... BUT SADLY BLACKPOOL COULD BE NEW POMPEY

NEW season, same old Blackpool. Every time you pick up a paper, it’s another load of bad news.

Last season ended with a pitch invasion at Bloomfield Road in protest at chairman Karl Oyston, forcing the abandonment of their game against Huddersfield and resulting in a suspended three-point deduction for the coming campaign.

Since then, one pre-season friendly has been abandoned due to crowd trouble and another cancelled altogether.

The fans still want the chairman out.The chairman knows his time is up but still isn’t budging. Nothing has changed since last season’s pitiful relegation from the Championship and as long as Oyston is there, it’s going to go from bad to worse.

The fans are either going to stop going at all or turn up and riot. I feel sorry for them because it’s a real Catch-22 situation. They desperately want Oyston out but all the time that they’re interrupting games, the club is being punished. Basically, everybody loses. I can’t help but feel for the players too. They must be going to games not even knowing whether they’ll even finish 90 minutes or not. Can you imagine what that does to morale?

And don’t underestimate the personal cost. People seem to think that footballers in League One and Two earn millions and millions of pounds but they don’t. Another relegation could have a big impact on their lives.

Sadly, that’s what is on the horizon. It’s been a disaster since they came out of the Premier and I can see them doing a Portsmouth and going all the way through.