Which football club would you liken Blackpool to?

Redlips

Well-known member
For example I would say Leeds and Aston Villa are almost identical in size and stature.

Middlesbrough and Stoke.

Blackburn and Norwich

what about Blackpool I would say Huddersfield Town are a good comparator. Both have played in the premier league, both have glorious pasts both in the north

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For example I would say Leeds and Aston Villa are almost identical in size and stature.

Middlesbrough and Stoke.

Blackburn and Norwich

what about Blackpool I would say Huddersfield Town are a good comparator. Both have played in the premier league, both have glorious pasts both in the north

💯
Blackburn and Norwich? Are they bollox the same size.
 
For example I would say Leeds and Aston Villa are almost identical in size and stature.

Middlesbrough and Stoke.

Blackburn and Norwich

what about Blackpool I would say Huddersfield Town are a good comparator. Both have played in the premier league, both have glorious pasts both in the north

💯
I actually think we are very similar in stature to PNE. Both traditional clubs with a proud history. Similar size fan base. Finney vs Matthews. We just scrape it though for our Prem venture 😉

I think we have more potential than the likes of Barnsley.
 
In terms of town population, history etc there’s no reason we’re not similar in size to Middlesbrough, West Brom, Blackburn, PNE etc and should be aiming to better clubs like Burnley, Bournemouth, Reading etc.
 
Bigger club than Bournemouth for starters!

Id say Huddersfield, Hull, Charlton all good shouts. Our natural place in the football pyramid on potential is definitely top 10 championship
 
Bigger club than Bournemouth for starters!

Id say Huddersfield, Hull, Charlton all good shouts. Our natural place in the football pyramid on potential is definitely top 10 championship

Cardiff ?

I was thinking similar to above posts about Barnsley, Charlton, PNE, Burnley, and was about to post the same as Athers about where our "natural" place should be after being Oyston free for a few years.

Cardiff have, like us, been down to L2 and got back again, with the more than occasional challenge for promotion to the PL recently.
The clubs seem to have followed each other around the divisions since the mid 70's. We seem to have been in the same division more than not??
 
Blackpool is listed as having a population of 146K, the closest other towns with a single league football club are Watford (141K) and Cambridge (149K).

Source
 
In terms of size I guess most of you have covered it but Jimmy Armfield also talked about Arsenal being rivals,and to be fair during his playing days they were;but it gives you an idea of what a great side it was post war etc.

From an historical view the situation with Milton Keynes was quite analogous,given the initial club was ripped from the community and made to re-locate in a strange area.
 
I always look at stadium capacity. Most grounds are either 10 k or under or 20 k plus.
17 k capacity is an odd size compared to the rest. The other grounds similar I would put at Plymouth, Doncaster and Rotherham . Or I have I missed another similar?
We need 20 k capacity in my view to elevate us to the likes of Charlton and Hull.
 
I always look at stadium capacity. Most grounds are either 10 k or under or 20 k plus.
17 k capacity is an odd size compared to the rest. The other grounds similar I would put at Plymouth, Doncaster and Rotherham . Or I have I missed another similar?
We need 20 k capacity in my view to elevate us to the likes of Charlton and Hull.

Thing is, it’s a bit misleading to judge a club by stadium capacity since were in on of the most deprived areas in the country.

We probably have more fans than most teams with 20k capacity but many can’t justify paying the money to watch league 1 football.
 
Interesting question. If we're basing it on what the football club has achieved, rather than stadium capacity and all that then I think we'd rub shoulders with some fairly big clubs

Blackpool:
1 FA Cup
1 Anglo-Italian Cup
28 seasons spent in the top flight
2 EFL Cups

My initial thought was Burnley, but upon researching I think they top us:
1 FA Cup
2 Champions of England
57 seasons spent in the top flight

I think we're bigger than Barnsley. They've won an FA cup and an EFL Trophy, but have only spent 1 season in the top flight in their entire existence.

Cardiff is a decent shout, they've won the FA cup once, spent 17 seasons in the top flight.

Notts County have an almost identical record to us:
1 FA Cup
1 Anglo-Italian Cup
30 seasons in the top flight
 
I would say Burnley and Huddersfield are a fair comparison. Hull and Charlton are bigger clubs if they got their sh1t together. Very difficult for any club in the North West to become a decent size when you have the 4 foreign owned giants down the road. Lets hope the European super league starts up sooner rather than later.

