BLACKPOOL’S famous illuminations were turned off today at the end of another colourful autumn season but if the town council had wired the lights up to Seamus Coleman’s boots at Bloomfield Road on Saturday then they could have carried on shining bright throughout the winter.

The young Irishman returned to the ground which provided his finishing school at the end of last term for his football education in readiness for making waves in the top flight this season and responded with a typically livewire performance and of course his first Premier League goal.

When Blackpool’s maverick manager Ian Holloway took a punt on the raw but exciting then Everton fringe player back in March, the Seasiders were well off the pace in the Championship but the former Sligo Rovers starlet’s arrival at the club proved to be the catalyst the side needed to sneak their way into English football’s elite division for the first time since 1971 with Coleman only on the losing side once in a tangerine shirt in a dozen games, away at title winners Newcastle.

Having learnt from that experience, Coleman – who cost Moyes a fee similar to a single week’s wages for one of his marquee players – has now established himself as a regular in Everton’s starting line-up.

Operating in a more advanced right-wing berth ahead of full-back and captain Phil Neville, Coleman showed no sentimentality towards his former Blackpool colleagues, largely giving them a torrid time throughout as Everton carved out enough chances to win a hat-trick of matches.

But despite such dominance, the visitors will be thoroughly frustrated that they had to come from behind not once but twice just to earn a share of the spoils.