43 years ago today

Andywatsonsuperstar said:
Only ever seen videos of Bob Hatton as he was before my time but my god, how much do we need a goal scoring hero like him present day for the kids to be inspired by.
Click to expand...
Bob Hatton and Fred Pickering were the best 2 centre forwards I have watched at Bloomers - there have been many good forwards but not in the same class as these guys
 
Camberwell1 said:
Dunno about the reinvestment - Stoke arrived again (!} and bought the 1973 Sunderland team !
Click to expand...

Forgot about them Bobby Kerr, Dick Malone and Jackie Ashurst, for a record fee at the time. Hardly ones for the future though were they . Combined age mustve been nudging a hundred !!
 
Potts Must Go said:
Forgot about them Bobby Kerr, Dick Malone and Jackie Ashurst, for a record fee at the time. Hardly ones for the future though were they . Combined age mustve been nudging a hundred !!
Click to expand...
Dick Malone was a cult figure for our little crew. He looked a bit like the bloke with the big transistor radio and was about as mobile. Remember his goal? A stooping header I recall from a free kick. It was in that last game of a mediocre season in the Third Division against Swindon. Hockaday scored a wonder goal.
 
We really had little to worry about, as the knight in shining armour, who had been a fan of the club since insemination, was waiting in the wings with a soiled one pound note in his grubby, grabbing hand to buy the club and take us to the promised land in a brand new stadium with removable roof, a playing surface on wheels and many other crackpot schemes.

What could go wrong? 👿💩🤡🤬☠️
 
hampshire_exile said:
A great day. Bob Hatton couldn't miss. Had at least one more disallowed. The next 3 months scarred a generation of fans and cost us many of them for good. They couldn't take us seriously as a third division club, for some reason, and turned their backs on us.
Click to expand...
He could miss 😉 Hit the woodwork twice and 2 ruled out.
 
Levi501 said:
Little did we know that 30 years of Hurt awaited us following Cretinous Cartmell’s and the board’s decision to sack him!
Click to expand...
I remember vividly feeling hatred towards him. I was going to phone him to give him some stick so I walked to the local phone box, thought better of it in case it could be traced (too much Department S), so went to the long line outside Abingdon St PO. Made the call to DoE to get his number only to find he was ex-directory. I grrrrrr'd all the way home.
 
BlackpoolWolf said:
Moved to Blackpool on January 8th - first game 5-1 v Charlton ... second game 5-2 v Blackburn - couldn’t believe it. Vaguely recall 2-0 up at Spurs in next game and drew 2-2 ?
Click to expand...
Yeah. 2-2. We were 2 up inside 5 mins. I think the game was live on national radio; sure I remember hearing some comms.
 
1950`spoolfan said:
Spot on Fess and our victory over Charlton was 2 weeks before. We had lost to Bristol Rovers the week before the Blackburn game.

I recall that we finished our games maybe a week or a few days before others below us that season and it had looked almost impossible for us to be relegated but in the end incredibly I believe there were something like 7 clubs all with worse goal averages than us all level but just one point above us and I thought there were one or two very suspicious 0-0 draws on the last day that conveniently saved some teams.

These days that wouldn`t happen as everyone plays their last game at the same time.

Like many on here I was devastated.

Allan Brown who according to my dad was a great player in a great team and he, our team and Allan Brown`s Tangerine Army had taken us to 5th the previous season but he didn`t do much managerially after that.

Cartmell must be the second worst owner we have ever had.
Click to expand...
The last game of the season I think was played on a Thursday and the Cardiff 0 Orient 0 result sent us down. Spent most of the game in a phone box phoning trying to get updates. A lolly stick meant calls were free 😉

Cartmell brought in Jimmy Meadows, who had the brilliant idea of training without a ball all week in order to make the players hungry for it on matchday.
 
I remember the game well. Hatton and Walsh together were class.