Living just south of nobber land, I can confirm in the John Beck days, PNE fans saw their club on a par with Newcastle United. Still amuses me to this day.
 
Thing is, it’s a bit misleading to judge a club by stadium capacity since were in on of the most deprived areas in the country.

We probably have more fans than most teams with 20k capacity but many can’t justify paying the money to watch league 1 football.
I think Swansea holds 22,k but looks bigger because, architecturally, it is a very open stadium.
I honestly believe that 25k would suit us well - if we were to become a Championship/Prem yo-yo side. We have huge teams near us, right out to Leeds, Newcastle, Derby and the Sheffields.
Blackpool, in its heyday, got big crowds in april-May and August-October because of tourism. We should be prepared to build to 25k and say, come on holiday-makers, come on away fans have a great weekend and enjoy the match.
 
I always thought Oldham was a fair comparison to us before they went down the swanny.Rotherham,Doncaster, Peterborough,Tranmere also and this is going off my time as a Seasider before I get crucified!.
 
Bigger club than Bournemouth for starters!

Id say Huddersfield, Hull, Charlton all good shouts. Our natural place in the football pyramid on potential is definitely top 10 championship

I wish that was the case Athers and part of me wants to believe it but i think were low championship. Could quite happily name championship sides who are bigger than us unfortunately
 
Interesting question. If we're basing it on what the football club has achieved, rather than stadium capacity and all that then I think we'd rub shoulders with some fairly big clubs

Blackpool:
1 FA Cup
1 Anglo-Italian Cup
28 seasons spent in the top flight
2 EFL Cups

My initial thought was Burnley, but upon researching I think they top us:
1 FA Cup
2 Champions of England
57 seasons spent in the top flight

I think we're bigger than Barnsley. They've won an FA cup and an EFL Trophy, but have only spent 1 season in the top flight in their entire existence.

Cardiff is a decent shout, they've won the FA cup once, spent 17 seasons in the top flight.

Notts County have an almost identical record to us:
1 FA Cup
1 Anglo-Italian Cup
30 seasons in the top flight

We are not bigger than Barnsley.

Ok 1 season in the top flight, but 80 seasons (ish) in the Championship, bigger ground, bigger average attendance than us.

Cardiff have a far bigger fan base than us, far bigger ground and have been in the prem more, been in 2 cup finals recently. We've never even been in a League Cup final.

Some people think we're a bigger club than what we are. Even in our golden years our average attendance was only in the low to mid 20k's. In our prem season we struggled to sell out every game.

For starters our ground is small. If it was bigger we wouldn't fill it. We never sold out in the Championship at 16k, we had to offer cheap tickets to get the attendance up throughout our post prem seasons.

I read so much nonsense on the old AVFTT about us averaging over 10k in League One. How many 10k plus crowds did we get? Historically we've been poorly supported in this division up to 2007. Not exactly pulling up trees since.

I've read in this thread West Brom, Charlton. Really???????

Also if we had a 25k stadium we would fill it? Even in the Prem, unless away teams brought about 6k we wouldnt have sold out. We struggled to get 14k home fans in some games.

I'll get slated for this post by some, which is fine as it's all about opinions but I really don't see how we are as big as some perceive us to be.
 
We are not bigger than Barnsley.

Ok 1 season in the top flight, but 80 seasons (ish) in the Championship, bigger ground, bigger average attendance than us.

Cardiff have a far bigger fan base than us, far bigger ground and have been in the prem more, been in 2 cup finals recently. We've never even been in a League Cup final.

Some people think we're a bigger club than what we are. Even in our golden years our average attendance was only in the low to mid 20k's. In our prem season we struggled to sell out every game.

For starters our ground is small. If it was bigger we wouldn't fill it. We never sold out in the Championship at 16k, we had to offer cheap tickets to get the attendance up throughout our post prem seasons.

I read so much nonsense on the old AVFTT about us averaging over 10k in League One. How many 10k plus crowds did we get? Historically we've been poorly supported in this division up to 2007. Not exactly pulling up trees since.

I've read in this thread West Brom, Charlton. Really???????

Also if we had a 25k stadium we would fill it? Even in the Prem, unless away teams brought about 6k we wouldnt have sold out. We struggled to get 14k home fans in some games.

I'll get slated for this post by some, which is fine as it's all about opinions but I really don't see how we are as big as some perceive us to be.
Who would you compare us to Lewis?
 
