Alan Ball

B

Born tangerine

Well-known member
I always feel whenever we discuss our past players our legends it's very rare his name comes up in conversation. He was a brilliant footballer who I was lucky enough to see in every home match who kept us in division 1 single handedly and was leading goal scorer in 2 of his seasons here.
A stand and a statue should have been for this World cup winner who we never seem to do justice to
What a career 833 league games nearly 200 goals. Played 72 times for England scored 8 goals captained England 6 times and they never lost and was Motm in a World cup final which they won for the one and only time and the biggest statistic was he was 5ft 6in.
What a player
 
His value to us as a player will always be diluted a bit because he was such an absolute disaster as a manager. He did a lot of damage to the club in his time in charge.
 
Obviously a great player.I think perhaps that he is not remembered as fondly as some of our other greats because as soon as he established how good he was he and particularly his father couldn`t wait to get him to another club . He was also a disaster here when he became our manager.
 
When he became manager the expectations were very high because of his pedigree as a player. I recall great players like Sir Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton,Billy Wright never hit the heights either and our club was in the doldrums for 30 years because of the way it was being run.
 
basilrobbie said:
His value to us as a player will always be diluted a bit because he was such an absolute disaster as a manager. He did a lot of damage to the club in his time in charge.
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Your club and your opinion but he followed the managerial 'blue print' of many ie big name and throw a lot of money at it,so in that respect damage was done right across the leagues.He was immensely successful at Portsmouth and Southampton which showed he had some managerial ability so maybe the fault wasnt entirely his?

Any club however who has a World Cup winner in its ranks should really cherish that and for some reason a few clubs dont really bother and from what Ball said that includes the Seasiders.
Man U have always had Bobby Charlton central to anything,Stoke with Banks and West Ham with Moore,Peters and Hurst. Leeds have been really poor with Jack Charlton who also holds the appearance record and went lukewarm on the naming of our South Stand in his honour,and for me England World Cup winners should be an often celebrated whilst the players are alive-and beyond.
 
Alan Ball is a Blackpool World Cup winner. Not many clubs can boast one of them.

I wasn’t about when he managed us but I know he was an absolute disaster, but that shouldn’t make him any less of a club legend, in my humble opinion
 
Plumbs said:
Your club and your opinion but he followed the managerial 'blue print' of many ie big name and throw a lot of money at it,so in that respect damage was done right across the leagues.He was immensely successful at Portsmouth and Southampton which showed he had some managerial ability so maybe the fault wasnt entirely his?

Any club however who has a World Cup winner in its ranks should really cherish that and for some reason a few clubs dont really bother and from what Ball said that includes the Seasiders.
Man U have always had Bobby Charlton central to anything,Stoke with Banks and West Ham with Moore,Peters and Hurst. Leeds have been really poor with Jack Charlton who also holds the appearance record and went lukewarm on the naming of our South Stand in his honour,and for me England World Cup winners should be an often celebrated whilst the players are alive-and beyond.
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I don't think any managerial blueprint ever mentioned employing a load of your mates on golden goodbye contracts before they swanned off to retirement.

More generally, he relegated every club he managed, except for Southampton, where he had a genius in the team to keep them up. His record at Pompey was actually fairly average ; he left them pretty much where he found them first time around after about five years and went back when (to be fair to him) the writing was already on the wall.
 
Disaster as a manager signed a load of mates who retired not long after and sued the club when he left. No statue for me.

As a player not the most gifted in the world but down a lot to his dad way ahead of his time in terms of fitness which made a good player great.
 
I fully agree, he ran rings round Nobby Stiles of Man Utd here, will never forget he turned Stiles inside out at a throw-in
near the corner at the old players tunnel end. I also think Tony Green and Glyn James should have a statue outside. We
should have at least half dozen statues outside with our history.
 
basilrobbie said:
I don't think any managerial blueprint ever mentioned employing a load of your mates on golden goodbye contracts before they swanned off to retirement.

More generally, he relegated every club he managed, except for Southampton, where he had a genius in the team to keep them up. His record at Pompey was actually fairly average ; he left them pretty much where he found them first time around after about five years and went back when (to be fair to him) the writing was already on the wall.
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Like I said the issue with many owners was -and still is- trying to buy instant success with seasoned pros and in Blackpool's case someone signed the cheques. If we are going to blame the EFL for being irresponsible in their selection of fit and proper persons,then its only fair to apportion responsibility to those who put their clubs in the cart.
Alan Ball did very well with his managerial appointments although he did make the mistake of staying too long and going back,which is something you guys experienced with Grayson.

