Please excuse our somewhat slowed down delivery service in May. You can blame the football. Our small and brash town has somehow produced a team which was destined to descend to the nether regions at the beginning of last season but has miraculously won 9 of its last 11 games and catapulted itself into a Wembley encounter with Cardiff and in overcoming the Welsh team found itself in the Premier Division. I was lucky enough to get to a few of the later matches including the Wembley Stadium battle although I would not like to be classified as a footie maniac. So many people in the town became fair weather supporters that when the team paraded along the promenade on the Monday after their Wembley victory it was estimated that 140,000 fans line the route and cheered themselves hoarse. The seaside went Tangerine bonkers! See the BFC Gallery
It's a giant step up from the Championship Division to the Premier League and is characterised by a shower of money enabling the newcomers to buy some talent, improve the tiny ground and perhaps invest in a youth policy and improve the crumbling training ground at the Airport. Not only will there be a big lump for going up but also a big lump should they be relegated. It is a well known phenomenon that promoted teams running on a shoestring find themselves badly outclassed when they scale the heights and rub shoulders with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and such like.
At the Gala Awards the illustrious Manager of the Blackpool FC,a Bristolian named Ian Holloway, gave a stirring speech seemingly inspired by Shakespeare's soliloquy for Henry the Fifth in which he said we would get knocked down but we would get up again, we would fight them and fight them again and again until we were victorious. We were not there simply to make up the numbers and gift them 6 points. I paraphrase a bit due to the influence of the flowing bubbly that night and the fact that Holloway's words were drowned with fearless applause. Owen Oyston said he was still in a dream and afraid to wake up and find his team was still in the lower division. It means so much that the constraints of running a football club money-wise were to be lifted permanently. As a club financier you get hated by the supporters if you don't buy good players every week and you get sued by your suppliers if you can't pay them on time.
Yes there is a certain kudos if your team is doing well but more often you taste the bitter fruits of defeat and get loudly criticised for not lashing out loads of money on what is usually an evanescent dream. I recall George Reynolds who pulled Darlington's football team out of its dungeon, built a new ground, was cheered to the rafters and then lost all his money and possessions when the team failed to come up to scratch and the Council punished him for wanting to develop ancillary uses for the brand new football ground such as Bingo Nights and Dances. The supporters booed their saviour and he was roundly reviled for rescuing the club and ended up broke but philosophical. Such a tale will not occur with Blackpool as the owners are pretty canny with expenditure and have laid out funds only when they were there. But still a stadium holding barely 12,000 people isn't going to earn much when 40,000 will be trying to get tickets. Survival in Premiership will be paramount and I applaud the cool Bret Ormerod, now a veteran of the game for showing some real spirit and inspiration. This is a team which attacks from the word go and never stops until their legs fall off.
In the 100 degree crucible at Wembley the team was exhausted and just about made it to the final whistle without conceding that 3rd goal which would have meant extra time and Heaven forfend, the deadly penalty shoot out.
Well done Charles Adam, and the Team, Ian Holloway and the management and above all the Oyston family and we all look forward to a boost to the economy in Blackpool where jobs are hard to get, hotels are cheap and mainly empty. Restaurants are great and half price compared to London. We want to see you here at the showroom, or in the Casinos, or on the Pier or just simply cheering your team down the Golden Mile, Blackpool in the Premiership is still unbelievable, yet it's going to affect all our lives.
Jim Armfield is overjoyed quietly but refused to join the lads on the open top bus down the Prom because as he rightly says, it was their achievement not his and he will always be remembered at the Blackpool ground not only metaphysically but in reality by virtue of a great big sign on the seats on the Jimmy Armfield stand and a bronze statue bearing a remarkable likeness to his youthful self.
Up The Pool!