BLBlackpool

Club history

Blackpool Football Club was formed in 1887 out of a merger of local football factions at a meeting held in the Stanley Arms public house on the Lancashire coast. Early sides wore various colours before adopting orange shirts in 1923, reputedly on a referee's suggestion inspired by Holland's national colours, which earned the club its enduring nickname "the Tangerines," alongside the more general "Seasiders" reflecting its seaside home. Blackpool moved to Bloomfield Road in 1901 and have played there for over a century.

The club's golden age came in the 1950s under manager Joe Smith, built around the mercurial winger Stanley Matthews. Blackpool reached three FA Cup finals in that decade, finally winning in 1953 with a legendary 4-3 comeback victory over Bolton Wanderers, a match forever known as the "Matthews Final." The following seasons brought Blackpool's highest-ever league finish, runners-up in the First Division in 1955-56. Decline set in after relegation in 1967, and the club spent long spells in the lower divisions through the following decades.

From 1986, ownership passed to the Oyston family, whose 33-year stewardship became one of English football's most contentious, marked by chairman Owen Oyston's imprisonment in the 1990s and, following a bitter legal battle, a 2018 High Court ruling that the family had improperly stripped over 26 million pounds from the club, prompting sustained fan boycotts and protests. Amid this turmoil, Blackpool achieved a remarkable promotion to the Premier League via the 2010 Championship play-off final, becoming the first club to reach the top flight through play-offs from every tier of the Football League, though they were relegated after a single season. Businessman Simon Sadler bought the club in 2019, ending the Oyston era, and Blackpool returned to the Championship in 2021 before dropping back to League One.

Sources

• Wikipedia
• footballhistory.org

Runner-up finishes (1)

• 1955-56

See the full english top-flight champions list for the winner each of these years.