Tims 92

Blackpool

Bloomfield Road

Ground No. 149 (return visit)

Visited - Saturday 20th November 2010
Result - Blackpool 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Competition - Barclays Premier League
Attendance - 15,922

Once upon a time, before the Premier League consumed football then the FA Cup Final was undoubtedly the most glamorous game of the season, the real high point and national focus of English football’s calendar, the one game that every schoolboy grew up dreaming of playing in, so for a game to stand out as arguably the greatest final of all time, then it really must have been a great one.

Saturday 2nd May 1953 saw a Lancashire derby take place at Wembley as Bolton met with Blackpool in a highly anticipated game that would see many stars of the day take to the pitch. The Trotters took an early lead, with Nat Lofthouse scoring after just 75 seconds, before a topsy-turvy game saw Blackpool equalise on 35 minutes, only for Bolton to regain the lead just before half-time. They made it 3-1 ten minutes after the restart but Stan Mortensen’s second of the afternoon in the 68th minute set up a grand finish which saw Bolton hearts broken as he grabbed his hat-trick in the 89th minute before still stunned, the boys from Burnden Park let in Bill Perry, the South African born forward (who went on to play for England) grab a winner deep into injury time to win the cup in a game that would go on to be known as the Matthews Final, despite Mortensen’s goal exploits.

Having been formed in 1887, it was Blackpool’s highest ever point. Starting out as founder members of the Lancashire League in 1889, they joined the Football League seven years later to seek a bigger challenge. Unfortunately it was too much for them, failing re-election in 1899, but they were only away for one season, after being re-elected 12 months later. It was in December 1899 that a decision to merge with local rivals South Shore FC would play a major part in their future. South Shore were a fellow Lancashire League side, and perhaps it was the shame of losing one of their final fixtures 8-0 to West Brom that caused them to give up! Jokes aside, what was to prove significant in the merger was that the played at a ground named Gamble’s Field on Bloomfield Road. Blackpool at that time had been using the grounds of local parks, notably Raikes Hall, so after playing matches between the two, a decision was eventually reached to redevelop Gamble’s Field, with the newly amalgamated club moving there permanently in 1901, renaming it to its present day title. Built up during the 1920s and 1930s, it was the addition of the East Stand paddock in 1954 that led to the grounds record attendance when the mighty (back then at least!) Wolverhampton Wanderers came to town in September 1955, the game being watched by 38,098. This was how the ground would remain in the most part until the Taylor Report, but for a roof to be added to the Kop in 1961, which was subsequently taken down twenty years later after safety fears. Wolves fans dismantling the back of it in a 1978 fixture probably hadn’t helped! Sadly though that wasn’t the first incident as the ground became known for some disturbing events even by the standards of those days, injuries being caused after ammonia was thrown into the crowd in 1968, a fan stabbed to death on the terraces in 1974 and it being the first ground in the country to witness police in riot gear when Birmingham visited in a Third Division fixture. With Bloomfield Road’s condition deteriorating even further then by the 1990s its future looked in serious doubt as the board gained planning permission for a new purpose built stadium elsewhere in the town, which included a large scale entertainment complex, and a retractable roof over the pitch. It would have been interesting to see if the plans ever did come to fruition, but with chairman Karl Oyston going to jail in 1996 then the scheme fell by the wayside, and come the turn of the millennium, it was announced that the club would instead redevelop their existing home.

Moving the pitch north-west, the North and West stands were both opened in 2002 before the South and East ones were demolished at the end of the 2002-03 season. Unfortunately for the club, this was when the money ran out, and other than for the addition of an uncovered temporary stand on the East side, then the ground would remain with only two permanent sides for the next few years. On the pitch though, things started to look up after a dismal couple of decades had seen them go from one of England’s top clubs in the 1950’s and 60’s to seeking re-election in 1983 after finishing 21st in Division Four. The 80s and 90s had seen the club largely in the third tier, but being promoted to the Championship in 2007 was a massive achievement, only eclipsed when they beat Cardiff 3-2 in the 2010 play-off final to end a 38 year absence from the top flight.

