Blackpool F.C.
Season 1916-17 1916-17 in English football The 1916–17 season was the second season of special wartime football in England during World War I.-Overview:Between 1914 and 1919 competitive football was suspended in England. Many footballers signed up to fight in the war and as a result many teams were depleted, and fielded guest players instead...
League	Principal Competition — Football League, Lancashire Section Subsidiary Competition — Football League, Lancashire Section, Group C
Manager	None
League position	16th (Principal Competition) 10th (Subsidiary Competition)
Top goalscorer	Williamson (10)
FA Cup FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...	Competition suspended
Highest home attendance	6,000
Lowest home attendance	1,000
Previous season	← 1915-16 Blackpool F.C. season 1915-16 The 1915–16 season was Blackpool F.C.s first season in special wartime football during World War I. They competed in two Football League competitions spread over the full season – the Lancashire Section, Northern Group Principal Competition, for 26 games, and then in the Lancashire Section,...
Next season	1917-18 Blackpool F.C. season 1917-18 The 1917-18 season was Blackpool F.C.s third season in special wartime football during World War I. They competed in two Football League competitions spread over the full season — the Lancashire Section, Northern Group Principal Competition, for thirty games, and then in the Lancashire Section,...  →

The 1916-17

1916-17 in English football

The 1916–17 season was the second season of special wartime football in England during World War I.-Overview:Between 1914 and 1919 competitive football was suspended in England. Many footballers signed up to fight in the war and as a result many teams were depleted, and fielded guest players instead...

 season was Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...

's second season in special wartime football during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. They competed in two Football League competitions spread over the full season — the Lancashire Section, Northern Group Principal Competition, for thirty games, and then in the Lancashire Section, Group C, Subsidiary Competition, for a further six games. The club finished in last place, 16th, in the principal competition and 10th in the subsidiary competition. Williamson was the club's top scorer, with ten goals (six in the principal competition, three in the subsidiary and one in other games). Harry Hampton, who scored over 200 goals for Aston Villa

Aston Villa F.C.

Aston Villa Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Witton, Birmingham. The club was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founder members of The Football League in 1888. They were also founder...

 between 1904 and 1920, briefly played for Blackpool this season, scoring eight goals in seven league games.

The FA Cup

FA Cup

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 was suspended for the duration of the war.

Background

For Blackpool, the second wartime season was quite different to the first. With the war escalating, the club's own players were not able to play as much for Blackpool. In addition, Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers F.C.

Blackburn Rovers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire. The team currently competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football....

 decided to play in the league which meant that their players, who had played for Blackpool the previous season, would no longer be available. Blackpool often had to rely on finding players at the last minute for matches; therefore, unlike the first season, Blackpool rarely put out the same side in consecutive matches. Staff and recovering patients from the King's Lancashire Medical Convalescent Hospital (KLMCH) and staff from the Royal Army Medical Corps

Royal Army Medical Corps

The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...

 Depot (RAMC), both based at Squires Gate, provided players throughout the season.

Lancashire Section, Northern Group Principal Competition

The Principal competition for the 1916–17 season consisted of sixteen teams, two more than in the 1915–16 season with the addition of Blackburn Rovers and Port Vale

Port Vale F.C.

Port Vale Football Club is an English football club currently playing in Football League Two. They are based in Burslem, Staffordshire — one of six towns that make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent. The club's traditional rivals in the city are Stoke City, and games between the two clubs are known as...

:

• Blackpool
• Blackburn Rovers
• Bolton Wanderers
  Bolton Wanderers F.C.
  Bolton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the area of Horwich in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester. They began their current spell in the Premier League in 2001....
  
  
• Bury
  Bury F.C.
  Bury Football Club is an association football team based in Bury, Greater Manchester. The team currently play in League One. The club's nickname is The Shakers which was bestowed upon them by club chairman JT Ingham, an industrialist and ironmonger of the late 1890s.-Formation of the club and the...
  
  
• Burnley
  Burnley F.C.
  Burnley Football Club are a professional English Football League club based in Burnley, Lancashire. Nicknamed the Clarets, due to the dominant colour of their home shirts, they were founder members of the Football League in 1888...
  
  
• Everton
  Everton F.C.
  Everton Football Club are an English professional association football club from the city of Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of English football...
  
  
• Liverpool
  Liverpool F.C.
  Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
  
  
• Manchester City
  Manchester City F.C.
  Manchester City Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Manchester. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's , they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894...
  
  
• Manchester United
  Manchester United F.C.
  Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
  
  
• Oldham Athletic
• Port Vale
• Preston North End
  Preston North End F.C.
  Preston North End Football Club is an English professional football club located in the Deepdale area of the city of Preston, Lancashire, currently playing in the third tier of English league football, League One...
  
