Burnley's pre-season friendly at home against Hannover abandoned because of crowd trouble

Photographs showed unrest in the stands, with police holding back Hannover fans from their home counterparts

The game was abandoned on the advice of the police (Getty)

Burnley's pre-season friendly at home to Hannover has been abandoned on police advice.

The Clarets were leading 1-0 at half-time thanks to a goal from Ben Mee when the announcement came.

A short statement on the club's Twitter account read: "Today's game has been abandoned, on police advice."

Seats were ripped out and thrown at the home fans (Getty)

Photographs showed unrest in the stands, with police holding back Hannover fans from their home counterparts.

Burnley boss Sean Dyche backed the decision of the police.

He told the local press: "They called us in and said, 'Look, we're going to call it for the safety of all involved, stewards, fans, police etc'.

"That was pretty early. The police were in the referee's room, called me, went through the procedure, and obviously we fully support the police's decision.

Dyche expressed his dissatisfaction with the incident (G)

"Hopefully nobody has got hurt. You can't really tell what's going on from how far away we are, but it didn't look ideal.

"You hope that's gone out of the game and it generally has. The police called it early. No one wanted anything other than a game of football."

A club statement on the trouble was expected later on Saturday.