A NUMBER of Clarets stars were back at Gawthorpe yesterday morning as they continued the build-up to the new season.

It is now fewer than seven weeks until Brighton and Hove Albion visit Turf Moor for the first game of the season and the full pre-season training programme will get underway on July 9.

But assistant manager Sam Ellis explained: "All the players have been looking after themselves since the season finished. We gave them a few weeks off at the end of the season but then we have been having them in on Mondays and Thursdays to keep them ticking over."

Among the players in training yesterday were club skipper Steve Davis and Irish winger Alan Moore, a couple of players who had problems with injuries last season but are working hard to be 100 per cent for the start of the new campaign. Physio Ian Liversedge has been keeping an especially close eye on Paul Weller, Ian Moore and Robbie Blake, all of whom had operations last month. Blake and Moore both had hernia operations while Weller had an operation on his knee.

But it is not just those players who have had to keep working throughout the summer and Ellis insisted that every player knows their responsibility to come back ready to get straight into action. The days of players coming back after a summer break more than a stone over-weight are gone.

"The manager has sorted them all out a personal programme and they all know that they have to look after themselves in terms of diet," he said. "They are all professional people."

Already one of Burnley's games at the start of next season has been re-scheduled. The first division game with Reading at the Madejski Stadium has been rescheduled was due to take place on Monday August 26.

But due to the Reading Festival, which takes place on the Bank Holiday weekend, the local police have requested the game take place on Tuesday August 27, with a kick off at 8.00pm.

The club has also announced that next season's Avon Insurance League games for Burnley Reserves at Turf Moor will continue to take place on Wednesday evenings.

However, they will now kick-off at 7.00pm, instead of the 7.15pm last season, putting them in line with the majority of clubs in the division.