Bloomfield Road swayed and grooved to the beat of justice, the noise and pyrotechnics enveloping a homecoming that eclipsed everybody’s emotional expectations.
The rusty stadium’s foundations shook ever so slightly, a largest home crowd for four decades — more in the ground than at any point in Owen Oyston’s grip. Saturday felt like the start of a movement at Blackpool.
Hours before kick-off they were lining Lytham Road, an adjacent street, hanging out of the Excelsior pub, spilling out into the road.
Blackpool's homecoming eclipsed everybody’s emotional expectations
Plenty remained there long in to the night, dreaming of brighter horizons, swapping war stories and discussing how Southend’s Taylor Moore directed a 96th-minute header into his own net to cap a near-perfect return.
The Football Association may have a view on the ensuing pitch invasion. But this was not about that. Old fans were there, new fans. Crucially, young fans. Fans from Poland. Even some fans from Uruguay.
The air in Blackpool was crisp, with that distinctive promenade smell and the feeling that 15,500 home supporters crammed inside served as rubbing sea salt into Oyston’s gaping wounds.
A largest home crowd for four decades attended their encounter with Southend
The community club feeling returned to Blackpool as fans congregated beneath the tower
The class of 2010 had their say on what the Blackpool supporters mean to them
The years of his mindless self-indulgence are over. The ridiculousness of paying for meals on club business with American dollars — ‘it is all I have, my boy’ — or allowing his son, Karl, to bowl around in a car with an ‘OY51 OUT’ number plate.
Only an absolute catastrophe would see the convicted rapist get his grubby hands back on this famous institution from here.
‘It was incredible, wasn’t it?’ Blackpool manager Terry McPhillips said. ‘The noise they generated throughout, they were relentless.
