The Theatre Of Sand: The Rise and Rise Of Blackpool FC.

To use a synonym from the beaches for which it is famed, if Manchester United and Chelsea were high-rise sand palaces, Blackpool would be a small turret, dented slightly by the unwanted intervention of a stray beach ball.

In other words: They shouldn't be very good. But they are.

In the past, Blackpool was renowned as a beach, a pleasure park, a home for donkeys, an empty façade concealing the town of Blackpool within. Blackpool FC and the mercurial Ian Holloway have given the town its colour. No longer of secondary consequence to the beach and pleasure park it contains, the once pale town of Blackpool is now orange.

To put the team's achievements over recent seasons into perspective; all predictions at the beginning of last season tipped Blackpool for relegation. They "should" be in League One, yet they’re just outside the Premiership's Top 10. The tale of Blackpool really is one of triumph over adversity, perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Blackpool is a club steeped in heritage. The 1950’s side of Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen yielded the most successful era in the club's history. Up until their relegation in 1966-67, Blackpool were an established top division side. That was as good as it got for Blackpool.

However, numerous changes of manager and a lack of continuity on the field led the club to spiral downwards into the nether-regions of the football league Pyramid. To put it into perspective, 18 years ago, if Blackpool had been relegated, they would have become a non-league side. They didn't. They were promoted, and the tracks were set in motion, culminating in the Blackpool FC of today.

It wasn't until the last few weeks of the 2009-10 championship season that Blackpool fans dared to dream.

After a slow start, no one expected the tale that was about to be told. Around March though, people began to sit up and take notice. Blackpool started to win, and then win again and again. Nottingham Forest, Cardiff, Leicester and Swansea, the teams in the promotion places at the time were looking over their shoulders. Little Blackpool were hunting them down.

Schooled on an attacking 4-3-3 formation, Holloway’s boys continued their indomitable march to the promised land. The rest is history. Blackpool gained sixth place in the league, booking a playoff spot in the process, and relegating Swansea to another season of Championship football.

Nottingham Forest were next to the sword, 2-1 at Blackpool and an amazing 4-3 at the City Ground. And, in the biggest match of them all, "The 90 Million Pound Match," Blackpool completed the remarkable as they came from behind to beat hotly fancied Cardiff 3-2.

To many people, promotion for such a side was deemed cruel. How can a team who only scraped through the championship, a team whose record signing (for £500,000) for club captain and best player, was "a reject" from Scotland, hope to compete with the millions on offer in the Premier League? "They’re gonna do a Derby," came the shout, and, to be honest, I believed them.

Blackpool’s current situation, in my mind, defies all reasonable logic.They are a team bereft of any world-class players—many Premiership class players even.

But, and here lies the crux of the issue, they are a team.

Blackpool are the Spartans of the Premier League, a single impenetrable unit. Theirs is a team made up of journeymen, rejects and those who have never even had the chance. Each and every one of them has something to prove, to fight for and that, in essence, is the spirit of Blackpool. Small budgets, big hearts. No big names, just one team, man to man, fighting as one.

The maverick who masterminded the renaissance, up until this season, was by many considered a joke. A master of the press conferences, where his witty one-liners and anecdotes bemused many a journalist, Ian Holloway’s teams on-field exploits hadn't lived up to their manager's hype.

Man and club seem to share an intrinsic bond, unfashionable, underrated as Holloway himself said: "I love Blackpool. We're very similar. We both look better in the dark." Under a shroud of darkness, Blackpool and it’s master of ceremonies have taken the Premier league by storm.

At the start of this season Blackpool had become most peoples' second team. More out of wild hope than expectation, the nation had taken the eclectic bunch of players and decidedly quirky manager to their hearts.

Now though, the situation has changed. Blackpool is still many peoples' second favourite team. We still want them to avoid relegation, but now, the reality is they probably will. The future of Blackpool is most certainly tangerine.