I have just looked it up and from the next 15 games we only got 9 points. 7 draws and and 1 win ( 2 points in those days)
 
fcblackpool said:
The last game of the season I think was played on a Thursday and the Cardiff 0 Orient 0 result sent us down. Spent most of the game in a phone box phoning trying to get updates. A lolly stick meant calls were free 😉

Cartmell brought in Jimmy Meadows, who had the brilliant idea of training without a ball all week in order to make the players hungry for it on matchday.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember in the 50`s the theory was don`t give them a ball to play with during training and it would make them hungrier for it on match day!
 
We seemed to have finished our 42 games what weeks before all the teams towards the bottom. Looked reasonably safe around mid table & only one Carol Vordermanesque complicated set of results could send us down.
Was never going to happen 🥺.
We'll bounce straight back. Remember getting thumped 5-0 at Watford in Div 3 being a wake up call.
 
Cartmell was horrific. He was certainly the catalyst for everything that has happened since that time.

Blackpool, who had been in the top flight from 1937 to 1967, after the early years in the Second Division.

Then after one season back in the top flight in 1970-71 the following years finished 6th, 7th, 5th, 7th, 10th and 5th - always there or thereabouts near the top of the Second Division. And then came the sacking of Allan Brown, and that ridiculous relegation, immediately followed by finishing 12th in the clubs first ever season in the Third Division under Bob Stokoe. 1979-80 18th, a season started under Stan Ternent and ending under Alan Ball.

1980-81 saw relegation to the 4th Division, and ironically the return of Allan Brown. Then after a 12th place finish in 1981-82, the following season saw a club that had spent all that time in the top two divisions having to apply for re-election to the Football League, after a 23rd place finish. Utter humiliation.

And of course a few years later in came Oyston.

So yes Cartmell was to blame.
 
Apart from what’s already been said about the 1978 relegation, we lost on the final Saturday of the season 2-1 at Brighton, & the winner came in the last minute. If it’d ended 1-1, we’d have finished 5 or 6 places higher.

Orient had gotten to the F.A Cup Semi-Final that season, so it meant they had 2 or 3 League matches still to play because there were no Play-Offs back then, & they played them after the last Saturday, & therefore they knew what they had to do to stay up.

There were also 2 or 3 poor performances towards the end of the season, 2-1 losses at home to Mansfield & Fulham (Mansfield especially as they were basically relegated).
 
Bottle said:
I remember the game and the sad aftermath but I was led to believe that Billy Cartmel sacked Allan Brown over a car parking space - might be an Urban Myth but knowing Blackpool FC I wouldn’t bet against it being true!

The World turns on the tiniest of events eh! What would have happened without that sacking.
Click to expand...
I thought it was because Cartmell had sold a player without informing Allan Brown or anyone on the board of directors?
 
Wizzerboy said:
I was 14 at the time and I remember at the end of the season crying my eyes out with my Dad saying don't worry son they'll be back next season 🤦‍♂️

I suppose those wilderness years make a Blackpool fan what they are🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
I cried my eyes out too. I was most concerned about having to go into the 1st round of the FA Cup.
 
fcblackpool said:
The last game of the season I think was played on a Thursday and the Cardiff 0 Orient 0 result sent us down. Spent most of the game in a phone box phoning trying to get updates. A lolly stick meant calls were free 😉

Cartmell brought in Jimmy Meadows, who had the brilliant idea of training without a ball all week in order to make the players hungry for it on matchday.
Click to expand...
I think the match ended Cardiff 0 Orient 1. Orient needed the win to send us down. They had not won away for ages and Cardiff had not lost at home for ages. There were allegations at the time that the match was rigged, but obviously impossible to prove! At the end of the day it had been in our own hands, but we blew it with a terrible second half of the season.
 
Devskiji said:
Apart from what’s already been said about the 1978 relegation, we lost on the final Saturday of the season 2-1 at Brighton, & the winner came in the last minute. If it’d ended 1-1, we’d have finished 5 or 6 places higher.
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that Dev? They way I remember it we were two down and Slow Bob got a late consolation for us.

