Fight back: the Mighty vs Lincoln City

I don't know what we're going to get today. In an Ian Evatt world we've shown we can be good, but we're still very capable of being really bad. We've just had a really convincing away win - but we're still firmly in the relegation zone and our last home league game we were utter shit. I'm not approaching games with the cynicism I was feeling in the latter days of Bruce - but I'm nowhere near having the confidence to actively look forward to games. I'm a long way short of skipping up Bloomfield Road full of belief - but at least I'm not shuffling along wondering what the point is.  

What will be will be. 

---

We start like we're making a point. We WILL pass the ball. Everyone will touch it. We look good. This is nice. No sign of the long punt to no one, just passing and moving. We look like we could dominate. We're reborn. We will win 10-0

This lasts for about 90 seconds. We conceded first possession, then a free kick and then a goal. How we concede the goal is quite novel. We simply don't have any defence on the left hand side. When Evo talked about being imaginative with set pieces, I'm not sure this is what he meant. We assume, I think, that Lincoln are going to sling the ball in the box, so we get ourselves all prepared for that - and then when when they instead quickly take it down the line, we're completely caught out - and they have to make astonishingly little effort to get into a shooting position and comprehensively beat BPF. 

This is not the start you want. Still, it's come very early and that gives us ages to get back into the game. 

That's not how it goes. Lincoln shut us down entirely. It's them who first look like scoring, a snapshot on the turn over the bat and then do score, a ball into the clouds falls to a Lincoln forward, Ihiekwe gets a toe to it, the ball squirts to another one who shoots, a deflection turns it into a looping effort beyond the reach of the keeper and we're 2-0 down. 

FFS Pool. 

Now we've got the exact problem we've struggled with for years. An organised side who don't need to attack us. We're exceptionally bad in this exact situation. 

There then follows a long period of very frustrating football. A man near me offers the idea that "this all shows Evatt - stop fannying about with it, we can't do this passing about from the back shit - he needs to cut it out" - I think about Ian Evatt's career and how unlikely it is that he's going to eschew "fannying about" and decide to say quiet. It's good for people to have some hope I think. Michael Ihiekwe is finding fannying about particularly challenging and we as a whole look static and move the ball slowly. We painfully lack pace up front and anyone to stretch the Lincoln back line. We're limited to a few blocked shots from Bowler. There's quite a lot of arguing between the players. This is not going well. 

Thank fuck then for Ashley Fletcher - Imray plays a nice ball curling into the box, Fletcher runs from deep, looks second favourite but gets touch to take it past keeper and defender and then makes sure the keeper takes him out. He's dealt with that brilliantly, taking what wasn't really a convincing chance and turning it into a stone wall penalty. Lee Evans steps up. Smash. The net receives the ball, the Pool are back in the game. On the balance of play, I'm not sure it's particularly deserved - but it certainly was needed

The first half ends with a periods of possession so inert, so unadventurous, that I have to check Ian Evatt isn't Neil Critchley - it's clear that we just want to get into the dressing room and be only a goal down and to rejig things. 

--- 

We've been poor. I'm not sure  how much it's down to having both Evans and Bowler in midfield - they both want to influence the game as opposed to chasing it down. Can you have two of them doing that. Bowler 2526 wants to pick up loose balls and break - but if there are no loose balls because Evans isn't really going to break up play as Brown or Morgan would then how effective is he? 

Ennis would improve the team so much - the one time we've stretched them, it ended with the goal. We've otherwise played in front of them and both Fletcher and Bloxham are dropping to pick up the ball - because that's what both of them do. I genuinely wonder if CJ might be a call to sit on a defenders shoulder. That's how little we've created. 

--- 

The call is Andy Lyons. Ihiekwe doesn't reappear. This might improve us as whilst Lyons isn't really a centre back, he's a whole lot more comfortable with the ball and Ihiekwe has found it hard going. Lincoln haven't been pretty to watch but they've been very effective. They've been highly physical and very intense in their high pressing. They've been very organised at the back too - basically, they've rushed us when we've got the ball at the back - but dominated if we've tried to go long - and Ihiekwe has been the point where it's broken down too often. 

We're better. I wouldn't say we're anywhere near as good as we would hope to be - but the balance of play isn't so painfully skewed. Despite it sometimes appearing so, Evatt isn't Critchley. He's clearly tasked the central defenders with getting higher up the pitch with the ball. This, I like - I mean, it's risky, yes, but starting the move on the half way line instead of the edge of your own box is advantageous. He's spoken several times about the need to gamble a bit more and we do. 

I watch us carefully. It's frustrating that we can't quite find the switch or the right ball. We do still piss about at the back but we're having more success in drawing Lincoln into us - at one point, we pull 8 of their players into the square we're playing in - and Bowler has drifted away - he's free, we just need to see him - Imray is beyond him - we just need to get the ball out and there's one...two passes and we're in - but instead we go back to the keeper because we just can't find the way out. 

We make a few chances - a cut back from Fletcher, Honeyman arrives and the ball fizzes low and past the near post. I'm not wholly convinced by Honeyman today. You cannot for a moment question his effort - but aside from running on to that pass, he seems a bit in between things - he's not in the maelstrom disrupting as much as he might be - but he's also not really pulling strings or creating. I look at the numbers after the game and learn that Josh Bowler (yes, really) makes more successful tackles today (and has more key passes, shots and get ready for this... wins more headers!) - Honeyman has the least touches of any of outfield players aside from the forwards. Something isn't quite right with our midfield setup. 

We make a raft of subs. The return of players from injury is without doubt giving Evatt more cards to play and to be fair to him, he's willing to play them. Again, unlike Critchley he does seem willing to gamble a bit from the bench. His first change brings Morgan on (hurray, everyone loves Albie and we need him buzzing about being Albie) but he takes off Bowler... hmmm. Honeyman is pushed up and I'm still not convinced that he finds a groove. 

He then gradually feeds in more attacking threat. Banks (a player I wish we could find a place for more often) and Taylor (a much needed additional striker) are on. Honeyman is off, Bloxham is off. If Honeyman hasn't quite clicked, Bloxham has struggled - he pulled out one divine cross from a difficult position in the first half but otherwise he's looked like a man who has played a lot of games without much backup. 

Taylor is lively. Again I watch the movement - and he's splitting from Fletcher, running away from him in a way that Bloxham wasn't really offering. Banks seems to first go into the hole behind the forwards and then to drift wide - whether this is by design or by instinct I don't know. 