The success on the pitch had been replicated off it as well, and since my first visit in February 2008, in 2009 the two permanent stands had been extended around the corner to include the newly built South Stand and on promotion, the temporary East Stand was replaced by a still temporary, but much better standard structure to boost capacity to just over 16,000, so with this then a re-visit was required to see just how different the ground looked.

Going into the season, every pundit had written the Seasiders off as relegation material, not helped off the pitch by losing players to League One sides offering more money, and the first home game being switched due to the ground not being ready. Still from adversity, Ian Holloway had rallied his troops to a number of good results and when our fixture with them came around they were sitting comfortably just outside the relegation zone, in contrast to Wolves, who despite some good performances were failing to pick up enough points, with only West Ham keeping us off the bottom of the table.

Arriving into Blackpool at midday, the journey had gone without any problems, with a quick change at Preston speeding things up after a late start. In the town, not a lot seemed to have changed since my last visit, other than more of the prom closed off for construction work, so after a while I headed down to the ground to see how different that looked. Coming to it from Rigby Road then at first glances not a lot has happened there either, however on closer inspection the North and West Stands have been smartened up a bit, with a new health centre in the back of the North Stand where once was boarded up offices previously, and merely adding a couple of badges to the West Stand and landscaping the boundary of the stadium has helped make a massive difference. At the other end of the ground, where once was a car park now stands the South Stand, built in the same style, helping to give it a much better feel from outside, whilst on the far side, the East Stand, well, it serves a purpose! All that said though, it’s not until you actually go in that you really appreciate how different the ground is since the improvements. Once a wind-swept building site, it now feels very enclosed, with the North, West and South stands all steep single tiered structures with executive boxes to the rear. The North and South Stands also have a balcony above the top row, although for some reason this seemed unused in the South Stand, despite a near capacity crowd for the game. The East Stand, unlike its ugly exterior, whilst still nothing to shout about is an immense improvement on what was there previously. Single tiered the roof now offers protection from the elements, even if views are now restricted by pillars, although that is offset with the bonus that the seats in the centre of the stand are padded! Facilities are still of the portacabin variety, but they do the job, and in addition to the new stands, a large video screen has been set up in the corner of the ground to show replays of the action.

Defending the South end of the ground, Wolves were in their change strip of all black, considered unlucky by a growing number of fans, and whilst Kevin Foley might have claimed bad fortune in not being awarded a foul, the evidence against the kits was stacking up when the home side took the lead in just the third minute. A long ball forward and Luke Varney outmuscled Foley on the touchline before letting it bounce and then volleying it right over Marcus Hahnemann into the top corner to make it 1-0 to the hosts. Perhaps shocked by the start, or just lacking the leadership so badly needed since Jody Craddock’s injury, the visitors looked generally awful in the first half, and ex-Wolves loanee Marlon Harewood made it 2-0 just before the break after Hahnemann made a poor attempt to collect a corner, watching it drop to the feet of the ex-Villa striker who poked it home for a deserved lead at the break.

In the second half, bringing on Ebanks-Blake and switching to 4-4-2 saw Wolves improve a little, as Blackpool started to sit back, and they would have been there for the taking if up against a decent side, but it’s sad to say that they weren’t facing one. Serbian midfielder, Nenad Milijas hit the post with a long range shot in the 60th minute, but until a late consolation from Kevin Doyle then it was about the best the visitors could muster in a poor display that left them further away from safety with fans questioning where the next result would come from.

After leaving, then I wasn’t in much of a mood for hanging around, making my way back into town and eventually homewards with the trains on time for a change, before arriving back contemplating a long season ahead, and perhaps what Championship grounds I need to go back to next season!

Overall, despite the result, it had been good to see how much the ground has changed. It’s almost like a different venue now, feeling so much more enclosed than it did before. The only question for the club now is that if they do stay-up, with a capacity of only 16,000, how long will it before the architects are called in again?