STEVE Cotterill's rallying call for Burnley supporters to make themselves heard is backed by scientific fact!

The Clarets boss has been keen to stress the importance fans can make to his side's chances this season.

"We need the backing, we need the following, we need the numbers and we need them to be vocal, more than anything else we've talked about in pre-season," said Cotterill ahead of tonight's first home game of the season against Sheffield United

"An awful lot of fans know where we are and the only way we can succeed is for them to be 100% behind everyone, everything, every decision and every player at the football club because if we're not together, we'll find it difficult, without a shadow of a doubt.

"We have to rely on our crowd to be that extra person for us."

And stunning new research proves that the 12th man can indeed make a difference.

Andy Lane, Professor of Sport and Learning at Wolverhampton University, was recently commissioned to do research into the effect that crowd noise has on players.

"The notion that the home team feels better with support is the obvious part," he revealed. "What we sought to do is conduct an experiment in which we had different types of crowds singing and try to measure the effect that would have.

"It was done with a view to this summer's British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand, to try to get some of our fans to counter the passion which the All Blacks fans' will have for their side.

"The experiment, counter-balanced by supportive crowds, the jeers of opposition fans and interviews with players, brought some very interesting findings about how the crowds can be beneficial."

In a series of sprint tests conducted in a field-based study by Professor Lane, players ran faster and maintained their speed for longer when listening to supportive, rather than hostile sounds.

Importantly, the interviews suggest that motivational sounds especially help during the warm-up, breaks in play, to counter home singing and in the latter stages of play, when fatigue is more evident.

Fatigue is closely associated with mistakes and if this is minimalised, the evidence points to the team receiving crowd support having the equivalent of an additional player.

The flip side also threw up an intriguing result, suggesting that if Clarets fans show their own hostility towards opponents, it could provide a further boost for Cotterill's side.

Lane explained: "The players all report that they are not aware of the crowd, but when you investigate in more depth you start finding they are subconsciously aware of positive crowd noise, but deliberately ignoring hostile crowd behaviour towards them.

"It's possible that having to ignore this hostility could influence performance because players have to spend a little bit more time blocking that out, which interrupts their concentration a little and ultimately leads to a dip in performance."

Lane added: "Teams do better at home and there may be many reasons for that. It may be that the confidence they are getting from the crowd support is a big factor and they are prepared to try harder and play with more passion.

"A lot is made of how much a manager can affect a game, but he is only one voice providing encouragement. If you have thousands of people providing the same encouragement, it is going to make a lot more difference.

"It reinforces the view in the players' minds that we, as supporters, really care about what they are doing."