Blackpool SLO column: Reflecting on a year like no other

It’s typically a time to look back, take stock and then look forward. However, not many will want to reflect for too long on the year just ended.

2020 turned out to be a universal horror show and yet, 12 months ago, there was hardly a hint of it. Seasiders fans were more concerned by the manner of our successive home defeats either side of Christmas to Shrewsbury and Accrington Stanley than we were with a new ‘flu-like’ virus spreading in China.

That poor run of form continued through January and into February, and led to the departure of Simon Grayson.

Neil Critchley was appointed as head coach at the beginning of March but he was only in charge for two games before the UK went into its first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown and the EFL League One season was suspended, never to resume.

Critchley’s first home game, against Tranmere Rovers on March 10, is the last time the majority of Blackpool fans attended a ‘live’ game. Eventually the divisional placings were decided on a ‘points-per-game’ basis with Blackpool finishing in mid-table.

The subsequent pre-season was the most exciting for several years as Simon Sadler provided funds to build a new squad on the strength of good season ticket sales in uncertain times.

Signings were made early in the transfer window and Blackpool’s new-look squad tested itself against both Everton and Liverpool in pre-season friendlies as we got used to watching the Seasiders in the new Puma kit on live streams, setting the scene for a 2020/21 season that commenced in August behind closed doors.

There was a brief moment of respite for 1,000 fans one sunny Saturday in September when Blackpool demonstrated its capability to host a league match with social distancing, but it was a shortlived experiment as a resurgence of the pandemic saw a further tightening of restrictions.

It continues to be a huge frustration for all of us who are desperately missing both live football and the socialising that goes along with it; it’s also a huge challenge for the club and we can only give thanks that we have Sadler at the helm these days.

In these most difficult of times, it has been heartening to see the way in which the club and its supporters through the initiative of the Community Trust has reached out to the poorest families in the town this Christmas.

Of course the staff and players are keen for fans to be allowed back into Bloomfield Road.

It doesn’t really feel like a proper football club without that presence, without the buzz that supporters give to a matchday.

As we roll over into 2021, and find ourselves in tier four along with the rest of Lancashire and much of the country, it may feel like the horror show is running on a little too long – and yet there is good news on the horizon in the fact that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use.

We may have to forgo live football for a little longer, may even have to endure a circuit-breaker in the season, but the immunisation programme will make possible the day when we can all return to doing what we love, and the long-term rebuilding of Blackpool FC continues. Look to the future, it’s only just begun!

In the seasonal spirit of something different, I’m signing off with a poem I wrote for our post-Oyston homecoming in March 2019.

There will be another homecoming when all this is over and we can get back on track again. Stay safe, keep believing, look out for one another and let’s hope that, eventually, this will turn out to be a Happy New Year.

Jewel Of The North

This is the town up on the gold coast, renowned through the land for fun in the sun.

More brassy than classy and bracingly breezy, it boasts six miles of sand, a tower like Paris, three piers to the sea, wears its heart on its sleeve and will welcome you into its mad happy family wherever you come from, whoever you be.

But get in behind the rusty old cliché of hen and stag parties who come pouring in from January to December in search of a weekend they’ll never remember... and you’ll find a richer truth.

Its easy streets are never so easy, though its mean streets are not really mean and it wears its proud claim to be the happiest of places much like the painted face of a clown.

For all of the dancers, prancers, one night chancers, boardwalk quickies and holiday romances, bawdy comics with earthy gags, rock stalls, chippies, bingo shacks and shops selling laughter and unicorn poo there are solid northern souls inhabiting the barrios, those red-brick terraces behind the hotels and the B&B façades, salt-of-the-earth types and flame-haired mermaids taxed by the reality of years of austerity, doing two jobs if needs must just to keep their kids clothed and fed, aspiring to give them a decent start.

They live for the team that plays in tangerine.

It’s the zest in their days and their dreaming at night, of Matthews and Mortensen, Armfield and Suddick or Adam and Ormerod, the talk of the town,

Heroes all but still ordinary men whose skill with a ball on that pitch on a Saturday lifts other ordinary folks when they’re down.

Supporting the team is tradition and tie, forging friendships from childhood on, binding together pals, workmates, families, whole generations with love for the Seaside – and to see those fans flow like a tide once again up to Bloomfield Road decked in colours and scarves, holding forth on the luck of the draw and the finer points of this game of two halves is just brilliant, brings a tear to the eye, thrills me and fills me with immense pride both for their mighty tangerine passion and resilient Blackpool, our jewel of the north.

Thanks for reading. If you value what we do and are able to support us, a digital subscription is just £1 for your first month. Try us today by clicking here