  
• Rochdale
• Southport Central
• Stockport County
  Stockport County F.C.
  Stockport County Football Club is an English football club based in Stockport, Greater Manchester. The club formed in 1883 as Heaton Norris Rovers, shortly afterwards merging with Heaton Norris F.C., and adopted the current name on 24 May 1890 on the creation of the County Borough of Stockport...
  
  
• Stoke City
  Stoke City F.C.
  Stoke City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire that plays in the Premier League. Founded in 1863, it is the oldest club in the Premier League, and considered to be the second oldest professional football club in the world, after Notts...
  
  

Blackpool began the campaign on 2 September 1916, with a home match against Preston North End. The Seasiders team contained only six players who had played for the club in the previous season. The team included Jim Simmons, a Sheffield United

Sheffield United F.C.

Sheffield United Football Club is a professional English football club based in the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire.They were the first sporting team to use the name 'United' and are nicknamed 'The Blades', thanks to Sheffield's worldwide reputation for steel production...

 player who was on honeymoon

Honeymoon

-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...

 in Blackpool

Blackpool

Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...

. Blackpool won the match 5–1 in front of a crowd of 3,000. By the third game, Blackpool had already used 17 different players, whereas they had used only 19 players throughout the whole of the 1915-16 season. The often-makeshift side suffered five consecutive defeats between 7 October and 4 November before a 1–1 draw at home to Bury on 11 November. However, a week later they lost 11–1 away to Port Vale. Although it is the club's heaviest defeat, it does not count in official records, being a wartime-season game.

The club continued to struggle to field a team, and against Stoke City on 25 November began the game with only nine players. Two soldiers were called in at the last minute to join the game, and the side then managed to get a 1–1 draw. Private Williamson, a soldier from Merseyside, made his debut against Oldham Athletic on 2 December, and he went on to become the club's top scorer this season.

The next win, only the second of the season following the opening day victory, came on 23 December with a 2–1 home victory over Blackburn Rovers, with Williamson scoring both goals. They won just four more games throughout the remainder of the principal-competition season, suffering further heavy defeats — 7–0 to Burnley on 30 December, when they had only nine players and had to borrow two players from their hosts, and 6–0 to Stockport County on 10 February 1917. However, they ended the season with a 9–0 win over Oldham Athletic on 17 March (including four goals from Hampton). They still finished bottom of the table with 19 points from thirty games. Liverpool were the Principal Competition champions.

		P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
16th	Blackpool	30	6	7	17	44	80	19

Lancashire Section, Group C, Subsidiary Competition

For the Subsidiary Competition, the Lancashire League was divided into four groups, unlike the 1915-16 season when there were two groups with six teams each (Northern and Southern). The games played were again though amalgamated at the end of the season to give a composite table.

Blackpool were placed in Group C which contained four teams:

• Blackburn Rovers
• Blackpool
• Burnley
• Preston North End

Blackpool's first match in the subsidiary competition was on Christmas Day 1916, even though the Principal Competition was mid-season. They began with a defeat at Burnley. The next match was not until 31 March 1917, away at Preston North End, and another defeat, this time 2–1. Blackpool won two of their six games, both against Blackburn Rovers, beating them 4–1 at Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...

 on 7 April and 3–2 at Ewood Park

Ewood Park

Ewood Park is a football stadium in the English town of Blackburn, Lancashire, and is the home of Blackburn Rovers Football Club — one of the founder members of the Football League and Premier League. Rovers have played there since they moved from Leamington Street in the summer of 1890. The...

 in the last game of the season on 21 April. In the combined Subsidiary Competition table Blackpool finished 10th, with Rochdale emerging as champions.

		P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
10th	Blackpool	6	2	1	3	10	12	5

Summary

In the Principal Competition, Blackpool used 54 different players, with a further eight players appearing in the Subsidiary Competition. Booth made the most appearances with 31 (28 in the Principal Competition and three in the Subsidiary Competition), missing just five league games all season. Connor was next with 30 league appearances (24 in the Principal Competition and six in the Subsidiary Competition), followed by Carlisle with 26 (25 in the Principal Competition and one in the Subsidiary Competition) and Bainbridge

Joe Bainbridge

Joe "Joseph" Bainbridge was an English professional footballer. He spent ten years at Blackpool in the 1900s, making over 100 Football League appearances for the club. He played as a centre-forward.-Blackpool:...

, with 24 (23 in the Principal Competition and one in the Subsidiary Competition).