33,000 there that day, I seem to recall. Like a morgue at the end because they had missed out. I think Spurs and Southampton had played out a convenient goalless draw that sent them both up.
 
Anyone remember Bill Cartmel going on the pitch at half time when we were flying and announcing to the crowd that he would be taking us out of this division. He did but the wrong way!
I knew him and Stan Parr another director because they were both members at Blackpool Park GC and I got on well with them both but Bill was a hard bastard in business and didn’t take any prisoners.
On a good note he sponsored our football team with kit etc and always threw a Christmas party for us at his hotel in South Shore.
 
Hi Basil: no, I'm sure Brighton scored the winner in the last minute. This match was televised & I remember seeing a couple of minutes of it a few years ago on the Big Match Revisited. The main match was West Ham v Liverpool & the other one ( a couple of minutes again) was Cambridge v. Exeter. It was LWT's footage because Brian Moore presented the programme & so a London club's game was the main match.
 
Wizaard said:
We beat Blackburn 5 2 only for Cartmell to sack Allan Brown and us slide inexorably into Division Three for the first time. Took the best part of three decades to get back.
Click to expand...
My old man never went back.
 
Martonmosser said:
Remember another Gazette front page depicting BFC as a ship and the players jumping as the ship went down. Even think the headline could have been Rats deserting a sinking ship????
Click to expand...
Yes i remember that front page and the cartoon.
Orient and Cardiff conspired on the last match to send us down . At least we beat both of them in play off finals in later years for a bit of karma!
 
I remember this very well. Aged 13. Memories of being in the South Paddock with lots of Rovers fans baiting us. Its also the first time I recall seeing Radioman. Happy Days!
 
Great days, I was 12 and used to sell programmes at the ground and get in for nothing that season. I'm pretty sure that I was selling them for that game, my pitch was outside the south I think and then inside the ground. Hatton was a colossus to me as a kid, a better player than Walsh but they were a great partnership. And of course, what a tache the guy had, straight out of Life on Mars, there was nothing ironic about the big man's facial hair. I watched the game in the south, the memorable goal was the Hatton bullet header from the penalty spot that seemed like it would break the net from my vantage point behind the goal. And then of course, having to pick myself up from the ruck of bodies on the ground at the bottom of the paddock, as happened every time we scored in those days.
I couldn't believe it when Brown was sacked, it just didn't make any sense to a 12 year old and upon reflection it still doesn't. I have spent most of my time as a fan hoping that the feeling of optimism that I had in those days would return and it eventually did, first under Ayre (a little bit) then under Allardyce, then Grayson and Holloway. I am starting to feel the optimism returning under Critchley, who may prove to be a master stroke, and in fact I think the club is healthier than at any time since I started watching. We have a united board for whom money is not a problem and a united fanbase, an improving team and a great young manager. UTP!
 
I seem to have memories of a headline in the Gazette following relegation saying something like R.I.P. Blackpool FC. Either the first time to be relegated to the 3rd tier, or the relegation to the 4th tier not long after. Could be my memory playing tricks of course.
 
Seainsea said:
I thought it was because Cartmell had sold a player without informing Allan Brown or anyone on the board of directors?
Click to expand...
I think that he sold Paul Hart to Leeds and Bob Hatton got injured at the same time. We didn't have a replacement for either.
 
The weather was much the same as today awful it was the only game i ever got thrown out of luckily it was near the end and we were already winning 5-2
 
One of the problems that season was the fact that we finished our fixtures (42 matches) before everyone else, on 29.4.78, whereas a few other clubs still had games in hand.

Orient had 3 or 4 because of their run to the FA Cup Semi-Final & the other clubs had postponed matches because of the bad weather back in February.

The last 2nd Division match that season was on 9.5.78, when Orient won at Cardiff & relegated us while the Blackpool team were on a Post-Season tour in the U.S.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top