Karl and Owen Oyston have taken a club that was in the Premier League four years ago to one the payday lender Wonga does not wish to sponsor any more

There are many Blackpool fans who have stopped attending matches in recent times. Yet few stories cut as deep as that of Christine Seddon, a supporter who, like thousands of others, has been braced for relegation since the opening weeks of the season.

“My mum, who is nearly 88 years old, has supported Blackpool since she was 13,” says Seddon, a member of the Blackpool Supporters’ Trust. “She has sadly developed Alzheimer’s but I still take her to all the home games. She can manage that and while she is there she still feels like it’s Blackpool, something she’s done all her life. It’s great for us as a family because we feel like we get mum back for a couple of hours.

“But at the end of this season, we will not be renewing her ticket while the situation remains as it is. We’ve all agreed we can’t fund the Oyston family any more. My mum may never get to see her team play again but I know my mum and she is a very principled woman – she would be cross with me if I renewed. It’s really horrible.”

Such is the damage from a sepulchral few years at Bloomfield Road.

Blackpool, a club that have boasted healthy annual profits since their relegation from the Premier League in 2011, will drop out of the Championship this weekend if Rotherham win at Birmingham City on Friday and they fail to secure victory on Saturday at Bolton. If not then, their demise will be sealed soon enough.

Lee Clark’s side still need three points to reach 26, the lowest tally in second-tier history when there have been 24 teams competing. Given they have not won since January, it is not out of the question they will set a record.

Supporters’ ire, however, is not directed at Clark. Protests instead have been targeted at Karl Oyston, the Blackpool chairman, and his father Owen, the club’s majority owner. It is they who have presided over a remarkable decline, one with no end in sight. Perhaps when the parachute payments from the Premier League dry up after this season, a clearer future will emerge.

For the time being there is little to console Blackpool fans who have this season watched José Riga come and go as manager and have seen more than 50 players wear the tangerine shirt. They started the season with only eight contracted players and no goalkeepers.

Blackpool’s most recent accounts show the club made an operating profit of £9.4m for the year 2013-14, up from £5.9m the previous financial year. The total loans to the club’s parent company, Segesta Limited, of which both Oystons are directors, increased from £23.7m to £27.7m. A telling paragraph in the club’s accounts reads: “The directors believe the company is not at risk with its strong financial position, no borrowings, an increased turnover and a modern fit-for-purpose stadium to play in.”

Yet Blackpool’s healthy financial position is at odds with their performance on the pitch – a pitch, incidentally, that has not been relaid since the summer of 2013 and would shame even the most bedraggled of municipal surfaces.

Valeri Belokon, the Latvian club president who has owned a 20% share since 2006, has been a frustrated bystander during the malaise. He believes Karl Oyston should step down as chairman while there is still time to prepare the club for a campaign in League One.

“Karl Oyston is no longer acceptable to continue in his role as chairman,” Belokon said. “Unfortunately, we worked as true partners only until we got into the Premier League. When the Oystons no longer needed my financial involvement, they refused to listen at board level.

“This was the beginning of the downturn.

“Our interests were undermined and our decisions were not taken into account. Karl has managed to downgrade the club from the top in just four years. This inability to make decisions and a poor professional level, I believe, is clear proof of Karl’s incapability to continue as chairman. He cannot lead a professional football club.

“It was my decision to develop and invest in the special players’ fund for Blackpool with the aim to invest in new players. We then made important decisions together with the club’s [then] manager Ian Holloway, for example to buy Charlie Adam, which was one of the key factors for the club’s promotion to the Premier League. The Oystons did not believe in these plans and refused to believe in success.”

Nothing has caused a stir quite like the revelation three years ago that Blackpool paid a salary of £11m to a company owned by Owen Oyston. In an interview with the Guardian in 2012, Karl Oyston insisted his father would not use the money for personal use, saying: “The money has been paid to my father’s company, and if the club needs it for the next stage of development, which is to build a new training ground, I am sure my father will lend it to the club interest-free, as he always has over 25 years of ownership.”

Blackpool have needed a new training ground for some time but are still based at Squires Gate, a location once described as a “hellhole” by Holloway and one that remains in a poor state. Last month, the club received a court summons from Fylde Council after failing to pay £221 worth of business rates on the site, despite a reminder. The fee has since been paid. There have been other off-field incidents that have marred this season and things must be bad when the payday lender Wonga decides not to renew a sponsorship deal.

Karl Oyston was charged by the Football Association with misconduct in March following a text message exchange with a supporter during which he called the fan a “massive retard”. Among the colourful correspondence – in which Oyston also received abuse – was a message to Stephen Smith that read: “enjoy the rest of your special needs day out”. The Blackpool chairman has been granted an extension until 14 April to respond to the charge.

The Oystons are also in the process of suing the Blackpool web forum Back Henry Street for libel, seeking £150,000-worth of damages for six allegedly defamatory comments made on the site in 2014.

It all adds to the ill-feeling surrounding a club that a few years back almost beat Manchester United in the top flight, at a time when Blackpool’s financial model was hailed as a bastion of success, flying in the face of other teams’ excessive spending. How that perception has changed.

Belokon added: “Until the beginning of the new season, we have sufficient time to find a suitable chairman, invest in the team and next year return to [the] Championship. In my opinion, this is the only way we can save Blackpool Football Club under the current situation.”

Some are not so optimistic and feel especially aggrieved the football authorities have allowed the dire situation to continue. Karl Oyston remains a board member of the Football League and, while he remains at Blackpool, there will be some who never return to Bloomfield Road.

Seddon said: “You’re basically looking at a train wreck. It’s gut-wrenching to be in this situation, the club is literally dying before our eyes. Where is the sense in that? The rate at which we have disintegrated is shocking and I think it must be unprecedented.

“Our only hope is that once the revenue all goes and the customers – the fans – disappear, that what’s left of the club will eventually start costing them money. For the average fan, to feel that the Football League seems to be so completely and utterly useless and unable to get involved, it’s very depressing.”