We get a chance, Banks in the right wingers role that we don't really play cuts it across, Fletcher at the near post and an unholy collision, the ball away for a corner. We have lots of corners. That makes for an encouraging atmosphere. There's a sense that, Lincoln, for all the muscular, athletic endeavour in the first period are tiring and we're now on top. 

One thing I think Ian Evatt is doing very well, is using CJ Hamilton. A cynic might say 'what, you mean, he's not using him very much?' - but no, I don't mean that entirely... I mean, using him in bursts, in an attacking cause. CJ is warming up - Coulson goes down for his monthly injury and limps off. I don't know who CJ was supposed to come on for, but he's on and he's going to play high on the left and try and run back if he needs to. 

We've reached the 'glancing at the clock quite frequently' stage now. We've played all our cards. We need something. Scott Banks provides it - the ball ballooning up in the air out wide, Banks spotting something and instead of controlling and moving the ball as seems most likely, he volleys it across goal. Fletcher lashes it, Taylor lashes it. It drops to CJ who (and lets give the man every credit here, because 'brains' and CJ aren't always synonymous in fan discourse) has the calmness and presence of mind to slot it back to Ashley Fletcher who places it exactly where it needs to go... again... the man is having a blinder this season. If he was 5 or 6 years younger, we'd be thinking of the price we could for him... 

It's not mayhem - I mean, we've just got the goal we've laboured to against a side who probably haven't spent as much money as we have this year... but it's a very, very satisfying moment. We might not have played amazingly - but perhaps more importantly, we've really stuck at it, we've kept going, we've shown some resilience, some fight, some character - all of those intangibles, all of those cliches are what we've lacked - and today, we've shown some. When you describe a team as 'labouring to an equaliser' it sounds critical - but in the context of this year, I mean it as praise - because effort and will got us there in the end - and that's really not been the case far too often. 

There's hope for a winner. Nothing in particular materialises. There's a few moments where it looks like Lincoln might break - but again, nothing in particular materialises. 

The whistle goes. The applause is deserved. 

--- 

We obviously can't celebrate draws at home all season - because we need to win games - but Lincoln are absolutely the archetype of what we've struggled with. They're very good at what they do and they're in good form. They offer a physical challenge from front to back - they manage to both press high and sit deep and though that cost them (basically, they run like maniacs) in the end, they made it very difficult to play through OR go over them. 

I've not mentioned his name above - but I thought Ashworth was really good today - In the second half, he looked the most comfortable in stepping up and disrupting play. He won us the ball, he was willing to risk a tackle and when he tackles, he tackles hard. We have quite a few players who either are slight or not really tacklers and Ashworth has a kind of pleasing bony ruggedness about him as a counterpoint to that. He looks like it hurts if you tangle with him - if Coulson is made of string and cloth, Ashworth is made of concrete and rebar and even though he's not that big, he's got a solidity. Morgan added a similar desire when he came on. Towards the end, he flew up the pitch and launched into a slide tackle on the keeper from a back pass - it didn't come off - but with the lack of Ennis, there's only really Albie you can visualise doing such a thing, making a lost cause into a moment of brief possibility. It is this fight, this physical quality that has to be aligned with ability for us to progress and it's fucking good to see some of it. 

Onward

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In the hat! - the Mighty vs Carlisle Utd

Fucking winter. I mean the season, not the all action, super dynamic CEO of Blackpool Football Club, but I guess, you could read the opening two words however you wish and get basically the same outcome. 

This winter is dark. It rains all the time. I've been ill for ages and that just adds to the impression that everything is grey skies and misery. It's like living in Bladerunner only instead of sexy AI ladies on the massive adverts, the dystopian city is covered in giant Mick McCarthy's answering "oh, it can" on a loop. 

It can't get any worse can it?  

It can, because I've just spent 5 minutes with an AI tool getting pissed off because it keeps generating a terrible version of the image above, in which Mick looks like a Hollywood hunk. I'm arguing with it as it produces ever less accurate images and tells me they're accurate. It's a post truth world I know, but Mick has not ever and will not ever look like the hearthrob types that the AI tool keeps throwing out. 

Fuck off AI

Sorry. This is supposed to be a football blog isn't it? True to the prevailing season, it pisses down for ages today but just before the game it stops.

I quite like the team. It's not perfect but we're not dealing with perfection this year. Perhaps the world isn't totally dystopian. I drink a pint. I watch the TV by the bar.

On the screen is an advert for (I kid you not) dog food made of insects. The narrative seems to be about a dog that is depressed by climate change so his owner buys him happiness with insect protein. Cos that's not weird. We're truly through the looking glass in 2025. I give up. I preferred not living in a terrible SciFi future but here we are. Existential canine dread and ever inventive consumer solutions that capitalism always provides. 

Anyway... 

Carlisle have brought about 40000 fans in full voice. We've mustered a ragtag crew of people with nothing better to do who don't seem overly bothered that there's a game on. We've been really shit recently again.

What could possibly go wrong? 

--- 

Pool make a bright start and put together the kind of nice move that Ian 'motivational linkedinspeak press conference guru' Evatt will surely approve of and see as a sign that process might become product. Hansson puts in cross, Fletch seems sure to score, but what happens instead is the ball is scuffed away and what I thought was a bit of a howler is given instead as a corner...

After the initial optimism, it's all Carlisle for a spell. They win corner after corner and come closest with a shot BPF kind of belly flops away like a kid surprised to have been pushed into a swimming pool. That sounds a bit damning, but it's actually a good bit of unorthodox keeping. 

Bloxham runs the length of the pitch on the break and despite seeming to get past everyone, Carlisle get a goal kick. As a result of that, and the pressure from the team the man in front is vocally pointing out look like they're dressed in carrier bags, I'm a bit worried that we might be shite again. 

Then things turn a bit. Fletch has an effort scooped of the line. Banks and Honeyman combine well. Banks scuttles across the box, Carlisle hack away hopelessly and can't take the ball of us - We seem to have about 3 scoring chances before Bloxham puts it away. It's a scruffy goal, but it's a great boost. I don't think we've looked much better than them, but we're in front. 

Carlisle respond by slicing us to bits down our left. Everyone is waving at where everyone else should be and they make easy progress to the byline. They cut it back and a shot, and that's a fucking shit goal to concede... but it's not because BPF is flying, seemingly from a hopeless position and making one of the best stops I've seen in a long time with a very strong arm. 