We are not bigger than Barnsley.

Ok 1 season in the top flight, but 80 seasons (ish) in the Championship, bigger ground, bigger average attendance than us.

Cardiff have a far bigger fan base than us, far bigger ground and have been in the prem more, been in 2 cup finals recently. We've never even been in a League Cup final.

Some people think we're a bigger club than what we are. Even in our golden years our average attendance was only in the low to mid 20k's. In our prem season we struggled to sell out every game.

For starters our ground is small. If it was bigger we wouldn't fill it. We never sold out in the Championship at 16k, we had to offer cheap tickets to get the attendance up throughout our post prem seasons.

I read so much nonsense on the old AVFTT about us averaging over 10k in League One. How many 10k plus crowds did we get? Historically we've been poorly supported in this division up to 2007. Not exactly pulling up trees since.

I've read in this thread West Brom, Charlton. Really???????

Also if we had a 25k stadium we would fill it? Even in the Prem, unless away teams brought about 6k we wouldnt have sold out. We struggled to get 14k home fans in some games.

I'll get slated for this post by some, which is fine as it's all about opinions but I really don't see how we are as big as some perceive us to be.

Please refer to the opening line of my post where I state "if we're basing this on what the football club has achieved, rather than stadium capacity and all that". There isn't a single example of me talking about fan bases or stadium capacity

We had an average attendance of just under 9k this season in the third tier, where sometimes we had away teams bring fans in the hundreds. I don't think its fair to judge our support when we had an L shaped stadium for about 15 years, its still incomplete now. Combine that with historic lack of investment into the football club and subsequent running into the ground, its no wonder people in the town support Liverpool and United instead.

But fickle fans who support Liverpool and United always seem to remember their allegiance to their hometown club when its doing well. Do you actually think our support wouldn't increase if we were challenging for the Prem or even getting there? If we yo-yo'd like West Brom? That was actually a possibility for us if the Oyston's had invested (it nearly happened even without it). If we have a sustained amount of success over a decent amount of time it breeds a generation of Blackpool fans.

What you refer to about Prem fans bringing 6k is nonsense as we only ever allocated teams half the east stand, exactly the same as what we do now in League One. If we had a larger stadium that could have been an option.. I think a 20k - 22k stadium is a good size for us, it allows the extra room for big games and potential success.
 
Please refer to the opening line of my post where I state "if we're basing this on what the football club has achieved, rather than stadium capacity and all that". There isn't a single example of me talking about fan bases or stadium capacity

We had an average attendance of just under 9k this season in the third tier, where sometimes we had away teams bring fans in the hundreds. I don't think its fair to judge our support when we had an L shaped stadium for about 15 years, its still incomplete now. Combine that with historic lack of investment into the football club and subsequent running into the ground, its no wonder people in the town support Liverpool and United instead.

But fickle fans who support Liverpool and United always seem to remember their allegiance to their hometown club when its doing well. Do you actually think our support wouldn't increase if we were challenging for the Prem or even getting there? If we yo-yo'd like West Brom? That was actually a possibility for us if the Oyston's had invested (it nearly happened even without it). If we have a sustained amount of success over a decent amount of time it breeds a generation of Blackpool fans.

What you refer to about Prem fans bringing 6k is nonsense as we only ever allocated teams half the east stand, exactly the same as what we do now in League One. If we had a larger stadium that could have been an option.. I think a 20k - 22k stadium is a good size for us, it allows the extra room for big games and potential success.

👍 Glad you said that TP, I would have had to change my earlier response to Falkirk - purely because they had a two sided stadium when I was working up there about 15 years ago
 
Until I was 30 I had only ever seen us play in the bottom 2 divisions. A pal of mine found the 4 league tables from the mid-80s and surprisingly most of teams were still in the same divisions now, albeit like ourselves with ups and downs over the years.

Going forward, with the right leadership, I reckon we could be similar to the likes of Watford or Fulham.
 
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Here is an interesting statistic/data table. The all-time average home attendance league. Places us bottom of the 2nd tier, not far behind some apparent "big boys".

Quite impressive when you consider we've languished around the bottom two tiers for a lot of our existence AND most of our fanbase boycotted home games for several years. Imagine how much higher we'd be without the way the club has been run for the past 30 years.
 
Good management makes a club fortunately we have Simon Sadler now and future is much brighter
and we will have sustained investment which should make BFC a big club again.
 
