Full name | Blackpool Football Club |
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Nickname(s) |
The Seasiders, The 'Pool, The Tangerines |
Founded | 26 July 1887 |
Ground | Bloomfield Road |
Capacity | 17,338 |
Owner | Owen Oyston |
Chairman | Karl Oyston |
Manager | Gary Bowyer |
League | League Two |
2016–17 | League Two, 7th |
Website | Club home page |
Blackpool Football Club is a professional association football club based in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. For the 2016–17 season, they are competing in League Two, the fourth tier of English football. Founded in 1887, Blackpool's home ground has been Bloomfield Road since 1901. Their main nickname is the Seasiders, but they are also called the 'Pool and the Tangerines, the latter in reference to the colour of their home kit, which is often referred to as orange.
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 England suffered a famous defeat. Since the 1950s, Blackpool's fortunes have varied, and when they won promotion to the Premier League, at the end of the 2009–10 campaign, 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 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.