Carlisle's keeper responds to BPF's heroics by making a good stop from Banks, doing well to get low to a crisply hit shot and then the game falls into a trough of zero ideas. For about 10 minutes, it's dire and neither side does anything even remotely effective in an attacking sense and perhaps the thousands who have something better to do made the right choice. 

This void of quality lasts till the frustrating Norwegian schoolkid (he's got a lot of ability, but the physique of a 14 year old), Emil Hansson runs right up the middle, lays off to Ash Fletcher who smashes it home with no hesitation. It's a lovely finish from Fletch who would definitely be right up there in a list of our least worst players this year.

2 is 3 shortly after as Scott Banks scores that goal that Scott Banks scores again. It's a great goal, just as it has been every other time he's scored it, cutting inside, showing a change of pace and then hitting a shot when it looks like he isn't going to hit a shot that curls beautifully and makes the side netting billow very satisfyingly. 

---

I'm not sure we've been 3-0 better but we've definitely had the upper hand and after the second, we controlled the game totally. I'm looking forward to the second half and in particular, to seeing what the returning players might bring from the bench. 

---

The exciting half time sub is Lee Evans. Hmmm.

My mate texts me, he's watching the game on telly. 'Not even Blackpool can fuck this up can you?' - My reply is predictable but borne of too many years of this. 

Then, here we fucking go. Coulson backs off. At times he resembles a leaf and the player running at him a leaf blower. I even growl, Hayden, get fucking tighter! as their lad sends him back peddling. Carlisle score. For fuck's sake Pool. For fuck's sake life, for fuck's sake this season. 

Casey, who has done well tonight so far, misses a tackle on the half way line. Their no 10 marauds forward, gets his head up, hits an ambitious ball across the box, but executes it brilliantly, a Carlisle man connects on the slide and I'm just about to hit the railing in front of me in despair at our general inability to do anything and the sheer fucking pointless hopelessness of following this stupid club, when BPF makes another stunning save. Thank fuck. We love you Blackpool. We do. 

We need to get a grip and happily, we do. Great hold up play from Bloxham, who I've often criticised for the lack of the very element I'm praising - he plays a square ball which is turned on again, now it's wide and we're at the byline, a pull back and the coolest of finishes from Super Ashley Fletcher and the game is done. We needed to stamp down the Carlisle mini revival and we've done it with a clinical finish and a really nicely worked move. 

The rest of the game is quite enjoyable. There's little tension though BPF makes another couple of nice saves, we largely control things and we play with some ambition. This is a long way from perfection, but you can see the influence of Evatt in the way we're keen to get the ball down and willing to try some intricate play. Imray comes on and immediately looks busy and purposeful. He's born to play a RWB role and could have a huge impact on the rest of the season because to me, in a side with wing backs, you have to have one like Imray, who just won't stop going forward, otherwise you end up playing with a back five and that's when the set up looks shite. Bowler comes on and looks, if not the full 230 volts, certainly to have been reasonably charged up. 

There's a well worked free set piece that exploits Horsfall's qualities at the far post, there's a ball across the goal that Imray throws himself at and alarmingly needs treatment after, but appears ultimately none the worse for his efforts. There's a wonderfully entertaining cameo from CJ up front where, first, he chases down a long ball, and appears to miss, not once, but twice when it looked as if he had to score. Someone shouts "CJ, doing CJ things" and then, CJ does CJ things again, slipped through by a gorgeously weighted Bowler pass, he hits the keeper where again, it looked like he had to score. Bowler himself peels off a couple of lovely runs, one in particular has me in raptures as he slips past one, then between two, then seems to be bearing down on goal before he is sent tumbling. I'm not sure it was a penalty but it's a reminder of his quality and the absurdity of a side who can sign such a player being where we are. 

Everyone wants another goal, we manage another move where we seem to fail to put the ball away about three times and then, even more entertainingly, Honeyman goes down, Mark Hughes isn't convinced by the agony that George appears to be in, Ian Evatt isn't happy with Mark Hughes making his feelings known and the two of them have a gloriously undignified verbal spat on the touchline. This is exactly what you want from such a game. 

The whistle goes. We're in the hat. 

--- 

In the end we won comfortably, but we did have some well timed, high quality saves from the keeper to thank for the game not becoming more awkward than it did. The returning players did us good as did the simple maths of having more first team players available to freshen things up. We do really need a striker back to add to that depth, though I've always quite liked the sheer chaos option of sticking CJ through the middle for 10 minutes (I certainly prefer it to him playing full back) and sooner or later, he will, whether by accident or design, score a goal, simply because he's very quick and that's something that we lack up front. We've plenty of other options to do the other shit CJ does - but really, no one to swap out for Fletch or Bloxham. 

This season has been mostly disappointment and whilst I remain (largely) convinced that we really, really should have enough quality to get enough results that the unthinkable image of the most well invested in Blackpool squad in years getting relegated to the 4th tier doesn't become a reality - there's no real confidence that we're going to go on a run to promotion because a) we've left ourselves so much to do and b) as it stands, whilst I think we do have quality, we definitely lack the collective character to grind out the kind of run we would need. 

Tonight, was, therefore, fun - because we won, because at times we played quite well and most of all, because in what has been a bit of a grim and pretty joyless trudge in the muddy depths of the league, we're in the third round draw and we can, at least before we get drawn against fucking Oxford Utd or some other non-entity, dream of a little bit of cup magic. 

Which, really, is the point of all of this isn't it? 

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Exactly what we want - the Mighty vs Cardiff City

The sky is a splendid azure blue, and the bricks of Bloomfield Road are red, neat, their 90 degree angles offset by the gentle curve of bay windows. I wonder how this looked in the 1930s in the throes of optimistic growth or in the 50s when the town and the club were the embodiment of a post war boom and the tangerine wizards had genuine claim to be amongst the best in the world.

A lambretta, gleaming as if the rider stops and polishes the bike with a chamois leather at every junction passes the building crowd. A police sergeant paces back and forward on the opposite side of the road, watchful and restless as Cardiff fans queue. In the upstairs window of a flat, curtains flicker and a gaunt face looks out from between faded fabric as if suspicious of what is going on outside. 

What do I want today? I just want us to not be shit. I don't know what to expect. Judging by the buzz pre match, no one else does either. The cynicism of recent weeks is gone, replaced by a sort of hope - it's not a 'get into this lot, we'll smash them' kind of hope, but more just a sense that we might dare to have half an idea. We've definitely been better since Evo arrived but expectations are the enemy of happiness and Cardiff are actually any good so extrapolating from wins against a painfully shit Peterborough and a not so shit but nonetheless in the conference Scunthorpe isn't really going to get us anywhere in terms of certainty. 

