A TRIO who were caught running onto the pitch during Burnley's tense 2-2 draw with Watford have been banned from Turf Moor for three years.

Trouble disrupted the Clarets' crucial Championship tie last Saturday, including an incident around 20 minutes from full-time when Burnley supporters invaded the pitch and had to be removed.

Three men appeared before Burnley Magistrates' Court yesterday, to confess to their part in the disturbances - and were each given three-year football banning orders.

Lee Andrew Ball, 21, of Moor Street, Accrington, Aaron Lee Gardener, 20, of Devonshire Drive, Clayton-le-Moors, and Timothy Probets, 29, of Cotton Court, Colne, each admitted entering the playing area without lawful excuse.

Further charges of being drunk in the ground during at a designated sporting fixture were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The court heard that all three men were seen to leave the north stand and run onto the pitch, where they gesticulated towards the visting Watford supporters.

Ball, Gardener and Probets, a father of three, were each also fined £200 with £65 costs and a £15 victim surcharge by magistrates.

Trevor Grice, defending, said the defendants were all sorry for what they had done and Probets had also written a letter to the club, as a former season ticket holder, expressing his remorse.