[Bispham Seasider]

A 'Pool fan posted this on the Blackpool Vital forum earlier and I thought I would share it on here with a short explanation.

The Atomic Boys were Blackpool fans who started in the 1950s (I don't think it was earlier) to dress up at matches in all sorts of weird and wonderful costumes (a tradition which has been kept to this day as anyone who saw footage of the 30,000 Seasiders at Wembley in 2007 would see with multitudes of tangerine nuns, arabs, emus, workmen etc etc etc) There are some great pictures of them which if I can find I will post on here.

They were led by the late Syd Bevers who always brought a duck to matches and paraded around the pitch before the game. Quite why I have no idea, but Blackpool were one of the first (if not the first) club in England to have something like The Atomic Boys who weren't an official supporters club and were more akin to what the Texian Army and El Battalon are for Houston Dynamo in modern day football.

The match was at Scunthorpe United and could well have been an FA Cup game, and back then Blackpool were a huge draw and had decent away support even back then! Quite funny seeing all those rattles though and even a bell!

Here is the link

http://media.putfile.com/Syd-Bevers-1916-2007