---

We're good from the off, there's an energy to our play, a pressing, urgent, forward looking sense of purpose that has been conspicuous by its absence this season. It's like the whole team are Niall Ennis as we push up and snap at them. We have what you might call 'bite' - We're all over them and it's everything I didn't dare dream of, us, high up the pitch, terrorising Cardiff, threading passes, flicking it first time, aware, alert and imaginative. Bowler turns on a 5p piece and races up the middle, a shot forcing a half decent stop. Fletch prompts with the pomp of an orchestral conductor. It goes on for 15 minutes, the best chance falling to CJ who seems to be playing as both full back and a third striker and who, after good work to get himself the opportunity, hits the side netting when a goal looked almost certain. 

For all the pressure, we don't score. The noise is constant though, there's something in the air - this is exactly what we want. We might not be in front, but we look like we want to be and we look like we want to play football. The players have gone from a few weeks ago treating the ball like the lurgy to seeking it out and it's great to see. This is proper stuff, this is chants back and forth, blood and thunder stuff. This is Eng-ger-land vs Wales, 1953 plays 1927, sheep shaggers vs smackheads - Full marks though to Cardiff for 'you're just a shit Barry Island' which did make me smile. 

Then, we're not all over them. Then, they're in charge and it's a blue tide, neat, incisive and relentless. Suddenly our dream that we're the team on the pitch that is any good seems a bit premature, maybe we're just going to flatter to deceive and then get blown away... 

Ladies and gentlemen of tangerine persuasion, I present to you, Bailey Peacock Farrell. He's a one man wall, a green clad singular army, as Cardiff do everything but score. He's down to his left, his right,, he's tipping them over, he's sweeping the edge of his box, he's punching, flicking and claiming crosses. He's out to smother chances like a fire blanket - He's absolutely fucking sensational as he hurls it out, making Peter Schmeichel look like a limp wristed floppy armed soft arse in comparison. It's a breathless 20 minutes as the Bluebirds try everything to murder us but find BPF in the form of his life. 

The game settles into some kind of equilibrium. We've gone at them, they've gone at us. Now we trade blows. CJ does a few quintessentially CJ things, my favourite is an air kick after he's done brilliantly to keep the ball alive. If he was any good he'd actually be Ronaldo. BPF makes another save. Bloxham hits a loose ball brilliantly and the Cardiff keeper is flying to right, the ball is whistling away from him and the post is in his way. The noise. Oh, the noise. How is this the same ground that muttered and grumbled it's way through recent games?  Bowler finds himself on the right, is played into the box by the beat of the drum and though his shot is weak, it's a moment of thrilling potential. 

Probably the best moment of the half in terms of understanding what has changed is a moment where Bowler (yes, that is correct) wins the ball back with some firm tackling (yep!) and feeds Bloxham, who wrestles and fights and retains the ball. This pleased me deeply, not because it's a particularly great moment but, because it's two players who have looked fitful, diffident, if I was being particularly scathing, a bit half hearted and who are giving their all - these are players who, if we can get exceptional effort from them, we'll get, sooner or later, an exceptional reward.

--- 

In some ways we're lucky to be level - in others, maybe we should be ahead. It's been a great half, absorbing, pulstating, some bits of real quality from both sides. This isn't a typical League 1 game - we've got two teams that want to play and some players capable of playing. Yes, we've given chances away, yes we've given the ball away - but we've made chances of our own and each time we've turned the ball over it's been an attempted pass that is trying to set us away and that's such a difference from just booting the ball into the corner and hoping for the best. I'm not sure what comes next, but I've enjoyed this so far.  

--- 

What comes next is, we fanny about a bit at the back, but manage to squirt the ball forward and then, because we've drawn them in a bit (cos fannying about is at times useful and mixing it up is the key to happiness at this level), Bowler is set free in the middle and he drives, then, just as visions of an electric goal appear, he offloads an inch perfect pass, putting Super Ashley Fletcher, up against the keeper. This is where he might scuff it, fall over, hit the corner flag, air kick it so hard his boot flies off into his own face, but no, not this time, not this Ash Fletcher, because he's composed, he's in charge, he's a cut above. Fletcher shows exactly why there ain't nobody better as he makes to drag the ball one way and then, instead, smashes the ball into the roof of the net, him against the keeper looks like a big kid playing against his little brother and the place has erupted. 

I'm surprised in a way, I'd been happy with the first half, but we've come out in the second and put ourselves in front. Maybe... 

Cardiff come back at us... BPF again making saves. Cardiff have a run of corners that never seems to end. We're under pressure and us being in front seems to make it higher stakes because whilst at kick off I just wanted us not to be shit, we haven't been shit and we're in front and now all I want is the three points. I want us to defend and we do. Horsfall and Ihiekwe are brave, stepping out numerous times to cut out attacks. Casey mops up behind them. Cardiff put a gilt edged chance, a downward header from a late run into the box just wide when it felt as if it couldn't be missed... In return, Zac Ashworth works their keeper with a brilliant drive from the edge of the box after a clever little freekick where Hansson ran to a short ball and faked intent perfectly, leaving it instead to roll to the man behind him and Cardiff half a second behind play. Brown and Honeyman buzz around and break up play. Honeyman is in his element - I thought first half he looked a little bit lost in the system - but this half he's just in Cardiff faces, instantly, it's like they get the ball and he teleports to a place they want to go to with it. 

A Pool break, Bloxham fights for it, he's done brilliantly and he's forced it forward. Hansson, on for the injured Bowler has it and is charging, right up the middle,  and then, like Bowler earlier, just as I think he's going to take it himself he lays it, perfectly weighted into the path of the galloping Fletcher and the big man is bearing down on goal, the big man is looking so calm, balanced, elegant and cool as time slows down, the keeper comes and he flicks it, deftly over him and agonisingly, deliciously beyond the despairing man on the cover and into the grateful net. A beautiful goal. A beautiful moment. I think my soul briefly leaves my body as the ground shakes. This man is a real player. He might be a box of unpredictability but when he's on it, he's absolute class and he's on it like he's rarely been to day. 

Then it's all about Bloxham. The man has run himself ragged and as Cardiff throw more players forward, Bloxham seems to get chance after chance. He's set free by Fletcher, with a pass as beautifully delivered as a world class snooker player rolling one up the table to cover a pocket, Bloxham can't not be through on goal with service that good, he must score... he's foiled by the keeper, he's put through again, this time he must surely score... and he seems to dally before striking it and a defender hurls himself full length and stuns it away for the corner. Each chance seems to eat away at Bloxham's very being, he's lies, full length, hair matted with sweat, his barrel chest heaving, he strikes the turf with his hands, he just can't buy a goal... 

