CLARETS and Rovers fans are being urged to kick the habit as part of a new year bid to stub out smoking.

For matchday programmes at both East Lancashire football clubs are due to carry graphic adverts, showing children grieving at their parents' graves, to hit home the message that smoking kills.

The Protect Your Children campaign, backed by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, has been launched by the Government to get smokers to quit.

And health bosses in Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale are pushing the adverts into local matchday programmes -- as well as on TV, local radio, and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph -- to reach as many people as possible.

They hope the £6million January campaign will help them reach their target of helping 1,500 people to quit by April, and have set up extra help sessions to cope with demand.

Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust stop smoking co-ordinator Christine Donnelly said: "I'm sure the campaign will have a marked effect, and we are getting geared up to respond.

"My own son has come forward for an appointment already. He's been made aware of the potentially-deadly consequences of smoking. The adverts are certainly hard hitting and are making people realise that they can die from smoking.

"We expect a large response and have put on a number of extra drop-in clinics in Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale."

Three adverts bearing images of a mother breaking the news she has cancer to her children, two children leaving their father's grave following his funeral, and a young girl laying flowers on her father's grave, will be carried in football programmes and newspapers, including the Telegraph.

The campaign will feature the new message 'giving up smoking -- the only way to protect your family'.

Neighbouring PCTs at Blackburn with Darwen, and Hyndburn and Ribble Valley, are also hoping to attract more quitters in the new year on the back of the Burnley-backed adverts.

It is estimated 3,000 people, many of them with children, will die over the holiday period from smoking-related illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease. The adverts feature real-life former smokers who quit with help from the NHS free stop smoking service.

According to health bosses, 877 people in Blackburn and Darwen quit smoking in 2004, and 705 people stubbed out fags for good in Hyndburn and Ribble Valley. Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale helped 1,000 people to kick the habit last year.

For help on how to quit smoking in Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn, and Ribble Valley, contact 01254 294727; or in Burnley, Pendle, and Rossendale, contact 01282 607002.