Always devil in the detail brr 😉
 
Hazi said:
Disaster as a manager signed a load of mates who retired not long after and sued the club when he left. No statue for me.

As a player not the most gifted in the world but down a lot to his dad way ahead of his time in terms of fitness which made a good player great.
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I totally agree with your comments in your first sentence but I think you underrate him as a player.He combined elusiveness with skill and creativity,terrific energy and competitiveness and a very useful goal scoring ability too.Perhaps the only things that he lacked to be an even greater player were great pace and greater physicality.
 
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Plumbs said:
Like I said the issue with many owners was -and still is- trying to buy instant success with seasoned pros and in Blackpool's case someone signed the cheques. If we are going to blame the EFL for being irresponsible in their selection of fit and proper persons,then its only fair to apportion responsibility to those who put their clubs in the cart.
Alan Ball did very well with his managerial appointments although he did make the mistake of staying too long and going back,which is something you guys experienced with Grayson.

Always devil in the detail brr 😉
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I had the misfortune of watching Blackpool when he was manager, rather than reading about it in Wiki.

The devil is very much in the detail you actually saw for yourself.....
 
My hero, well him Jimmy and a few other Blackpool players, when I was a lad and really dependent upon which position I was playing in the game on the rec. I met him in later life in a bar in a hotel with the Arsenal team, he was happy to talk football and pleasant enough.

Those white boots put me off him a bit but he could play though, weight of pass, first touch, vision and maximum effort. Too small for a few teams but a hell of a ticker on him so that got him to where he wanted to be, that and making the most of every last bit of talent he had.

The Alan Ball Stand...........its has a bit of a ring to it!
 
basilrobbie said:
I had the misfortune of watching Blackpool when he was manager, rather than reading about it in Wiki.

The devil is very much in the detail you actually saw for yourself.....
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You can play smarty pants but clubs giving an unproven manager a bumper budget has been used often since then,and failed at just every opportunity. Fans feed the frenzy which inevitably includes a former legend,who fails to deliver the aspirations and dreams of a demanding fan base.
Rinse,repeat and sack the manager.
 
Top player & World Cup winner so its a big yes from me on the East stand 👍 . I also dont think he is remembered fondly enough.

Not sure if its fair to say he was the worst Blackpool manager ever!? As plumbs rightly says many top players do not make great managers.
He ,made mistakes at the time imo by trying to play pretty football in the lower leagues when it just simply wasnt done (the refs let pretty much anything go back then).
Yes bringing in over the hill names on big money was a big mistake,but tbh plenty of managers have done that over the years,its just that he did it here.
 
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deary said:
Top player & World Cup winner so its a nig yes from me on the East stand 👍 . I also dont think he is remembered fondly enough.

Not sure if its fair to say he was the worst Blackpool manager ever!? As plumbs rightly says many top players do not make great managers.
He ,made mistakes at the time imo by trying to play pretty football in the lower leagues when it just simply wasnt done (the refs let pretty much anything go back then).
Yes bringing in over the hill names on big money was a big mistake,but tbh fair plenty of managers have done that over the years,its just that he did it here.
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It was his first role and he was still playing too, don't forget. We've had worse. MacDonald for one.
 
So sorry to see him go when I was a kid and equally excited when he came back as Manager. Unfortunately he was a disaster and tarnished his reputation by signing over the hill dross on big money which skinned the club dry, consequently opening the door a few seasons later for the disastrous Oyston decades.
 
Born tangerine said:
I always feel whenever we discuss our past players our legends it's very rare his name comes up in conversation. He was a brilliant footballer who I was lucky enough to see in every home match who kept us in division 1 single handedly and was leading goal scorer in 2 of his seasons here.
A stand and a statue should have been for this World cup winner who we never seem to do justice to
What a career 833 league games nearly 200 goals. Played 72 times for England scored 8 goals captained England 6 times and they never lost and was Motm in a World cup final which they won for the one and only time and the biggest statistic was he was 5ft 6in.
What a player
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AB was a special,special player for us, surpassed only by Tony Green in my very humble. I was gutted when he left us after the WC in 66.
One abiding memory I have of AB was when we were playing Everton,I think (ironically enough) but it may have been Man Utd. Anyway, Bally bossed the game and found himself in some space between the Scratching Shed and the South Stand( on the pitch obviously!) and sat on the ball for quick second, taking the proverbial. Impudence. Agree with the comments about his spell as manager. The second was a huge disappointment.
 
Great player, crap manager.

My wife's Nan used to call his mother "that common loud mouthed red head who used to drag those ginger snotty kids around behind her".

Who'd have thought who one of those snotty kids became?


Another Pool legend who doesn't get enough praise is Emlyn Hughes. Discuss.
 
