Blackpool F.C. season 1915–16

The 1915–16 season was Blackpool F.C.'s first season in special wartime football during World War I. They competed in two Football League competitions spread over the full season – the Lancashire Section, Northern Group Principal Competition, for 26 games, and then in the Lancashire Section, Northern Group Subsidiary Competition, for a further ten games. The club finished third in the principal competition and second in the subsidiary competition. Eddie Latheron was the club's top scorer, with sixteen goals (thirteen in the principal competition and three the subsidiary). The FA Cup was suspended for the duration of the war.

With the outbreak of World War I, many professional footballers were called up to fight in the war. A conference was held in Blackpool's Winter Gardens on 3 July 1915, with representatives from the English, Irish, Scottish and Southern Football Leagues to consider whether football should be played in the 1915–16 season. A meeting of the Management Committee of the English Football League was held after the conference, during which a decision was made that football should continue, and that each league should organise their own programme. The national League was suspended and regional leagues formed with clubs being allowed to use whichever players they could get, and the registration policy was scrapped.

With a large number of British Army personnel based in the town, many of the Blackpool players during the four seasons of wartime football were soldiers. Blackpool were placed Group B, the Lancashire League, which consisted of fourteen teams. In order to make the season longer, it was divided into two competitions, the Principal Competition and the Subsidiary Competition.

The Principal competition for the 1915–16 season consisted of fourteen teams:

Some Blackpool players had enlisted, but the nucleus of the team remained for the start of the season, including goalkeeper James Mitchell, who had played only five league games the previous season and who wore glasses in matches. Other players included Jimmy Jones, Joe Bainbridge, George Wilson, Bobby Booth, Jack Charles, Len Appleton and Ben Green. With Blackburn Rovers not having a team in the competition, some of their players joined Blackpool, including Bob Crompton, who was made captain, Eddie Latheron and George Chapman.

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