Then... another quite magnificent pass by Ashley Fletcher, skimming it perfectly into the path of Bloxham, charging through again, curving his run, taking the ball into the box, drawing the keeper, going too wide, he's blown it again has he?  No, it's not too wide as he shimmies, and leaves keeper for dead and then turns the ball across the six yard box and again, a Cardiff defender flails, to no avail and the ball is rolling, like a perfect golf putt, into the far corner and for the third time, the players are running to the corner flag to celebrate and Bloxham again sinks to the floor, flat out in sheer relief.

It's over as a contest and I can't quite believe it. I don't want this to end. It's been a dreadful season for the kind of football we want to see (y,know, shots, goals, skill, that type of thing) and we get yet more. Bloxham gets another chance from a wide angle and hits it low, hard, accurately and is only foiled by a really good stop from their keeper. Banks maybe should have added a fourth as Bondo puts him through with an alert and accurate pass but the winger's shot is a bit too close to the keeper.

It's not quite the perfect day in the end -Cardiff score one as BPF struggles to gather a shot that fizzes off the turf and spills right to their man - it doesn't matter. It's immaterial. I'd much rather BPF make the mistake at this point in this game than at a crucial point in another. Mistakes happen, and BPF has been awesome today and perhaps such things will serve just to keep us working, remind us to be alert and keep us yearning for clean sheets. Maybe it's better not to get everything we want so soon?  

The whistle is cue for the players to collapse - they look absolutely drained, they sit, they lie, they stretch and they seem to all take it in on their own for a few moments - then they pick themself up and come together. Evo is dealing hugs and manly congratulations. CJ is grinning and waving to whoever it is he always waves to. Bloxham and Fletcher are leading the charge, Bloxham bouncing like a giddy teenager after a few ciders at a village fete with Fletch his suave mate. There's a Fletcher fist pump, like everything he does today, timed perfectly, then, brilliantly, a Bondo fist pump (which he equally brilliantly, mistimes) and then Evatt, slightly sheepishly has a go of his own, caught between the desire to let it go, cos Fletch has already done it and to live the moment, because fuck me, this sort of thing is a bit special, and what comes out is a kind of wave-fist pump hybrid that looks endearingly uncertain.  

--- 

This was the best game we've seen at Bloomfield Road for ages. I'm going to be uncharacteristically generous to the opposition and say, Cardiff more than played their part. This felt more like a championship game than a typical league one match, with two teams set up intelligently, plenty of technique on display and both sides willing to risk going forward. There was none of the 'sit deep, waste as much time as you can and just bang it forward' stuff here. It ebbed and it flowed and there were moments when, had BPF not been on the form he was, had passes had half a yard more on them, had forwards had a bit more composure then they could have been leaving with more than they did. 

They didn't leave with anything though, and we thoroughly deserved what we got - not because we nullified them completely - but because we made so many chances of our own - and that is what we have singularly failed to do this season. I'm pretty confident that we've already scored more goals from open play under Evatt than we did in the preceding months of the season - and that speaks to the fact that he's added structure, yes - but that he's also brought freedom and adventure - we have a squad of good players, so it makes sense that we should actually carry an attacking threat and even with only three games of this new regime behind us, it's feels increasingly mysterious as to how this lot managed to look so toothless and devoid of ideas and energy, when we've just seen a performance full of exactly what was missing previously. Who wants to watch frightened football where everything you do is about stifling the opposition? Not me - I want to see us like this, backing ourselves to score goals, not being terrified of the other side but looking to get into them, behind them, over them, around them, through them. Daring to risk losing to win games. That is precisely the exact football I love. 

We were excellent collectively. BPF and Fletch stood out for their contributions at the decisive points - but you can't play as well as this without everyone doing a job. Brown might have given the ball away more than anyone, but I loved his ability to see the pass he wanted to make and try it quickly - he was trying to set us away all the time and gave us tempo as a result and meant our possession deeper was still always looking to become attacking possession. Bowler, I've not been totally certain about as a central playmaker - but today, I think he put in as close to an 'all-round' performance as we've seen Josh Bowler give - he intercepted, he tackled, he pressed, he tracked and he looked a threat in the spaces he found. Hansson similarly, I really like his ability, but he's not really done anything up to this point - and today he slotted into Bowler's role and looked a threat and provided an assist - it is really positive that these two have given us something - because we recruited a squad of wingers, and now don't play with them, so it matters that they can adapt because (Bowler in particular) we can't afford to waste such talents. All things considered, I was probably most pleased for Bloxham, who has deserved that goal, not simply for his effort today, but his effort over the last three games and for BPF who looked, frankly, like the international football with top level pedigree he is and, after the stick he's taken, it's a joy to see the sea air working its magic on yet another castoff from elsewhere. 

It's one win, it's one performance, it's a long season and who knows where we can get to - but it's a template and it's a statement - it's proof that actually, we do have some real quality, we can play really good football and we can beat good teams. I didn't dare hope that it would be this good this quickly, I don't dare hope that we hit that level every week - but just knowing that we can makes all the difference in the world. It's only a football match but, for that experience today, the world seems a better place and that, really is the point of it all. 

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

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Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Evo-lution + Cup Fever - the Mighty vs Scunthorpe United

Today, I want to see a *good game of football* -  that's a very old fashioned desire I know, but I yearn for the kind of thing that has some *enjoyment* to it. Obviously, I also need the Mighty Tangerine Wizards to be still Wembley bound by the end of it for it to be pleasurable. I don't expect every game to be 5-4 or owt like that, but it feels as if I'm particularly cursed by scrappy, unsatisfying, hesitant football this year. It's not just us (though it's mainly us) as whenever I watch a game on telly or listen to one on the radio, it never ever seems to be an end to end spectacular or a closely matched feast of football, but rather, the kind of attritional punch up where one fella wins because the other fella trips over his own laces. after they've traded a few half hearted flailing body blows in a drizzly grey backstreet by some overflowing waste bins... This, however, is the FA Cup, this is all or nothing, this is 'might as well give it a go' stuff. If I don't find some fun today, when will I?) 

