Top Ten facts and stats to know about Blackpool F.C.
Posted on September 10th, 2010 | 181 Comments |
1. Blackpool’s highest record transfer fee paid is £1.25 million for DJ Campbell, which was paid to Leicester City on deadline day this summer. The striker made his name as part of the Yeading side which played Newcastle in the FA Cup in January 2005 before moving into League football with Brentford.
2. The club hold the unusual record of being the first club promoted from all four divisions via the play-offs having climbed from League Two to the Premier League in just nine years, beginning with Divison 3 play off success over Leyton Orient. The club then beat Yeovil Town 2-0 in League One play-off final, with Robbie Williams netting one of the goals. Finally Ian Holloway lead the club to a suprise play-off success in The Championship last season despite heading into the season as relegation favourites.
3. Former United loanee Marlon Harewood is the new No.9 at Bloomfield Road this season after impressing the club on a two week trial. The former Villa frontman spent three months on loan at United last season scoring 5 goals in 15 appearances in the process. The ‘Hare’ netted a double on his Blackpool debut in the 4-0 thrashing of Wigan as the side topped the league for all of two hours on the opening day of the season.
4. The two clubs have a fairly even head-to-head record over the years, with United winning 26 and Blackpool winning 25 of the 59 matches with the other 8 games being draws with United scoring 96 and Blackpool scoring 102. Newcastle boast the better record at St James’ however winning 18 of the 30 games, Blackpool winning 9 and the sides drawing 3.
5. Boss Ian Holloway took just 9 months in the job to get Blackpool promoted. The former QPR boss was apppointed in May ’09 on a one-year deal replacing caretaker manager Tony Parkes. ‘Ollie’ had previously been in charge of Leicester City but resigned following the clubs relegation to League One. His managerial record reads – 659 games, 252 wins, 186 draws and 221 defeats giving him a win percentage of 38.24%, whilst his win percentage at Blackpool is currently 41.3%, 6th overall in the club’s history. (Ollie has some way to go to eclipse the club’s longest serving manager Joe Smith who spent 22 years and 9 months at the club between 1935 to 1958)
6. England legend Sir Stanley Matthews joined the club at the age of 32 in 1947 and made 391 appearances scoring 17 goals during 14 years at the club leaving for Stoke City at the age of 46. A vegatarian tea-totaller, Matthews played his final competitive game in Brazil in 1985 at the age of 70 and was the first football player to win both European Footballer Of The Year and Football Writers Association Footballer Of The Year award as well as being the only player to be knighted whilst still playing professionally.
7. The Tangerines first wore their tangerine kits in 1923-24 after referee Albert Hargreaves recommended the colours after watching Holland v Belgium. Attention seeking physic Uri Geller announced the clubs 1997 blue away kit would bring the club bad luck as the players would not get the correct amouth of ‘physic energy’ from the kit. The club ignored the obvious warnings and debuted the kit in a match against Bristol City, match they promptly lost.
8. Ollie’s men edged into the play-off’s last season finishing just one point above Swansea City with 70 points finishing 6th place in what was the club’s 100th consecutive year in the Football League. Blackpool finished 32 points behind United last season, and had the second lowest average attendance in the division with an average of 8,611 compared to the our average attendance of 43,387.
9. Right-back Jimmy Armfield holds the record for the appearances for The Seasiders with 569 appearances between 1954 and 1971. Record goalscorer falls to Jimmy Hampson who scored 252 goals between in 1927 to 1938, Hampson also holds the club record for most goals in a season with 45 scored during the 1929-30 season.
10. Finally the tenth and arguably most important stats for any fan who fancies a flutter on the match, the Ladbrokes match odds. The seasiders are 9/2 to win whilst United are 8/13 for victory, with a draw being priced at 11/4.
The odds of United repeating last seasons 4-1 success are priced at 25/1 compared to 100/1 for Ollies men to get the same score. Andy Carroll is unsurpisingly the favourite to score the first goal at 3/1, and is 12/1 to score a second hat-trick, whilst DJ Campbell and Marlon Harewood are favorites to score first for Blackpool at 10/1 and are priced at 100/1 to net hat-tricks.
Howay the lads!
Editor’s note: Just a quick note to introduce the new member of the NUFC Blog team, Paul Reece, who wrote this ‘blog. No stranger to sportswriting, Paul is a football journalist, as well as a committed Magpie, and I hope you all enjoy this and his future contributions to the site. I hope that you all give him a warm welcome and be gentle with him :-)
Welcome aboard, Paul!
– Workyticket.
NUFCBlog Author: Paul Reece
Paul Reece has written 14 articles on this blog.
Well done, Paul, and a nice ‘blog. Here’s hoping it’s the first of many!