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25 unusual facts about Blackpool


1915–16 Blackpool F.C. season

A conference was held in Blackpool's Winter Gardens on 3 July 1915, with representatives from the English, Irish, Scottish and Southern Football Leagues to consider whether football should be played in the 1915–16 season.

999: What's Your Emergency?

999: What's Your Emergency? is a British factual documentary following the members of the emergency services in Blackpool, Lancashire in series 1 and the ambulance service throughout the UK in series 2.

On 26 July 2013 it was confirmed that Crackit Productions and the BBC were about to commission "Holiday Hospital 999" again based in Blackpool however these plans were shelved in what the Blackpool Gazette called a "Bullet Dodged" due to the damaging effect caused by 999: What's Your Emergency? on tourism in the town.

Abba Abba

An elaborate passage describes how the Italian Gulielmis were transformed into English Wilsons "during a wave of anti-Italian feeling occasioned by alleged ice-cream poisoning in the 1890s in the Lancashire coastal resorts of Blackpool, Cleveleys, Bispham and Fleetwood".

Avro 536

In service at Blackpool, Avro 536s flown by three pilots were able to fly around 500 passengers on their first day of operation.

Baron Aldington

Baron Aldington, of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

Bhaji on the Beach

A diverse group of British women of South Asian descent go on a day trip to the beach in Blackpool; despite their differences—the older women are more traditional and conservative, the younger women more Westernized—they eventually manage to see common ground.

Blackburn Type I

In June 1914 the aircraft was flying at Blackpool and on 22 July Harold Blackburn inaugurated the first scheduled service in Britain with flights every ½ hour between Leeds and Bradford.

Blackpool shipwrecks

Some looters from Marton were jailed after being caught stealing the cargo.

The Abana was first seen off North Pier but by the time the lifeboat, which had to be towed by horse from Blackpool to Bispham, had been launched it had drifted to Little Bispham where it was wrecked.

Disappearance of Charlene Downes

Charlene Downes (born 25 March 1989 - disappeared 1 November 2003) was a girl who lived in Blackpool, United Kingdom, her family moved there when she was 10 years old.

Earnse Bay

Earnse Bay was once planned to be developed into a reputable seaside resort to rival other nearby towns such as Morecambe and Blackpool, however these plans never fully materialised.

Estelle Brody

Extensive location filming took place in Manchester and Blackpool, giving the film a documentary realism feel very unusual in British silent cinema, which is now regarded as a valuable socio-historical portrait of 1920s Lancashire.

Funny Bones

After his own Las Vegas comedy act flops with his beloved father in the audience, Tommy returns to Blackpool, England, where he spent the summers of his childhood.

Funny Girls

Funny Girls is a burlesque cabaret showbar on the North Shore of Blackpool, Lancashire, the cast comprise male dancers, and drag performers, and are part of In The Pink (ITP) Leisure, owned by Basil Newby.

Harry Cookson

Cookson married Polly Castle at South Shore's Holy Trinity Church on 28 January 1895 and honeymooned later the same day in London.

Jean Robinson

Jean Robinson, CBE (8 December 1899 - 5 November 1986) was the first female mayor of Blackpool, Lancashire from 1968-1969.

Lancashire County Cricket Club in 2005

Lancashire recorded an innings victory at Stanley Park in Blackpool against Worcestershire to go second in the Division Two table of the County Championship.

Let George Do It!

At the start of World War II, musician George Hepplewhite (George Formby) gets on a boat thinking he is on his way to Blackpool, but arrives in Bergen, Norway instead, where he is mistaken for another ukulele player.

Middleton bus station

Rossendalebus also provide some school bus services that call at Middleton bus station, while Rossendalebus also provide a seasonal service to Blackpool and Fleetwood.

Monty's Pass

Monty's Pass was the winner of the 2003 Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool, when ridden by Barry Geraghty, trained by Jimmy Mangan and running in the colours of the Dee Racing Syndicate, a group of owners based in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland, and led by Blackpool born bingo hall owner Mike Futter.

