The Seasiders see off Scunthorpe to move within a point of Championship play-offs - 10 years on from Blackpool's promotion to the Premier League
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Over the coming weeks, we’ll be dipping into the archives to bring you Steve Canavan's Gazette reports from a decade ago on Blackpool’s remarkable journey to the promised land.
On this day 10 years ago, the Seasiders claimed a 4-2 win at Scunthorpe United to heap more pressure on the sides in the Championship play-offs...
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Hide AdThis Blackpool victory over a well-beaten Scunthorpe side was an earthquake with its epicentre in Leicester and the aftershock felt keenly in Swansea.
It was a terrific win and put huge pressure on those two clubs immediately above Pool in the Championship.
Prior to kick-off, Ian Holloway had described the match as the toughest of the season.
Yet Pool were the better team throughout, and although they did their best to make hard work of it (sloppily conceded penalty, missed chances), three goals between the 78th and 85th minutes buried their chastened and shellshocked opponents.
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Hide AdIt sent the marvellous away support of more than 1,300 into raptures, a mood enhanced later by news of yet another defeat for wobbling Leicester.
One point away from the play-offs for a Premier League place with five games to go. Can this play-off fantasy really happen?
After all, this is Blackpool, a club so starved of success over the last three decades it’s positively famished.
But Holloway’s influence since arriving last May has been so great and his tactics and man-management so good that what seemed like a ridiculous pipedream might actually happen.
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Hide AdThe body language in this game certainly suggested so. The players looked as confident as at any point this season.
They truly believe they can make it and after claiming 10 points from the last 12, at the very stage of the season when the pressure builds and only the best teams can handle it, who can blame them?
It’s very definitely on and they may not get this opportunity again for a long, long time, so it’s imperative they give it all they’ve got.
Having Holloway in charge certainly gives them every chance. The boss again displayed his know-how in this game, making three terrific substitutions that helped change the course of the match.
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Hide AdThe goal-poacher’s instincts of DJ Campbell, the pace of Hameur Bouazza and the skill and control of David Vaughan helping Pool to pull through at a time when the score was 1-1 and the contest could have gone either way.
Holloway made two changes for the game, one enforced – Joe Martin in for the injured Stephen Crainey. Stephen Dobbie’s goal at Plymouth last weekend earned him the nod over Jason Euell.
Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Dobbie and Ben Burgess had all gone close before Pool scored 22 minutes in from an unlikely source.
Scunthorpe right back Andrew Wright, under very little pressure, managed to smash a terrific shot past his own keeper from Seamus Coleman’s cross. A huge bonus.
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Hide AdThe Seasiders knew they needed three points and this calamitous own goal meant any nerves they might have had evaporated.
They controlled the remainder of the half, Dobbie almost scoring in spectacular fashion from 40 yards, though Matt Gilks had to be sharp in stoppage-time to divert Grant McCann’s shot over the bar.
It seemed victory was a given … a foolish notion, for nothing is guaranteed in football.
Three minutes after the restart Martin lost possession on the halfway line and Ian Evatt, desperately trying to halt the resulting attack, clipped McCann in the box. The midfielder converted the penalty himself, sending Gilks the wrong way.
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Hide AdPool continued to look the stronger side, Joe Murphy saving Adam’s thunderbolt and Evatt glancing a free header wide.
But at 1-1 it could have gone either way. The next goal was crucial.
When Taylor-Fletcher missed a great chance, set up unselfishly by Adam, it seemed the Seasiders may have blown it.
Hats off then to Coleman, the full-back signed from Everton. The 21-year-old proved he is a Premier League star in the making by cutting in from the right on 78 minutes and dancing through the Scunthorpe defence before shooting past Murphy.
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Hide AdA terrific goal (matched by a terrific celebration, the whole team going berserk), and confidence suddenly oozed through the side.
DJ Campbell, who came on for Taylor-Fletcher while the celebrations for the second goal were ongoing, showed his quality in front of goal on 82 minutes, using his head to caress Bouazza’s cross past Murphy.
And two minutes later, Campbell netted again, benefitting from Adam’s slalom- style run into the area. The Scot’s shot was half-blocked (a pity really – he deserved a goal as he was running past Scunthorpe players for fun) and Campbell had the simple task of tapping the ball into the net. At 4-1, we were in dreamland.
Gary Hooper pulled one back 60 seconds later, diverting Garry Thompson’s angled shot into the net, but the new-look Blackpool Holloway has created were never likely to concede again.
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Hide AdA fabulous day, which measured the maximum 10 on the Richter scale in terms of damage done to the play-off hopes of the teams in the top six.
Victory over Doncaster on Easter Monday and the Seasiders will be rocking the whole of the Fylde coast to its foundations.