Memory Match: Blackpool smash Leeds United thanks to five-star display

Leeds United 0-5 Blackpool – November 2, 2011

Blimey, what a night.

A five-goal tonking at Elland Road – Blackpool’s best ever victory over Leeds in 91 years’ worth of games between the clubs. Who’d have thought it?

One had to feel a little sorry for Simon Grayson, though,

After all, he was a man who did marvellous things for the Seasiders, the fella who kickstarted the club’s rise from League One to the top.

OK, he didn’t complete the job he started, but he laid the foundations. Ian Holloway built a mansion on top.

Grayson must be hurting and then some after being thoroughly destroyed by his former employers in what was one of the most one-sided games you may ever see (though let’s not forget Leeds went down to 10 men with the score at 1-0).

At least, the Leeds manager was given a fine reception by the Blackpool fans before kick-off, and quite right too, for he will always hold a special place in the Seasiders hearts, and – more importantly – in the history books.

One man who will also have a place in those history books is Paul Rachubka, between the sticks throughout the Perfect 10 run that culminated in promotion in 2007.

How he must yearn for those days again, because what happened last night was painful to watch.

A nice lad who did a decent job at Pool, Rachubka had what can only be described as a nightmare.

The cross he dropped for the second goal was the type of mistake that will cause him to wake in a cold sweat for months to come.

It forced defender Tom Lees to deliberately use his hand to stop Ludovic Sylvestre scoring. Red card and penalty (converted, at the second time of asking by Jonjo Shelvey).

Then he could only tamely parry Lomana LuaLua’s shot in the build-up to Blackpool’s third. It was at this point the entire Leeds crowd – who had seen Rachubka (in for the injured Andy Lonergan) make some bad mistakes in the previous couple of games – began jeering and booing.

The whole ground then cheered when Grayson told Leeds’ third choice keeper, Alex Cairns, to warm up.

It was horrible, and one could only feel for Rachubka. He might have had a shocker, but the bloke is only human. He must have wished the ground would open up and swallow him.

To complete his misery, he was replaced at half time by Cairns, an 18-year-old trainee who had never previously played a professional game in his life. What a smack in the face for Rachubka.

Despite the disappointment of the last two games – Burnley and Nottingham Forest – and despite the fact they last won away from home at Hull on the opening weekend, there wasn’t really a single minute of this game when Blackpool didn’t look like winning.

Even before Rachubka’s errors and the sending off, Holloway’s men were superb.

Right from the start they seemed fired up and in the mood. LuaLua looked every inch the player who used to illuminate the Premier League at Portsmouth, while Sylvestre oozed class.

Victory was never in doubt after an opening half-hour that will go down as one of the best of Holloway’s reign.

On 12 minutes, the opening goal. LuaLua got it, following up after Rachubka could only parry Shelvey’s fierce shot. There was a brilliant ball by Sylvestre, with the outside of his foot, in the build-up.

The key moment of the game was on 25 minutes, when Alex Baptiste’s deflected cross from the right looped high into the air. Rachubka came to collect it, but spilled it horribly. LuaLua sent the loose ball towards goal, Lees stopped it with his arm.

Lees walked, and Shelvey, after having his first successfully-converted kick chalked off because the red-carded Lees wasn’t off the pitch (that surely wasn’t Pool’s fault), rammed the second one in the same corner – bottom left.

Grayson’s face on the sidelines was frozen with horror, and no wonder. Five minutes later, Pool ended the game as a contest, when Rachubka failed to hold LuaLua’s effort from the edge of the box, and Shelvey nipped in to coolly round the distraught keeper and slot home.

Credit to Leeds for the way they started the second-half, pouring forward and trying to find a way back in. They would have done as well, had Gilks not made a good stop from Adam Clayton as he burst through.

The home team got up a proper head of steam and were doing well … until LuaLua scored an absolute scorcher to end the revival.

The 30-year-old, who spent two weeks on trial because he was so desperate to find a club, skipped through the centre, and thumped the ball into the top corner.

Brilliant, and to think the lad is only half fit. What will he do when he’s 100 per cent, score a double hat-trick?

LuaLua celebrated both his strikes with that trademark backflip of his. A Leeds fan next to the press box remarked “not only the best player on the pitch, the best acrobat too’. Least the home fans kept their sense of humour, which, on nights like this, is all you can do.

It got worse for them, Angel Martinez coming off the bench to send a defence-splitting path into the path of Shelvey. The on-loan Liverpool man did the rest to complete a brilliant hat-trick.

A night to live long in the memory of everyone in tangerine; a night to bury in a box labelled “warning: never to be re-opened” for Simon Grayson or Paul Rachubka.

Blackpool: Gilks, Crainey, Baptiste, Evatt, Cathcart, Southern (Angel), Ferguson, Sylvestre, Shelvey, McManaman (Bogdanovic), Lualua (Ince)