Ian Evatt's at the wheel so there's something new to absorb. I wasn't really all in on Evo before he was appointed but it's lovely to hear words like 'detail' and 'clarity' coming out of the squad when they talk about the manager. He's spoken of 'fearless football' and whilst talk is cheap, he's already given more of an impression of intent and purpose in a few days than Steve, Steve and Steve managed in 3 months. I hope Evatt will take this game as what it is - a chance to win a game of football and potentially put a bit of glory and adventure back into the somewhat dulled recent reputation of Blackpool FC - we're literally the most 'cup' team you can think of, never mind being the victors in the most legendary cup final of all, we never win leagues, we always go up via knockout football. 

So today, lets get the ball down, play it forward, give our best and see what happens... 

---

Ian Evatt has picked a side with no midfield. Well, technically there's Lee Evans but some recent weeks, that would actually be -1 midfielders. I like it though. We've got the skillful players out there, two strikers and Evans to knit the defence to the midfield in a little hole of his own where he can do his own thing rather than shout at anyone else. 

We're dominant for the opening spell. Domination doesn't equal many clear cut chances and there's something a bit Critchball about how we're good at getting the ball up the pitch to the final third, but less good at turning that into an attempt on goal. Lets not be knobheads about it though, we're infinitely better set up and look like we've done something in the week that is loosely based on football as opposed to sat about doing Sudoko, picking wax out of our ears and playing darts whilst the Steves have several cups of tea and read the paper.  We move the ball about well, we look like we know where each other are and we're in command. 

The goal isn't a classic, in fact, it's a result of a bit of fortune as a long ball towards Fletch is missed by the big man (quell surprise!) but also by his marker and comes through to Scott Banks - he storms forward, fiddles it to Bowler who in turn fiddles it fletch who has shown alertness to get into the box quickly. There ain't nobody better than Super Ashley Fletcher and though, from a distance it looks like he takes two attempts to stab it home, stab it home he does. 

Cue rampaging waves of Tangerine pressure, evoking the golden era of Evatt's playing days... 

Maybe not. Cue us gradually losing grip of the game. Banks picks up the weirdest booking ever for catching a ball that is sailing over his head and out of play. Scunthorpe slowly being to come into it. It's not a tsunami of molten iron(s) but they force BPF to claim a few crosses, they win a few corners, they create a bit of havoc as Casey has to make a really sharp block at the near post after we get all mixed up and the ball is cleared back to them, just as BPF is about to fall on it and then they miss a really good far post chance where a looping ball finds a spare man. They're putting pressure on the carded Banks who doesn't look comfortable going backwards. 

What started as positive football has become the fragile Blackpool we've seen so many times in recent months. We do make a bit more though, Bloxham missing the best of our opportunities, slapping a chance teed up perfectly for him by Bowler well wide when a player not so desperate for something to happen for him might have taken it more calmly and at very least, worked the keeper. 

--- 

At half time, my main thought is that I quite like what I've seen but that we sorely miss a whippet of a striker playing beyond Ash Fletcher and really pressurising the defence. Bloxham isn't that man - he's definitely looking more like a footballer and less like labouring peasant from the middle ages trudging his way miserably back from the local well laden down with buckets - but he's not really a whippet with explosive pace and I think with one of those, we'd have likely carved them open more often. 

--- 

CJ is on for Banks which makes sense given we can ill afford another suspension. International football's CJ Hamilton is, however, not able to turn the flow of the game back towards us - in fact, Scunthorpe start this half very well, whistling a shot close by BPF's post almost straight away and working him several times after that. They're the side on top and we look flimsy and flustered. The nadir comes when (I think) Casey slices a backpass intended for BPF heavily and wildly and the keeper rushes to try and prevent a corner and whilst he succeeds in that, he only manages to push the ball back into the path of a Scunthorpe forward. Chaos reigns as BPF tries to tackle him like an outfielder, the ball is crossed, we somehow scramble it away without a keeper and then, just as the keeper returns we manage to hack it out of his grasp, back to Scunthorpe who nearly score possibly from a deflection off one of our players back into the goal. It's car crash stuff and it's in danger of undermining the positive signs we've seen. 

The ref isn't helping things, giving petty fouls and penalising us for breathing. A lone voice in the crowd forcefully accuses the ref of being a 'paedo' - which might be a bit harsh, but he's given some weird calls and this, for better or worse, is the sort of thing people will shout at you if you prance around making a show of yourself in neon blue lycra. 

Evo has had enough and makes sweeping changes, bringing on Coulson, Brown and Honeyman for Lyons, Hansson and Bowler. Lyons had a tough afternoon against an opponent who drew a foul every time the Irishman looked at him, Hansson had some nice touches when we were on top but looked peripheral when not and Bowler fizzled encouragingly a few times and showed willingness to block and chase but he's not catching fire and still seems to be missing the instant change of pace he had at his best. His quality is worth persisting with as you see in moments he's gifted beyond any other player on the pitch, but in others, he looks lost within his new role - but then, he was ever thus and my tangerine heart remains firmly set on the electric one. 

We are better for the changes. Firstly, we stop them coming at us and secondly, we get at them again. There's a gorgeously crisp set of return passes between Honeyman and Fletcher which are from a different level of football, there's several moments of Bloxham looking something like the Bloxham we want to see, fighting his way onto the ball, bearing down at goal, having a go and being denied. There's CJ twice running from deep and having a go at goal, one of his efforts hit like a rocket would have broken the net if a defender hadn't got in the way, there's an Ash Fletcher effort saved at the near post and another later one quite stunningly clawed out by the keeper who is falling and manages to throw his lower hand up and get a strong palm on it and there's Lee Evans hitting a free kick from about 20 yards out which seems for all the world to have gone in but somehow streaks by the post and smashes into the hoardings instead. 

It's not all us - Scunthorpe's fans are making a decent noise - there is a particular irony in them considering Blackpool a shithole and wanting to go home, but they back their side very well and they're nearly rewarded towards the end as the game becomes joyously (if a little unnervingly) end to end stuff. Casey is cynical as we get caught out and hacks one of them down in brutal fashion for the sake of the bigger picture. The ref/alleged nonce gives a yellow. This is exactly the game I wanted, (provided we hold out) - they give as good as they get in the latter stages, and the closest they come is a glanced free header which drifts a yard or so wide which really, they should have done better with. The last 10 or so minutes have become basketball and that's given what was really quite painfully sedate at the outset a good atmosphere and sated my desire for some football played for the simple reason that football is fun. 

Terry Bondo comes on and Bondomania grips the Kop. If Bondo scores... we're on the pitch. Sadly, we're not but the great man does manage a spot of shithousery in the corner in his brief but glorious cameo and we see the game out. 

