On the day Inter won the top European title, 45 years after its last win, the Tangerines were creating their bit of history at Wembley as they beat Cardiff, 3-2 with all the goals scored in the first half. Their Championship playoff win ensured passage into the Premiership as they finally return to the top echelon after 39 years. They defied overwhelming conventional wisdom doing so.
Brett Ormerod scored the all important winner. The veteran forward if he returns to Blackpool next season will have played in all four leagues with the club since he began his career 13 years ago.
Michael Chopra got the Bluebirds of to a brilliant start but it was Charlie Adams with a free kick that had class stamped all over it to restore parity. It was end to end stuff as in 6 breathless minutes, three goals were struck. For Cardiff, Joe Ledley ran a fine one- two with Peter Whittington, to get Cardiff’s pulse racing when he smacked his shot past Matthew Gilks.
Three minutes later, a frantic goalmouth scramble which had everything including a goalmouth save results in Gary Taylor -Fletcher heading the ball, almost getting decapitated in the process to bring the Tangerine back on level terms.
While the temperature soared to 41 C, there was no let up as exactly three minutes later, Ormerod taking advantage of some mind numbingly bad defending to toe poke a goal past David Marshall. The Bluebirds must have had at least three occasions to clear the ball with DJ Campbell attracting all the traffic, in the end slipping but still managing to push the ball out to Ormerod.
The second half saw Cardiff pushing hard to get back into the game with Chopra again coming close, in one instance the shot smacking the upright but Blackpool held on for a memorable Wembley Saturday afternoon. Blackpool was the lowest placed of the playoff teams, overcoming Nottingham Forest, the top placed team over two legs and then taking on Cardiff with two of the top goalscorers in Peter Whittingham and Chopra.
We shall get to see Joe Holloway, the colourful Blackpool coach who has his own book of oddball quotes. He will be on a larger stage and we can hope to add some more to the list of Ollie’isms.
Here is his classic describing an ugly win over QPR:
“To put it in gentleman’s terms if you’ve been out for a night and you’re looking for a young lady and you pull one, some weeks they’re good looking and some weeks they’re not the best. Our performance today would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She weren’t the best looking lady we ended up taking home but she was very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much, let’s have a coffee.”