Name
Blackpool

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Next Event
Derby vs Blackpool (29 Mar)

Head Coach

Neil Critchley

League Position
9

Recent League Form ➡


Established
1887 (137 years old)

Sport
Soccer

Stadium/Home
Bloomfield Road
(17,338 Capacity)

Jersey or Equipment Clearart

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Primary Colours
#ff5f00
#FFFFFF

Location
Seasiders Way, Blackpool, England

Nicknames
Seasiders, BFC

Competitions
English League 1

Last Edit
smudgie: 11/Feb/24


Upcoming
29/03 Derby - Blackpool
01/04 Blackpool - Wycombe
06/04 Blackpool - Cambridge Un
09/04 Blackpool - Fleetwood To
13/04 Carlisle - Blackpool

Results
16/03 Wigan 1 - 0 Blackpool
12/03 Northampton 0 - 1 Blackpool
09/03 Blackpool 0 - 0 Portsmouth
02/03 Shrewsbury 0 - 2 Blackpool
27/02 Leyton Orien 1 - 0 Blackpool

Description
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Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The team will compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, in 2021–22, having gained promotion from League One in 2020–21.

Founded in 1887, the club played home games at Raikes Hall and the Athletic Grounds before moving to Bloomfield Road in 1901.

The club were founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889 and were invited into the Football League Second Division in 1896. They failed re-election in 1899 but had their Football League membership reinstated the following year. Blackpool remained in the Second Division until they won the league title in 1929–30, though they were relegated after three seasons in the First Division. Promoted again in 1936–37, the club entered a golden period under the stewardship of long-time manager Joe Smith. Blackpool lost the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals before winning the competition in 1953, in the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 3–1 deficit in the closing stages of the game. That same year, four Blackpool players were in the England team which lost against Hungary at Wembley. In the 1950s they had four top-six finishes in the First Division, with their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in 1955–56. In 1956, Stanley Matthews was the inaugural recipient of the Ballon d'Or.

Blackpool were relegated out of the First Division in 1967 and again in 1971 after winning promotion in 1969–70. They dropped into the fourth tier after suffering relegations in 1978 and 1981, then gained promotion in 1984–85. Between 1987 and 2019, the club was owned by the Oyston family. Nine years after buying the club, Owen Oyston was jailed for the 1992 rape and indecent assault of a 16-year-old girl. His wife, Vicki, took over the chairmanship of the club during her husband's three-year prison term. The couple's son, Karl, took over in 1999 and remained in the role for 19 years. In 2018, after the Oyston family was found, in a High Court judgement, to have operated an "illegitimate stripping" of the club, paying out £26.77 million to companies they owned, Owen relieved Karl of his role and gave it to his daughter, Natalie. In June 2019, Simon Sadler, a 49-year-old Blackpool-born businessman, bought a 96.2% share in the club, completely removing the Oyston family from any involvement.

During the long years of Oyston ownership, Blackpool were relegated into the fourth tier in 1990, promoted via the play-offs in 1992, then relegated again in 2000. Blackpool then gradually reached the Premier League after becoming the first club to gain promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system; they won the 2001 Third Division play-offs, 2007 League One play-offs and the 2010 Championship play-offs. They spent one season in the Premier League, under manager Ian Holloway, and later suffered a double relegation into League Two by 2016, though gained immediate promotion by winning the 2017 League Two play-off final.

Team Members


18

Beesley



7

Byers



10

Carey



20

Casey



13

Chapman



2

Connolly



14

Coulson



11

Dembélé



21

Ekpiteta



28

Finnigan



4

Gabriel



32

Grimshaw



22

Hamilton



3

Husband



9

Joseph



27

Kouassi



19

Lavery



24

Lyons



8

Morgan



6

Norburn



1

O'Donnell



5

Pennington



16

Rhodes



17

Virtue-Thick



= Player Contract years remaining
Showing 0 to 25 (Total: 25)



Stadium or Home

Bloomfield Road is a 17,338-capacity all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire, in an area known as South Shore. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000. June of that year saw the demolition of the Spion Kop at the north end of the ground; an all-seated stand has now replaced it. The rebuilding of the West Stand was completed in August 2002. In March 2010, the South Stand, whose original structure was pulled down in 2003, was opened by Jimmy Armfield, the former Blackpool player for whom the stand is named. A temporary East Stand opened on 28 August 2010 with a capacity of 5,120 seats, initially increasing capacity to 16,220 with further hospitality seating in the South Stand to be installed later in the year. Bloomfield Road is ranked 45th in the list of English football stadiums by capacity and the third-smallest in the Championship.

Before moving to Bloomfield Road, Blackpool had called two other grounds home during their short existence. Firstly, between 1896 and 1897, they played their fifteen home Football League matches at Raikes Hall Gardens (also known as the Pleasure Gardens). In 1897, they moved to the Athletic Grounds at the present-day Stanley Park, which hosted thirty-two League matches over two seasons. After a short spell back at Raikes Hall Gardens in 1899, during their season out of the League, and again for all but the first home game of the 1900–01 campaign, Blackpool made the permanent move to Bloomfield Road.

The record attendance at the original Bloomfield Road was 38,098, which occurred when Blackpool played Wolverhampton Wanderers on 17 September 1955. The record at the reconstructed stadium is 16,116, which occurred for the visit of Manchester City on 17 October 2010. The record gate receipts for a home game is £72,949, for the FA Cup third-round tie against Tottenham Hotspur on 5 January 1991.

The stadium hosted three matches during the 2005 UEFA Women's Championship. It has also been the venue for the annual final of the Northern Rail Cup, a rugby league tournament, since 2005.

The club's mascot, who can be seen at every home game, is Bloomfield Bear. He replaced the long-serving Cable Cat, who was retired in June 2000.

Between 8 September 1900 and 28 December 2014, Blackpool have played 2,203 Football League games at Bloomfield Road. Between August 2010 and May 2011, they played nineteen Premier League games at the ground. Of these they won five (26%), drew five (26%) and lost nine (48%).

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