Norman Evans

Norman Evans is buried in Carleton Cemetery, Blackpool.

The Cliffs Hotel

The Cliffs Hotel is in the seaside resort of Blackpool, Lancashire, It is located on the Queen's Promenade in the North Shore area of the town.

Trinity – the hospice in the Fylde

Trinity – the hospice in the Fylde is a purpose built hospice on Low Moor Road (formerly Low Moor Lane) in Greenlands, Bispham, Blackpool, Lancashire, England.

Under Blackpool Lights

The DVD consists of 26 tracks recorded at The Empress Ballroom at the Winter Gardens in the English seaside resort of Blackpool on January 27 and 28, 2004, and directed by Dick Carruthers.


1915–16 Blackpool F.C. season

With a large number of British Army personnel based in the town, many of the Blackpool players during the four seasons of wartime football were soldiers.

1961–62 Stoke City F.C. season

And Waddington pulled off a master stroke after paying £3,000 to Blackpool for the returning 46-year-old Stanley Matthews.

Ákos Buzsáky

Buzsáky won the Kiyan Prince Goal of the Season award for a side footed lob against Blackpool.

Arriva Trains Northern

The long distance regional services connecting Sunderland, Newcastle, Scarborough and Hull with Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool were operated under the TransPennine Express banner, the rest as Arriva Trains Northern.

Ashley Eastham

On 29 August 2012, Eastham joined Blackpool's Fylde coast neighbours Fleetwood Town on a one month loan deal, together with team-mate Tom Barkhuizen who joined on loan for six months.

Bill Bentley

He was though part of the Blackpool team that won the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1971, beating Bologna in the final at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara.

Blackpool Central railway station

On 27 August 1941, two aircraft—a Blackburn Botha trainer and a Boulton Paul Defiant fighter—collided in midair over the sea, just off Blackpool's central seafront.

Blowick

The Southport gas holder on Crowland Street was the tallest building on the Southport skyline, visible from as far afield as Blackpool and Parbold.

Brett Pitman

Pitman scored a 16 minute hat-trick in the first home game of the season 2010–11 against Peterborough United and on 17 August 2010 it was reported by Sky Sports News that newly promoted Premier League side Blackpool had made a bid of £400,000, possibly rising to £600,000, to sign Pitman.

Charlie Hurley

In Ray Charnley and Ray Pointer, Blackpool and Burnley had strikers of the highest quality.

Chorley Interchange

First TransPennine Express also run services to Blackpool, Preston, Bolton and Manchester, also serving Manchester Airport, Barrow, Carlisle, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley.

Georg Schories

He won at Tunbridge Wells 1908, shared 1st with Victor Wahltuch at Blackpool 1907, shared 1st with Frederick Yates at Blackpool 1910, but lost the play-off match (0 : 4), took 2nd behind Yates at Bromley 1910, tied for 3rd-5th at Oxford 1910, and won at Glasgow 1911.

George Washington Williams

Traveling back from Africa, George Washington Williams died in Blackpool, England, on August 2, 1891, from tuberculosis and pleurisy, and is buried in Layton Cemetery, Blackpool.

Glyn Owen

By 1955 he was performing with the George Mitchell Singers in Blackpool, with the impresario Lew Grade as his agent.

Graham Walne

His love of theatre was stimulated at an early age by attendances at Blackpool’s ornate Victorian Tower Circus where the circus ring magically filled with water, fountains and mermaids.

I Second That Emotion

Episode 2 of the 2004 BBC miniseries Blackpool featured the Miracles version, accompanied onscreen by the characters singing and dancing, as part of the story.

ITV News Granada Reports

ITV News Granada Reports won the RTS North West award for Best Regional News Programme in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 for coverage of severe weather, the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, Blackpool FC's promotion to the Premier League and an investigation into convicted paedophile Colin Blanchard.

Joseph Delaney

The locations concerned are also largely based on those known to Delaney, for example: the town of Priestown is based loosely on Preston, where he was born; Lancaster becomes Caster; Blackpool is now the Black Pool; and Chipping is Chipenden.

