Blackpool SLO column: The ups and downs of watching Blackpool during the season

It’s an overworked metaphor but it does seem particularly fitting when we veer between excellent performances and woeful ones, almost on a match-by-match basis.

Cheltenham Town and Leyton Orient were recent low points, with great wins over Peterborough United and Bolton Wanderers in between.

It’s that inconsistency which exercises the fanbase and it is worrying that the head coach seems baffled as to the underlying reasons for it happening.

However, a top six finish is still possible and all we as supporters can do is get behind the players and give the team our full support at every game over the remaining quarter of the campaign.

Naturally we’d like to make the play-offs, with a chance to bounce back to the Championship at the first attempt.

Simon Sadler alluded to that as the target in his Radio Lancashire interview on Tuesday.

If you haven’t heard that, by the way, it is 30 minutes well worth watching and listening to as the owner talks frankly about his five years to date at Blackpool FC and his aspirations for the club.

It’s still available on the BBC website: search ‘Simon Sadler BBC Sport Lancashire interview’.

One of those aspirations, though not directly alluded to in the interview, is for Blackpool FC to improve how it engages and communicates with supporters from all backgrounds in the coming seasons.

A draft supporter charter, ‘Seasiders Together’, proposing how this will be achieved, was presented to fans’ groups representatives during last month’s Structured Dialogue meeting at the football club. The document is available on the club website for anyone to view.

Among other things, it proposes criteria for being a formally recognised fan group, sets out a framework for a fan panel which will meet with the club three times a season to discuss ways to improve the matchday experience for all sections of the fanbase, and intends to establish a stakeholder panel to meet with the board twice yearly in helping to shape future direction.

Reaction was broadly favourable and supporters’ groups were given until the third week of February to respond to the club regarding the proposals.

Clearly there are points to be resolved, so now that initial feedback will be considered and further details will be developed as Blackpool FC strives to make ‘Seasiders Together’ even more fitting for our fanbase as we move forward, with implementation planned to commence with the 2024-25 season.

Representation of views is always a challenging issue. If you are not a member of a fans group, rest assured the club also plans to issue a fan survey to all supporters with a client reference in the coming weeks.

Finally, let me remind you that if any fan wishes to contact me for any reason at all, my email is [email protected] – and you might also like to follow @bfcslo on Facebook and X. UTMP!