Top Ten Facts About Blackpool
Thursday, 29th Mar 2012 14:30

Blackpool is often desribed as the Las Vegas of the North, personally I find that an insult given that Blackpool has been in existence for far longer, so Vegas should be the Blackpool of Nevada.

1. Blackpool has a population of 140,000, this rises to 3.2 million in the summer with the influx of visitors from the Northern Mill towns and Glasgow all of whom have there designated holiday weeks (called Wakes) when the whole town descends on this Lancashire resort, in July Blackpool North train station handles more passengers than Heathrow, Gatwick & JFK combined.

2. In 1885 one of the first electric tramways in the world was opened and at its height had more miles of tramway than Venice has canals or Pompey has creditors, sadly only the seafront line remains today

3. The Blackpool Tower opened in 1894 and now has franchises in Paris Las Vegas and Epcot Centre Florida, all owned and operated by Blackpool Corporation and generating the town millions in revenue. Its 518ft 9" in height including the flagpole, four people fall off it a month during the summer when drunken mill workers try to show off and find their clogs cant grip on the steel girders.

4. The most famous attraction in Blackpool apart from the tower is the Pleasure Beach, opened in the first years of the 20th century it has seen more people be sick on its rides than anywhere in the world due to the combination, of rollercoasters, chips peas, pies grave and candy floss, the Blackpool drains have to deal with more than 4000 million cubic litres of vomit per year generated from the pleasure beach.

5. Blackpool is famous for its Donkey's, kids the world over hanker for a ride on these noble steeds, in the winter they relocate to warmer climes, in the winters of 92 & 93 they actually moved to Southampton where ringmaster I Branfoot & 10 of them earned their living playing football alongside Matt le Tissier,

6. Blackpool's big rivals are Preston North End and they are seperated only by a short distance, Prestonians are enraged by the fact that Blackpool Tower can be seen from the centre circle at Deepdale. Blackpudlians are fiercely proud that they are the only town in England to have its civic anthem (The classic "Blackpool") composed by top pop combo the Macc Lads, who reform once a year to play the opus at the annual mayor making ceremony with thousands thronging the square in front of the town hall to witness this sacred rendition.

7. The Blackpool Tower Ballroom is world famous and features the likes of Come Dancing, twirling around the floor to the sounds of the big organ on Saturday 31st March it will feature a dance off between the Romsey Yoof & DEF, tickets for this event are already sold out, so it will be impossible to stroll in unchallenged

8. Piped water came to the town in 1864, which seemed a bit strange as they had millions of gallons of the stuff very near to hand, this instigated a tradition of washing at least once every three days, a tradition that Blackpool people uphold even to this day.

9. At 235 feet and travelling at speeds of up to 85 miles per hour The Pepsi Big One is the World's tallest and fastest rollercoaster and the only one that can be seen from O'Connell Street in Dublin so big is it, on 3rd August 1998 Elsewhere in the pleasure beach American Richard Rodrigues broke the record for Roller Coaster endurance when he completed 1013 hours (47 days) riding the Big Dipper, on stepping off he was presented with a certificate and a bill for 47 days wristbands, these lancashire folk are canny when it comes to a bit if brass.

10. Blackpool Illuminations cost about £2.5 million to stage and they shine non stop for 66 nights which is a lot more than King Arthur had, they stretch for over six miles along the seafront and bring in an estimated 3.5 million visitors, many of whom are meter readers employed by North Western Electricity who attribute 56% of their annual profit to this extravaganza

Photo: Action Images

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