Kenny Mwape

On 26 February 1977 in a game against Mufulira Blackpool at Kamuchanga Stadium in Mufulira, Mwape was involved in a fracas which led to a suspension and court charges for him and four team-mates Obby Kapita, Francis Kajiya, Peter Tembo and Chris Kaoma.

Leo Fitzmaurice

Exhibitions have included Post Match Locus+, Newcastle, Blank Stir, Grundy Gallery, Blackpool and You Try to Tell me But I Never Listen at The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Manny Martindale

Immediately after this final Test, the West Indian team went to Blackpool to play a first-class match against a team raised by Sir Lindsay Parkinson; Martindale took eight wickets in an innings for the third time in the season, this time for 39 runs.

Mick Rathbone

The 17-year-old Rathbone made his first-team debut on 31 August 1976 in a League Cup defeat at Blackpool, and his league debut on 20 October, as a substitute replacing Archie Styles in a 1–0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.

Pasaje Del Terror

Pasaje Del Terror is an interactive walk-through horror attraction with branches in thirty different cities in Spain, including Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville, Malaga, Salou, Santander, etc. as well as some of the major cities of the world, such as Rome, Lisbon, Blackpool, Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Cancun, San Salvador and Tokyo.

Pete Hoida

Selected group exhibitions include: Camden Arts Centre, London; Spacex, Exeter; Pelter/Sands, Bristol; The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; The Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport; Boundary Gallery, London; Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery; Gwl Gelf, Harlech Art Biennale; The Schoolhouse Gallery, Bath; Sun & Doves, London; Royal West of England Academy, Bristol; Dean Clough, Halifax.

Peter Blaker, Baron Blaker

In 1994 he accepted a life peerage and became Baron Blaker, of Blackpool in the County of Lancaster and of Lindfield in the county of West Sussex.

Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno

In July 1976, an airplane was involved in an accident in the Scottish Highlands while on a charter flight from Blackpool to Perth, killing the pilot and five passengers instantly.

Retrofit Section 25 album

Retrofit is an album by Blackpool post-punk/electro band Section 25 and released by LTM Recordings on 14 September 2010.

Ron Suart

While at Blackpool, he also helped to unearth future England internationals Alan Ball, Ray Charnley, and Emlyn Hughes, though with the abolition of the maximum wage and the new freedom which players had, he was unable to prevent many of his star players moving on.

Salvage Code Red

But while the company may be best known for its part in salvaging the MS Riverdance ferry in Blackpool in 2008, featured in an upcoming episode of Salvage Code Red, Smit also responds to smaller, but no less dangerous and technically complicated, salvage operations every month.

Sarah Lancashire

In 2006 she presented an edition of the Five documentary social heritage series Disappearing Britain in which she interviewed people with memories of Wakes Week holidays in Blackpool by Cotton mill workers in the early 20th Century.

Sidney Torch

He continued to play the Wurlitzer there up until 1940, when he was drafted into the RAF and stationed near Blackpool.

Spencer Timothy Hall

He died at Blackpool on 26 April 1885, and was buried in Layton Cemetery.

Squires Gate, Blackpool

Squires Gate is a district in the South Shore area of Blackpool on the Fylde coast in the county of Lancashire, England.

Tania Mallet

Tania Mallet, born on 19 May 1941 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, is an English model and actress who is best known for her appearance as Tilly Masterson in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

Terry Alcock

Alcock played in the 1972 Anglo-Italian Cup, scoring in Blackpool's 10–0 victory over Lanerossi Vicenza on 10 June 1971 at Bloomfield Road, en route to Blackpool's appearance in the final.

The Reason 4

They also supported Peter Andre on a number of UK tour dates through the summer, played many light switch ons where they were joined on stage by Keith Lemon in Blackpool.

Unity Academy

Unity Academy Blackpool, an all-through school in Blackpool, Lancashire, England

Warton Aerodrome

In 1940 new runways were built at Warton so that it could act as a "satellite" airfield for the RAF Coastal Command station at Squires Gate airfield in Blackpool.