Tomorrow the people of Blackpool will discover whether their footballing ambitions — lofty as the town's tower, passionate as a holiday romance and stubborn as the donkeys that traverse the sandy shoreline — will once again find fulfilment.
At 3pm, Blackpool FC will take to the pitch at Wembley to face Cardiff City in the Coca-Cola championship play-off final.
The winner of the match, billed as the richest game in football, will secure a place in the Premier League and the attendant windfall, worth up to £90m.
Should the Tangerines prove triumphant, they will become the smallest club in the top flight since the formation of the Premier League 18 years ago. Victory today would prove sweeter than a stick of rock for the team's manager, Ian Holloway. In 2003, when he was at QPR, Holloway saw that team's dream of promotion crushed by none other than Cardiff.
Despite its small size – the average home crowd this season was the second-lowest in the championship at just 8,611 – the club has an illustrious history.
Former players include Alan Ball, Jimmy Armfield and Stanley Matthews, who gave his name to the legendary 1953 FA Cup final in which Blackpool came back from a three-goal deficit to beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3.
It has been 40 years since Blackpool last graced the top flight and Blackpool has more recently endured the ignominy of applying for re-election to the Football League, but they have been rejuvenated under Holloway's stewardship.
Its boss, though, is becoming a little weary of all the David-and-Goliath talk. "You can't tell Blackpool fans that they support a 'little' team," he said earlier this week. "It's a total insult. The bookmakers think we're muppets — favourites to go down at the start of the season, now 'underdogs' in the play‑offs. But this is a proud club … People can talk about big clubs, small clubs, fat clubs, thin clubs – I don't care. I love this. And I'm so proud I could burst."
Victory, he added, would do more than just bring smiles to the faces of the fans.
"If we go up and can get people popping down the M55 motorway to Bloomfield Road, then everybody in the town will prosper," said Holloway. "It's not just our lives we're trying to change — it's everybody's in the town."
