It’s all about perspective I suppose.
I am one of those who started watching Blackpool just after Alan Ball left, too young to properly remember 1966, so didn’t get to see him play for us, but was a young adult by the time he made a colossal mess of the player manager job. And let’s face it, he did just that. We were going down like a stone, we had to make a massive payoff to him when he left and we took years to recover from it.
Living in Hampshire, I know he is well thought of at Pompey. And he had the good fortune to succeed Ian Branfoot at Southampton which meant all he had to do was reinstate Matt Le T into the team (Branfoot had dropped him) to become instantly popular.
On the other hand I shouldn’t think that he is quite so well though of as a manager in places like Manchester City and Stoke City..