The story of Sam Allardyce's eventful Blackpool tenure as former England boss prepares to make Bloomfield Road return with West Brom

Here, The Gazette takes a look back at Allardyce’s short but eventful stint in the managerial hotseat at Bloomfield Road...

He wasn’t known as ‘Big Sam’ in 1994, he was simply Sam Allardyce.

Relatively fresh-faced, the Dudley native was only 40 years old when he made the short but unusual move down the M55 from Deepdale to Bloomfield Road.

Allardyce, who played for Preston during a 19-year playing career that also included spells with Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland and yes, even West Brom for a short-lived stint, was hired as a player-coach at the Hawthorns in 1989.

He spent most of the 1989/90 season managing and playing for the reserve side, before being promoted to first-team coach the following summer.

But the 66-year-old didn’t last long in that role, facing the sack alongside manager Brian Talbot in January 1991 following a defeat to Isthmian League side Woking in the FA Cup.

Having briefly worked as a player-coach at Bury, Allardyce was offered a player-manager’s role with Irish side Limerick, where he tasted his first piece of success.

Despite financial challenges, Allardyce guided the team to promotion to the top tier of Irish football after winning the First Division title in his first season in charge.

But Allardyce only remained in Ireland for one season, the recently-appointed West Brom boss opting to return to England for the start of the 1992/93 campaign to coach at Preston under Les Chapman.

Keeping in line with how his coaching career had gone up to that point, those plans were thrown into the air just 10 games into the season when Chapman was sacked and Allardyce was put in caretaker charge.

Despite a promising spell, Allardyce didn’t get the job on a full-time basis, Preston instead choosing to appoint John Beck as manager.

Allardyce continued at Preston as a youth team coach for 18 months, but later said the long ball tactics Beck enforced upon the club were "indefensible", an ironic comment to make given the somewhat unfair tag he would later pick up in his career.

A lot is known about Allardyce’s stints at Bolton, Blackburn Rovers and his infamous one-game spell as England boss, but most neutrals probably wouldn’t be able to tell you where his first full-time managerial gig came in England.

Of course, it was on the Fylde Coast. On July 19, 1994, Blackpool appointed Allardyce to replace the club’s iconic former manager Billy Ayre, who had battled on admirably in the face of limited investment from Owen Oyston to avoid relegation back to the Fourth Division by a single point.

One of his first moves at Blackpool was to bring in Micky Mellon and Andy Morrison, two players that would prove pivotal in the coming years.

He also promoted Phil Brown, a man he would enjoy plenty of success with at Bolton, from a playing to a coaching role.

Allardyce started well in his first season, but the Seasiders fell out of the promotion race to finish 12th after winning just one of their final 11 games.

Pool were installed as one of the promotion favourites ahead of the 1995/96 campaign, while off the pitch Oyston had promised funds for Allardyce to strengthen his squad and also pledged - somewhat fancifully - to rebuild Bloomfield Road with a project that unsurprisingly never got off the ground (no pun intended).

But the money for new players was actually forthcoming, with £200,000 being spent on striker Andy Preece and £100,000 on Marvin Bryan from QPR.

Preece would go on to finish the following season as the club’s joint top scorer alongside Tony Ellis with 14 goals apiece.

Steve Banks, who is now Blackpool’s goalkeeping coach, was also brought in from Gillingham.

With two games remaining, the Seasiders had automatic promotion in their own hands, but they slumped to a dismal 2-1 defeat at home to Walsall in their penultimate fixture - a result that ultimately decided their fate.

A final-day win against York City proved futile as Oxford United, who were 14 points behind Blackpool with eight games to go, also won to claim second place.

But worse was still to come.

Blackpool, who still had a chance of promotion via the play-offs, appeared to be cruising into the Wembley final thanks to a 2-0 win against Chris Kamara’s Bradford City in the first leg at Valley Parade.

But a 3-0 defeat in the return leg, a shocking loss that has been dogged by unsubstantiated rumours ever since, saw Blackpool crash out. It also spelled the end for Allardyce, who was sacked by Oyston from his prison cell.

“It was cold, calculated, pre-planned, whatever,” Allardyce was quoted as saying years later.

“I walked out of there with £10,000, no job and desperately worried that my reputation would be damaged forever.”

If only he knew what was to follow...

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