--- 

Was it perfect - no, not in a million years? Were there still worrying things about us? Yep. 

Was it *better* though? 

It really was. The challenge Ian Evatt faces is huge. He's taking a side who are light years behind where they should be, ravaged by injury, with very few options and is basically giving them an in season pre-season as he attempts to solve the problems that we have - and those problems are pretty much everything about us. I've said this before, but it's not just my opinion that we were *shite* under Bruce, we were statistically, factually, undeniably dreadful at just about everything you can measure. We couldn't pass, couldn't tackle, couldn't defend, couldn't create. These are not my words Carol, but the words of 'Insufferably Dull Bottle Top Glasses Wearing Stats Nerd Who Has No Friends Other Than The Numbers Monthly' magazine. (5.95 at all good newsagents) 

What we saw today was imperfect, sure, but we saw a side that in reasonable length spells carved out multiple chances. We saw, at points, passing movements that lasted for more than 3 or 4 touches before we hoofed it long. At one point I counted a 25 pass move. So fucking what we went back to the keeper a few times. It's 2025 for fucks sake. That's what teams do. We played to a plan and when that plan stopped working, we rejigged it and played to a different plan. We showed some commitment, some effort, some character and we looked like a team who knew what we were expected to do individually and collectively. 

Is a narrow win in the first round of the cup against a non-league side (albeit a half decent one who I think could definitely hack Div 2 on this showing) the cure for all ill? Of course it isn't - but it's a step on a journey and the positives were there. Horsfall continues to make the decision to place him in a deep freeze pretty much as soon as we'd signed him look mystifying. Lee Evans played as well as I've seen him play in a long, long time today, he showed authority, he spread play beautifully at times, his set pieces weren't awful and he was vaguely reminiscent of the commanding player we last saw sometime before that Wrexham game in the fog last Christmas- long may that continue as I love this Lee Evans as much as the other Lee Evans has fucking done my head in for ages - perhaps something to do with having players in front of him moving as opposed to everyone squashed in deep. Tom Bloxham put in another shift and the effort and experience will do him good. BPF, (if you wipe out the corner prevention calamity) was solid Ash Fletcher continues to impress me as a striker/playmaker hybrid. Ashworth also, like Horsfall, played in a way that makes a mockery of his non-selection. The three later subs all added quality, Coulson will suit Evatt's style far more than playing as a tradition full back, Honeyman managed to start about three near fights whilst he was on the pitch which is exactly what you want him to do and Jordan Brown is just about immaculate and born to play in the role Evatt needs him to. 

Does that add up to 'being able to win every single game we play from now on and rampage to an unlikely promotion?' - I doubt it at this point- but we've at least added a bit more to the shallow foundations we've been digging since Bruce left, shown we can attack, shown we can battle and demonstrated, in two games in a row, that we can go up against an opposition, match them for effort and come out on top. A shockingly out of form Peterborough and Scunthorpe United of the National League aren't Cardiff City - but we've done some of the basics and after a season where we haven't done those things, I'm not fucking complaining at improvement, but drinking it in like cold iced water in the dryest of deserts.

Ian Evatt is not a miracle worker - he's a coach, a manager, someone working a process and for the first time in ages, I can actually see evidence of the manager's work on the pitch, that work resembles something from within the last decade of football thinking. Most positively, regardless of the individual weaknesses, the errors in execution, the missing attributes, there's a palpable buy in from the squad in trying their best to carry out the game plan. Running hard, putting in blocks, moving when we've got the ball... That's in and of itself, a massive positive and a thousand times more joyful that watching an out of form, confused looking, fed up bunch of players begrudgingly, sulkily and half heartedly carry out a painfully outdated and lazily thrown together undercooked mess that barely deserves the word 'tactic' applied. 

So yeah, I'll take today. Enjoyed it. 

Most of all though, I fucking love the FA Cup and we're still in the velvet bag. Bring on Round 2. 

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Up for the Cup? the Mighty vs Scunthorpe Utd (terrible preview)

The FA Cup is a brilliant idea. You play a game. If you lose it, you're out and if you win you go through to the next round. There is nothing else to it. It's like league football - but better, because no matter how shit the game is, there's something at stake. 

Once you're out, you have to wait till the next season to play it again. There isn't a next week. If you keep winning, however, eventually you go all the way to that there London, for the final and if you win that, you get the FA Cup to take home for a bit with your ribbons on it. They even write your name on it. Forever. 

Lovely stuff.

Cup football used to be seen as the ultimate prize in football. The league was secondary - the sudden death nature of knockout football, the randomness of playing against whatever side came out of the hat creating a high stakes set of one off fixtures. It only takes 6 games to win it (8 for us in our temporary state outside of football's elite) but there's no room for any error. The belief was essentially, you can grind out a league title, lose a whole load of games along the way - but a cup win takes a certain character, a certain fearless approach (because after all, only wins will do) that is ultimately more laudable.

The league might be an endurance test, but there are second chances. Next week... You can finish lower than a team but beat them home and away. The league is a triumph of predictability, of organisation, of aggregated scores and totalled points. The Cup has a simple and gloriously appealing chaos to it. You don't know who you're going to play, but you know one simple truth - Win or you're out. Like a roman gladiator didn't survive a loss, neither does a football team in the FA Cup. 

The league's latter day supremacy is born of the modern age. Football is less of a game and more of a soap opera. Whereas the black and white era saw the cup as an exciting novelty where Sunday's backpage headlines could be written, the 21st century 24 hour media landscape needs reliable narratives that stretch over months and by its nature, the cup doesn't give that. As it progresses, it gets smaller, there's literally less teams, less players, less matches. That doesn't suit the way modern football is a packaged and presented, nor does it appeal to the accountancy that drives modern clubs - even a tepid league season has a guaranteed set of fixtures - the cup only promises one game - anything more is down to performance on the pitch and the fickle nature of football fate 

If (to pick the current 'crisis club' of the moment) Liverpool lose in their first game, they're gone. After that first event, there's no scope for further attention, no picking apart their ongoing travails, no narrative of redemption versus further fall possible - they're out, gone, finished. It's over, till next season. Attention must fall elsewhere. It doesn't matter that there's a global audience of Liverpool fans hungry for more Liverpool content - they're dead and the team that beat them carry on forward, regardless of whether that's what the world wants to see or not.  

