Promotion-winning ex-Blackpool boss Ian Holloway pleased to see former squad members making their way in management

Tangerines trio Stephen Dobbie, Ian Evatt and Rob Edwards were all a part of the Seasiders' success in 2009/10 when the club secured its first and only promotion to the Premier League.

While Dobbie's stint in the hot seat was short-lived, having battled to preserve the club's Championship status with six games remaining last term, the striker's one-time team-mates at Bloomfield Road are moving up the ladder.

Holloway said: “It was a joy to watch him [Dobbie] play. He was frustrated a lot of the time because I used him in and out from the bench and then he went and got promoted in his own right with Swansea.

“But what a wonderful player. I swear to you some of the lads I had back then were geniuses with some of the things they could see and feel. Stephen was one of them.”

Evatt - who made more than 250 appearances across the board during his stay on the Lancashire coast - restored Barrow's place in the Football League for the first time in nearly half-a-century before propelling Bolton Wanderers back up the pyramid the following season.

The Trotters lifted the EFL Trophy at Wembley last season, but were denied a return visit to the national stadium when losing out to Barnsley in the League One play-off semi-finals.

Edwards, meanwhile, was an unused substitute when Charlie Adam, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Brett Ormerod fired Blackpool to the top flight at the expense of Cardiff City, but he made a key contribution in the capital 13 years later.

Having scooped the EFL League Two Manager of the Season award in 2021-22 for taking Forest Green up to the third tier as champions, he spearhead Luton Town's return to the PL via the play-offs.

The Hatters edged out Sunderland over two legs in the semi-final, as goals from Gabriel Osho and Tom Lockyer at Kenilworth Road proved decisive, and then they held their nerve to see off Coventry City in a dramatic penalty shoot-out.

“It’s all about them now," continued Holloway. "They were a fantastic group of people and they had a determination to do things and make themselves better.

"That’s what they’re giving back to football now. It’s a wonderful thing and to get a job is really difficult, so well done to all of them.”

Holloway almost boosted Blackpool back into the big time in 2011-12 when losing out to West Ham United in the play-off final, so he is able to empathise with everyone associated with the club having watched it slip through the cracks over the years.

But the former Crystal Palace, Leicester City and QPR manager is confident that they can get back to where they belong.

“It’s a shame,” Holloway said. “They were just getting back on the map but football is chaotic and you’re always trying to make sense of chaos. That’s what happens in football sometimes.

“It’s very, very tough but I do feel for them. But I’m sure they will bounce back and it looks like they’re on track long term with the owner, what he wants to do and how he’s going to do it.”