Blackpool won their 29-year fight to rejoin English football’s senior clubs on Sunday – and gave a timely boost to their greatest player’s ultimate battle.

Former England captain Jimmy Armfield, the Tangerines’ most capped player, revealed on BBC Radio recently that he has throat cancer. But that wouldn’t have dimmed the great man’s delight at the long-overdue success of the only club he ever played for.

The 2-0 Wembley win over Yeovil in the First Division play-off final was Blackpool’s tenth victory in a row – a club record. It lifted them out of the basement divisions for the first time in 29 years and revived golden memories of a club that must rank as champions in the sleeping giants’ league.

'At one point Blackpool had no fewer than FOUR players in the full England international team'


Veteran fans associate Blackpool primarily with the likes of Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Bill Perry, Jackie Mudie and the team that hit back from 3-1 down to beat Bolton in the 1953 FA Cup Final. But in Armfield and the late Alan Ball, the Seasiders boast two other all-time greats of the English game.

In terms of versatility, Manchester-born Armfield in unique. After making 569 appearances for Blackpool and winning 43 England caps, he went on to manage Bolton and Leeds – leading them to the 1975 European Cup Final – and then made a highly-successful switch to newspaper and broadcasting journalism.

Known to younger fans as a match summariser for BBC Radio, he is also a Football Association consultant, in which role he was responsible for the appointment of Terry Venables as England coach in 1994. Six years later, he was awarded an OBE and in 2004 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of his home county, Lancashire.

I was lucky enough to have been a colleague of Jimmy’s at the Daily Express in the 80s and a nicer man you couldn’t wish to meet. I remember him being peeved that people thought he had got into journalism on the back of his playing career. Not true – he insisted he had trained with a local newspaper after leaving school, before he got into professional football.

I shed a silent tear when I heard of Jimmy’s battle against the big C, but like his former England teammate Sir Bobby Robson, I know the 71-year-old will fight it to the last.

Much as I admire Yeovil’s speedy rise after attaining Football League status only four years ago, I knew that a Blackpool win on Sunday would provide the perfect tonic for the great man.

When Armfield joined Blackpool, they had been established in the English League’s top-flight for two decades – and at one point had no fewer than four players in the full England international team. Relegated to the second tier in 1967, they were promoted to again in 1970 to what is now the Premiership, but went down again a year later and seven years later tumbled to the third level.

They have been in the basement leagues ever since – but those ten successive victories, culminating in those Wembley glory goals for Robbie Williams and Keigan Parker on Sunday, have finally lifted them back where many believe they belong.

Well. almost where they belong, because those who lived through the Matthews era won’t rest until Blackpool are back in the top flight along with most of their peers of the 50s and 60s (or should that be piers?)