the Clarets became apparent in 2010 when he appeared at Turf Moor with a Burnley pin badge on his lapel, and was presented with a home shirt by Barry Kilby.
In 2012, he confirmed that he was a Claret himself during a public reception at Windsor Castle. According to football magazine FourFourTwo, he said: “A consortium of my charities, including the British Asian Trust, has been working in Burnley....Hence, some of you asked this evening whether I support a British football club and I said ‘yes, Burnley’.
He continued: “Burnley has been through some very challenging times and I’m trying to find ways of helping to regenerate and raise aspirations and self-esteem in that part of the world.”
The club has handed the former Prince of Wales a VIP season ticket as a token of appreciation, and he’s since been seen at Turf Moor on occasion.
“Beautiful”
In January, the King called the area ‘beautiful’ during a meeting with the town’s MP, Oliver Ryan. The Burnley, Padiham, and Brierfield MP met King Charles III and Queen Camilla at a reception for newly elected Members of Parliament at Buckingham Palace.
The King told Mr Ryan that the area was “a beautiful place” and said he remembered doing “a lot of work in Burnley on regeneration around the canals and Weavers’ Triangle”.