Blackpool F.C. season 1916–17

The 1916-17 season was Blackpool F.C.'s second 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 thirty games, and then in the Lancashire Section, Group C, Subsidiary Competition, for a further six games. The club finished in last place, 16th, in the principal competition and 10th in the subsidiary competition. Williamson was the club's top scorer, with ten goals (six in the principal competition, three in the subsidiary and one in other games). Harry Hampton, who scored over 200 goals for Aston Villa between 1904 and 1920, briefly played for Blackpool this season, scoring eight goals in seven league games.

The FA Cup was suspended for the duration of the war.

For Blackpool, the second wartime season was quite different from the first. With the war escalating, the club's own players were not able to play as much for Blackpool. In addition, Blackburn Rovers decided to play in the league which meant that their players, who had played for Blackpool the previous season, would no longer be available. Blackpool often had to rely on finding players at the last minute for matches; therefore, unlike the first season, Blackpool rarely put out the same side in consecutive matches. Staff and recovering patients from the King's Lancashire Medical Convalescent Hospital (KLMCH) and staff from the Royal Army Medical Corps Depot (RAMC), both based at Squires Gate, provided players throughout the season.

The Principal competition for the 1916–17 season consisted of sixteen teams, two more than in the 1915–16 season with the addition of Blackburn Rovers and Port Vale:

Blackpool began the campaign on 2 September 1916, with a home match against Preston North End. The Seasiders team contained only six players who had played for the club in the previous season. The team included Jim Simmons, a Sheffield United player who was on honeymoon in Blackpool. Blackpool won the match 5–1 in front of a crowd of 3,000. By the third game, Blackpool had already used 17 different players, whereas they had used only 19 players throughout the whole of the 1915-16 season. The often-makeshift side suffered five consecutive defeats between 7 October and 4 November before a 1–1 draw at home to Bury on 11 November. However, a week later they lost 11–1 away to Port Vale. Although it is the club's heaviest defeat, it does not count in official records, being a wartime-season game.

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