Blackpool boss closes in on top-flight dream: Ten years on from the Seasiders' Premier League promotion

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STEVE CANAVAN’S Gazette reports from a decade ago on Blackpool’s remarkable journey to the promised land.

Ten years ago, Blackpool boss Ian Holloway was thinking big...

Ian Holloway heads into the biggest week of his management career admitting he would love a piece of the Premier League action.

The Seasiders are working overtime at the training ground as they plot a way to topple Cardiff City in the Championship play-off final.

The squad departs for London on Thursday and will spend two nights in a hotel prior to Saturday’s winner-takes-all showdown.

Holloway has the greatest of respect for the Bluebirds and their manager Dave Jones and knows the contest is set to be a hard-fought and close-run affair.

But it goes without saying that he would love to be the winning boss and if that’s the case, he’ll be mixing it with the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti next season.

“I watched Mourinho in Inter Milan’s Champions League semi-final and what he did to Barcelona,” said Holloway.

“In the first leg Barcelona completed 590-odd passes and Mourinho’s team 157, yet Inter won 3-1.

“Is that luck or not? Who knows. But I want a piece of that.

“I want a chance to do that and to manage at the top level.

“A lot of people I started managing with, who began around the same time as me, have gone there and already done it so that’s eating into me.

“I want a chance. I want to progress. I want to get better. I want to learn and I want to move forward.”

Holloway’s team have been the surprise package of the Championship and made the play-offs courtesy of a stunning end to the season, when they won six out of eight games.

Then they dispatched third-placed Nottingham Forest in style in the play-off semi-finals, all of which has left Holloway optimistic for the weekend.

“When I ask myself ‘can we?’ I am actually starting to believe we can because of who we have out there wearing that shirt and who else I have on the bench wearing those shirts ready to come on,” he said.

“That is the truth, so well done to the lads and thanks to the fans and we really want to keep this journey going.

“It will be tough but bring it on and I can’t wait for it, and the players can’t either.

“We can go into it with no fear. We’ve achieved something. I want our lads to revel in this and play as well as they’ve done all season.”

Holloway’s achievements have been all the more remarkable given that he arrived at Bloomfield Road with much to prove, after failing in his previous job at Leicester.

Asked if he’d become a better manager since his spell with the Foxes, Holloway said: “If you don’t improve by learning from your mistakes then you’re never going to be any good whatsoever. So the answer to that should be yes.

“But it’s not for me to say. That would be wrong.

“It should be from the people who have worked with me and around me before.

“They are the ones you should ask because these lads don’t know what I was like before do they.

“Your career should be judged in time.

“By the time you’ve finished you can see how good a manager you were because after four years Alex Ferguson wouldn’t have been very good at Man United would he?

“And yet after this number of years he’s absolutely magnificent.

“All I know is that we’ve been improving all season as a team and the results lately have shown that.

“I believe the lads are understanding what’s important. They understand what we need to keep doing if we are to be consistent.

“We must go into this believing that we have improved.

“For us to climb this mountain we have to keep doing what we’ve been doing.” Holloway added:

“At the end of the day I’m elated because we’ve got to where we have. No one expected Blackpool to do that.

“Now let’s get on and see in this madness of a rollercoaster ride what is going to happen next.

“I watched Burnley do it last year. They came in late. I watched Hull City do it the year before. I’ve seen Crystal Palace do it when Iain Dowie was there.

“I was thinking ‘how do people do that?’ … and blow me over, now we’re doing it!”