Cardiff ?

I was thinking similar to above posts about Barnsley, Charlton, PNE, Burnley, and was about to post the same as Athers about where our "natural" place should be after being Oyston free for a few years.

Cardiff have, like us, been down to L2 and got back again, with the more than occasional challenge for promotion to the PL recently.
The clubs seem to have followed each other around the divisions since the mid 70's. We seem to have been in the same division more than not??
Our natural station in the football pyramid is, in my opinion, about 16th in the Championship.
 
There's potential in Blackpool that other clubs lack - the size of population, the transience of the population (can be a negative and a positive), the romance and history attached to the club and the town itself, the ability to generate comparatively (with other town/ small city clubs) huge funds from non-football related activities.. all of these give us an edge over other clubs if used correctly. The majority of the competition for support is to the South - heading north is Fleetwood, Morecambe, Barrow and Carlise - all of which shouldn't be an issue when it comes to casting the net far and wide for potential support. We also have an affinity with the Scots no-where else really has - again something which could be better utilised. Blackpool in the Premiership was everyone's 'second' team - we can do that again, we can draw on that and we can use the town to help give us a more global appeal in a similar way to St. Pauli in Germany for example. Marketed correctly Blackpool has a hell of a lot of potential. Marketed correctly and playing decent football towards the top end of Championship 20,000+ attendances are not inconceivable, and doing the same in the Premiership the occasional 30,000 attendance could happen with large away allocations, particularly so in the summer months.
Blackpool has a population 150% the size of Burnley's, we should therefore aim for gates at least 150% the size if we're ambitious and utilise the appeal of a day in Blackpool as opposed to a day in bloody Burnley.

I've said it before and been mocked but I think a forward looking club has to be ambitious and creative.
Hoffenheim play in a village of 3000 people and represent an area with a population of less than 40000 - they play in a modern 30,000+ eat arena and play / push for regular European Football. They've made a point of embracing families and it's worked for them...alongside a rich local owner and supporter....
 
Bigger club than Bournemouth for starters!

Id say Huddersfield, Hull, Charlton all good shouts. Our natural place in the football pyramid on potential is definitely top 10 championship
If Bournemouth slip into the championship I don’t think we will see them in the premier league for a decade.
 
There's potential in Blackpool that other clubs lack - the size of population, the transience of the population (can be a negative and a positive), the romance and history attached to the club and the town itself, the ability to generate comparatively (with other town/ small city clubs) huge funds from non-football related activities.. all of these give us an edge over other clubs if used correctly. The majority of the competition for support is to the South - heading north is Fleetwood, Morecambe, Barrow and Carlise - all of which shouldn't be an issue when it comes to casting the net far and wide for potential support. We also have an affinity with the Scots no-where else really has - again something which could be better utilised. Blackpool in the Premiership was everyone's 'second' team - we can do that again, we can draw on that and we can use the town to help give us a more global appeal in a similar way to St. Pauli in Germany for example. Marketed correctly Blackpool has a hell of a lot of potential. Marketed correctly and playing decent football towards the top end of Championship 20,000+ attendances are not inconceivable, and doing the same in the Premiership the occasional 30,000 attendance could happen with large away allocations, particularly so in the summer months.
Blackpool has a population 150% the size of Burnley's, we should therefore aim for gates at least 150% the size if we're ambitious and utilise the appeal of a day in Blackpool as opposed to a day in bloody Burnley.

I've said it before and been mocked but I think a forward looking club has to be ambitious and creative.
Hoffenheim play in a village of 3000 people and represent an area with a population of less than 40000 - they play in a modern 30,000+ eat arena and play / push for regular European Football. They've made a point of embracing families and it's worked for them...alongside a rich local owner and supporter....
Some very good points there LA1. I work with a lady, new to the town. Her son got a free ticket to a home game & instantly hooked & asked his mum for a season ticket. Started taking a couple of schoolmates who'd never been to BR before. New fans, whether born in Blackpool or not are out there.
 
Holloway was correct when he first arrived at the club. A lot of our fans have this small time mentality. I think it's partly down to being in the bottom divisions for such long periods and partly down to the tin-pot nature in which the club was run under the Oystons.

I believe Simon Sadler's vision is to help Blackpool realise its true potential. If he gets this right then I think things could really snowball. There is a large potential catchment area within Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde. We now have an owner with the drive and ambition to tap into that potential.
 
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