NEW Holloway CONTRACT...Harewood Joins Blackpl

Interesting assessment


The Telegraph

Blackpool seem resigned to a Premier League fate not yet written
Blackpool appear ready to return to the Championship before their Premier League campaign has even begun.

By Jim White

The last time I was in Blackpool, I had a brilliant night out at a place called Funny Girls. It was not an original choice of refuelling station, the venue was heaving with cackling hen parties and impatient drinkers accelerating oblivion by mainlining neat spirits through straws. But what sights there were within.

All the bar staff were cross-dressers. Even the ancient pot collector, wandering through the throng returning empties to the bar while dressed in widows' weeds, turned out to be a bloke.

As were all the entertainers, who strode across the stage singing disco standards in the most revealing costumes.

Possibly deliberately, the stage on which they sang of how they will survive was set so that the performers' midriffs were at the audience's eye level. Which meant the sole question on the lips of every drinker was this: where on earth have they put it?

In many ways, Funny Girls is the perfect metaphor for the town: this is a place where much is hidden. Not least what goes on away from the tinkling tills of the Golden Mile.

In Blackpool the average weekly wage is £302 (the national figure is £489). Here life expectancy is the lowest in England and Wales.

Marooned out on the far west coast, those who aren't engaged in peeling pounds off inebriated visitors find little in the way of prospects: Blackpool's level of unemployment is way above that found in most of the rest of the nation.

Which is why the arrival of Premier League football is such a significant thing. Not just in the influx of thousands of happy away fans keen to make a weekend of it.

Not simply either in the priceless media attention that will accrue. But in the boost it will give to the local morale when at last the townsfolk can feel they have joined the mainstream.

A pity, then, that Blackpool FC seem to be taking to the top flight with all the grace of a sea lion having tap-dancing lessons.

This time last year, Burnley were readying themselves for their Premier League debut. They had a fine story to tell, of a proud history and a prudent present, of sky-high spirit in the dressing room and a town surfing a wave of resurgent self-esteem.

To tell the tale, articulate club ambassadors like Clark Carlisle and the manager Owen Coyle were offered to the media, who gave them an overwhelmingly sympathetic platform.

So when the club hit the big time running, winning an early home game against Manchester United, it came as little surprise: this was an outfit drawing momentum from its enthusiasm, a club who believed their own publicity.

Blackpool have at least as good a story to tell. Not that you would know it. Like the performers at Funny Girls, they appear to prefer to keep things undercover.

With just one member of the backroom staff fulfilling every role from secretary to press officer, phones ring unanswered, polite email inquiries are ignored, an invitation to the club's one and only pre-season press conference this week was received by this newspaper half an hour after it was scheduled to start.

Maybe they were simply hoping to avoid questions about the club's choice of shirt sponsor.

Should any institution representing a town blighted by such widespread poverty really be associating with an organisation like Wonga.com, whose business is loaning money at 2,689 per cent annual interest?

And then, when it did happen, the conference did not go well.

The manager Ian Holloway, a front man whose line in self-deprecatory humour could easily land him a turn as a stand-up on the Edinburgh fringe, appeared hollow-eyed and tetchy.

He berated the few psychic reporters who managed to second guess the start time about the lack of truth in rumours of his unhappiness.

He then went on to complain about the general sliminess of agents and the difficulty of attracting anyone of any calibre to his club.

Where, you wondered, had the cheerful, optimistic man gone who, back in the glow of promotion, underlined his compatibility with the town where he now worked with the observation "we both look better in the dark"?

Mind, there was a hint as to his pessimism in the condition of the stand behind where he was speaking.

The club's lack of readiness is writ large in the construction work on this new facility, the late completion of which means that the season's first few matches will all be played away.

By the time Holloway makes his belated Premier League home debut, he will know the chances of turning Bloomfield Road into a fortress-like redoubt will, in all probability, already have been sabotaged.

Ultimately Burnley's savvy public relations did not insulate them against relegation. But at least they seemed determined to enjoy their fleeting association with the big time, an attitude which fed into their play.

Poor Blackpool – who everyone would love to see have a decent run at things – give nothing less than the impression of seeking a return to their comfort zone at the earliest opportunity.

It could be a long winter on the Lancashire coast.
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/blackpool/7941410/Blackpool-seem-resigned-to-a-Premier-League-fate-not-yet-written.html