Championship / Dan Fitch / 11 May 2010 /

Laugh-a-minute Blackpool boss Ian Holloway could be headed for the Premier League and Dan 'The Betting Man' Fitch thinks that if he gets there, he should carry on joking.

Regrettably it looks as if Jose Mourinho is more likely to join Real Madrid in the summer than to return to England.

But don't despair. If you're looking for a larger than life manager to liven up those dreary press conferences, then there could be a solution. Ian Holloway is headed to the Premier League.

Holloway is now in charge of Blackpool, who came from behind in Saturday's play off semi-final first leg, to beat Nottingham Forest 2-1. Blackpool are [2.08] to qualify for the final and [4.9] to go up.

They would be welcome members of the Premier League. Blackpool would make a brilliant away trip and with Holloway in charge, they are an even more attractive proposition.

For Holloway is a manager who is never short of a ready quip when a microphone is shoved under his nose and with Blackpool likely to be getting thrashed on a weekly basis should they win promotion, he's going to need a sense of humour.

He's already been practising this season, having remarked: "I love Blackpool. We're very similar. We both look better in the dark."

As well as a sharp wit, Holloway is also fluent in gobbledygook. He's a man that lets his mouth start talking, before challenging his brain to keep up with it and direct the sentence in a direction that actually makes some sense.

Examples include:

"You never count your chickens before they hatch. I used to keep parakeets and I never counted every egg thinking I would get all eight birds. You just hoped they came out of the nest box looking all right. I'm like a swan at the moment. I look fine on top of the water but under the water my little legs are going mad."

"I am a football manager. I can't see into the future. Last year I thought I was going to Cornwall on my holidays but I ended up going to Lyme Regis."

"Paul Furlong is my vintage Rolls Royce and he cost me nothing. We polish him, look after him, and I have him fine tuned by my mechanics. We take good care of him because we have to drive him every day, not just save him for weddings."

Then of course there's Holloway's most famous quote, which thrust him into the spotlight, as a master of the analogy:

"To put it in gentleman's terms if you've been out for a night and you're looking for a young lady and you pull one, some weeks they're good looking and some weeks they're not the best. Our performance today would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She wasn't the best looking lady we ended up taking home but she was very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much, let's have a coffee"

There's bad news though. Holloway is reputedly trying to change his ways. After leaving Leicester and going over a year without a job, his wife pointed out that it might be because people don't take him seriously.

He's since made an effort to cut out the jokes. If that's the case, then it's a tragedy.

Football has too few characters these days and whilst you wouldn't expect the manager of Manchester United or Real Madrid to cracking gags faster than Frank Carson, surely there's room for Holloway's brand of fun in football's less pressurised environments?

After all, most clubs' fans are in need of cheering up and Holloway is actually a decent manager, as he's now proving. Let's hope that Blackpool's brightest light is illuminating the Premier League next season.

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