The cup doesn't speak to the modern obsession with prize money either. Win it and it makes very little difference to the balance sheet (certainly not for a Premier League club) so it's not important in terms of the breathless way that both top flight and Champions League football are celebrated for their revenue earning potential and their ability to finance spectacular deals that again, add to the narrative of the TV game. It matters far more to the lesser names in the draw than the bigger ones and that rubs off on fans who see the cup as some kind of inconvenience, a pointless set of games that don't speak to the true glory of football - the accruing and subsequent spending of wealth. 

The FA Cup is still resolutely old fashioned in the way that, a few million quid aside, the main reason to win it is, you get to climb the steps of Wembley and all cheer at the same time as your captain lifts the cup. It's about the spectacle, the moment, the glory. Unlike almost everything else in football, you get nothing for second place. There's no European also rans mediocrity league where you get to beat Lithuanian or Turkmenistani teams for fun for the semi finalists, no second chance play offs for the team that went out in the quarter final. It's simple. You win it, or you lose.

Whether it's by accident or design, I like that it still is essentially the same competition I recall as a kid, still essentially the same competition (give or take replays) that is pictured on grainy historical footage or ghostly, foggy pictures. from the very beginning of the game. It's never been seeded or had a group stage, or been reimagined as an invitational mini league to be played over the summer break in Dubai. It's knockout football and round 3 is in January when it's cold and muddy. 

Let's just fuck off reality and pragmatism. Don't sigh. You know it makes sense. If you're dragging yourself down to Bloomfield Road or Glanford Park on even an occasional basis, you know that reality and pragmatism would really tell you just to give up. So surrender yourself... 

If James Husband lifted the FA Cup, it would be unreal. It would be the moment of a lifetime. You'd literally never, ever feel anything like it again. CJ running about with the lid on his head. Fletch doing a dance with it, cheeky Albie Morgan pouting champagne into the cup... It's that exciting a thought, it makes me feel a bit breathless just to think of it. For all the miserable fucks bemoaning the FA Cup 'not being what it was' just imagine the dizzying, nauseating, pulsating tension as the minutes tick down... Imagine the roar of the final whistle, the sweat, the relief, the sheer insane release of it all. Can you even begin to contemplate the build up to the cup lift? I can't. I don't know what I'd do. Cry? Dance? Faint? - it would be the play off finals and more. It would be like completing life somehow.  

It's possibly, very probably, almost certainly not going to happen... but it just might... this is the glorious mental trick the Cup plays on us. Win a round and for a blissful short time, you're in the draw, opponent unknown and anything and anyone might come next... the draw might be kind, you might get that bit further, you might just reach a point where you start to let yourself dream about the impossible. Even if the biggest team comes out, you give yourself a chance... For fucks sake cynics, this is a season where Grimsby (that's the actual Grimsby) beat Manchester United. That literally happened. This season. It was great. 

Maybe the cup has lost its lustre but, I say, that's just some truism that you can ignore if you want. If you don't care about the cup, then you won't care about the cup. If you decide to care about it, then you will care about it. Just because it's not top priority for those weird armchair watchalong Premier League fans who shout about 'net spend' and 'PSR' or the myriad of random foreign financiers in the boardrooms of the top clubs or the TV executives who've grown fat on the Premier League's week in week out reliable glamour doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, doesn't mean you can't care about it. In fact, it's probably reason you should - because what they want and what you want aren't the same thing. They want less clubs and more big games and less relegation and less inconvenient fixtures and all of that...

Therefore... Stop being miserable cunts and get up for the fucking cup because its here and it's a fleeting chance at glory. Fuck having what we value dictated by others, get knocking up your tinfoil trophies and get down to Bloomfield Road to wave them at the telly because actually, the truth of it all is - you can throw as much prize money and TV cameras at a thing as you want - but it is the supporters who actually make the spectacle and it's up to us what we choose to value. If we want knockout football where only winning matters, then we've got some right here, right now and we can embrace it if we choose.

We're playing Scunthorpe on Saturday. It's fair to say that more glamorous opponents exist in world football- but at this stage of proceedings, Scunthorpe aren't a bad side to get in terms of a decent potential spectacle- they're in really good form, they'll bring a load and they'll make some noise. We'll have to turn up to get a result. There's no point in either side playing for a draw either. It's knockout football.

For us, there's players returning from injury and the first home game of a new era, Ian Evatt back at Bloomfield in the home dugout. After a season of abject disappointment, Evatt's seaside homecoming could be the perfect exorcism of the undercooked, predictable, stodgy and highly unsatisfying football we've seen thus far. A one off cup game offering an ideal opportunity to display the 'fearless' approach the new man evoked in a series of really positive interviews. 

Saturday could be tremendous. We could pack the ground out and give Ian Evatt a brilliant welcome and then bask in the rare experience of watching a game where the stakes are absolute. Win and we're 7 games from triumph... Lose and it's over for an entire year. 7 games in the league is a trudge to mid December. 7 games in the cup is a death or glory sprint to May sunshine and Wembley way...

We can be mealy mouthed about the cup and treat it with the same confused disdain that executives at elite clubs treat it - "it's really not valuable. the prize money is hardly worth getting out of bed for" or we can embrace it as the possible start of a tremendous adventure.

What other competition could give you a broadly equal chance of playing against a part time side on a ground not much more than a park surrounded by railings, or a visit to some spaceship beamed from the future like say, the Tottenham stadium to play a team of multi-millionaires?

We've been stuck in the third tier for what feels like ages (it's only 2 and a bit years somehow...!) I'm bored of playing the same teams. Away days have a certain predictability to them after a while in the same division. The cup offers an escape from this, offering as it does, the prospect of playing either clubs like Woodley Sports, Merthyr Tydfill, Hampton and Richmond or Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal... Scunthorpe themselves even - a side we shared championship status with when Ian Evatt was a player for us and who since have fallen as far as the 6th tier, suffered horrendous ownership nightmares and for whom the relative sterility of our (more recent) past would seem like glorious stability. 

Every day of every week, you have the endless stories about the minutiae of the Premier League and the elite clubs around the globe plastered all over everything. We're just an afterthought. Blackpool, Scunthorpe, every other shit town team who hasn't been bought up by a global star or global finance power. We're distant, removed, at arms length. A mere provincial backwater in an era of city dominated, heavily financed elites. The FA Cup is the great leveller, even just as a dream. It's the annual anomaly where everyone, great and small, rich and poor gets chucked into a velvet bag, shaken about and drawn out.

Anything can happen in 90 minutes.

The road to Wembley begins this Saturday at 3pm. Starting point - Bloomfield Road. (Just hope that this season isn't the year that Scunthorpe win it...) 

Onward!

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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