Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 and based in the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. In the 2012–13 English season, the team compete in the Football League Championship, which is the second tier of professional football in England. When they reached the Premier League in 2010, Blackpool became the first club in English football to have won promotion from every division of the Football League via the play-off system.

Blackpool's home ground has been Bloomfield Road since 1901. Their main nickname is the Seasiders, though they are also called the 'Pool and the Tangerines, the latter in reference to the colour of their home kit, which is often mistaken for orange. The club's motto is Progress, as featured on the club crest. Blackpool have a local rivalry with Preston North End and matches between the two clubs are known as the West Lancashire derby.

Blackpool's most notable achievement is winning the 1953 FA Cup Final, the so-called "Matthews Final", in which they beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3, overturning a 1–3 deficit in the closing stages of the game. During that post-war period, Blackpool made three FA Cup Final appearances in six years and, during the 1950s, had four top six finishes in the Football League First Division, their best position being runners-up to Manchester United in the 1955–56 season. In 1953, four Blackpool players were in the England team against Hungary at Wembley, causing the Daily Mirror to declare that "Blackpool are playing Hungary today", though it became a day that English football fans would rather forget. Blackpool's least successful period was in the 1980s particularly when, in the 1982–83 season, they finished 21st in English League football's lowest tier, their lowest-ever League finish.

Blackpool have been managed by Michael Appleton since November 2012. He replaced Ian Holloway, who left for Crystal Palace after three-and-a-half years in the role.