The real trick had been pulled off in the boardroom, where Oyston has run the club since 1999, after his father, Owen, a local real estate agent turned minor media magnate, went to prison for rape.

Under Karl Oyston’s leadership, the club’s dilapidated Bloomfield Road stadium was rebuilt and the team rose from the lower reaches of English soccer to the second-tier Championship and then, for that one fleeting season, to its pinnacle: the Premier League. The ability of Blackpool F.C. to make the jump from the Championship was even more impressive for the fact that the team and its salary bill were substantially unchanged from the previous year despite an increase in revenue of £42 million (about $63.5 million).

Unfortunately for the fans, and for the club, the Oystons then tried to repeat the formula on the way down. Despite the parachute payments from the Premier League still rolling in, more than $70 million over the last four years, Blackpool spent less and less on wages and transfers. As a result, the club turned a healthy profit, but after losing a playoff for promotion back to the Premier League in 2012, Blackpool disintegrated: 15th place in the Championship in 2013; 20th in 2014; and this year relegated with six games to play. The club has known for weeks that it will finish the season in last place.

The supporters’ grumbling grew as the money from the parachute payments, which might have reversed the decline if invested in the club, was instead routinely diverted to Oyston-owned companies and large directors’ fees. The protest movement went public in April 2014, when Blackpool’s game against Burnley was stopped in the 53rd minute (a nod to the club’s F.A. Cup victory of 1953) after thousands of fans threw a mixture of tennis balls and tangerines onto the field.