28 appearances. Not here long enough to be classed as a legend for me.

Maybe at Liverpool not at Blackpool.
 
Shankly whisked him before his feet had barely touched the ground at Bloomfield Road.I have a vague recollection that he got sent off in one of his early games for us.I may be wrong on that,my memory`s not what it was.
 
BobHatton said:
Great player, crap manager.

My wife's Nan used to call his mother "that common loud mouthed red head who used to drag those ginger snotty kids around behind her".

Who'd have thought who one of those snotty kids became?


Another Pool legend who doesn't get enough praise is Emlyn Hughes. Discuss.
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I would agree with Emlyn wholeheartedly
 
He was a very cocky player, part of his greatness, but also a very cocky manager when he started out, which was a significant problem. Ball did admit himself that he should have kept Stan Ternent on to advise and guide him while he was still learning
 
seasideone said:
We were dire when he managed us - and I was dead excited when he got the job!
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Same here & 10k+ others for first home game vs Rotherham?
Prior to his appointment we'd had the odd ex star player looking for retirement by the sea, Alfie Conn springs to mind. But under Ball it seemed like half the team had the glory years left behind them.
Then the other extreme throwing an embryo like Eamon Collins on as a sub. It was all very eventful.
 
I can remember the optimism when he became manager. I went to a pre season win at PNE where there must have been about 5000 from Blackpool. There was also a 2-0 league cup victory over Ipswich I can remember early on in his time - when Ipswich were a big name club - we played really well that night and the match was shown later on TV ( I was on the Kop and there was a camera at the back unusually).
Ted MacDougall was another of his signings I think - Ball was a bit unlucky as one of the big names he signed got injured almost immediately and was out of football for good (Tommy Tynon?). Anyway it all went wrong very quickly and suddenly we were in the third tier with no money (which ball had squandered) and no crowds. What I couldn't believe is how quickly we went from averaging about 12k in the second division to averaging 4k in the third. We did use to get the odd 20k+ crowd in div 2 so I suppose they shifted the average.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
Anyway it all went wrong very quickly and suddenly we were in the third tier with no money (which ball had squandered) and no crowds.
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Tommy Tynan, I'd forgotten about him.

We were already in the third tier when Ball arrived Burro. You are quite right about the crowds though - 50% of our home support vanished overnight when we went down in 1978.
 
basilrobbie said:
Tommy Tynan, I'd forgotten about him.

We were already in the third tier when Ball arrived Burro. You are quite right about the crowds though - 50% of our home support vanished overnight when we went down in 1978.
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I know we were in div 3, my point was that prior to Ball we considered ourselves to be a big Div 3 club with resources to invest in the squad. Everyone thought we would get promoted very quickly back to div 2. Remember that was the first time that Blackpool had ever been outside the top two divisions. After his tenure we had become a small lower league club with little or no resource. We went into to a decline and very nearly folded only ten or so years later. It took 30 years to get back.
 
We thought we were a big club in division 2 as well but Bill Cartmall sacked Allan Brown the rest was history we went down and the players who took us down left the club.
 
In my mind we've always been a competitive Championship club and have the latent fanbase to support that. For 29 years it didn't look that way, admittedly, but there is still that dream.
 
In terms of a realistic assessment of the size of our club we are at the level of a lower championship club but of course there are well run clubs such as Burnley and Bournemouth and several others who prove that by being capably and ambitiously run with good financial support, you can significantly overachieve,equally the opposite applies for the less well run clubs whose doldrums hopefully are something we are about to emerge from and move forward with our new owner though the effect of the current shutdown is as yet unknown and could be great for many clubs.
 
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It was Bobby Tynan, we bought him from Tranmere, prodigious talent but picked up a career ending injury in pre season.
Crying shame for the lad.
 
We bought him for £80,000 i seem to remember and he got injured pre season before he kicked a ball for us and like you said Fargo a goalscoring talent a terrible shame for the young lad and for our club.
 
Alan Ball was a fantastic player and I'm pleased that football recognised his talent by naming those kids who sit around the pitch during a game after him.
 
1950`spoolfan said:
Shankly whisked him before his feet had barely touched the ground at Bloomfield Road.I have a vague recollection that he got sent off in one of his early games for us.I may be wrong on that,my memory`s not what it was.
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It was him who broke Osgood's leg
I don't know whether he got sent off for it though. Too young to go at the time.
 
Wizaard said:
In my mind we've always been a competitive Championship club and have the latent fanbase to support that. For 29 years it didn't look that way, admittedly, but there is still that dream.
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For many years we were a competitive First Division Club. Without WW2, who knows what we might have achieved?
 
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