31 August 1946 Huddersfield Town 1 Blackpool 3
Forwards Take Chances – And Blackpool Win
Goal Rush Shocks Huddersfield
Huddersfield Town 1, Blackpool 3
By “Spectator”
LEEDS-ROAD, Saturday.
It has come at last - the day they have been waiting for and talking about during
six years of war and one of peace - football's “D” - Day. Every match means
something again.
Now at last they are playing for points which can cost
fortunes and goals worth kings’ ransoms in one of the world’s biggest
lotteries.
At Huddersfield this afternoon, in the valley among the
chimney stacks called Leeds-road, where Blackpool last played on August 26th,
1939, four only of the Blackpool team that won that match by the only goal took
the field- a goalkeeper, a full-back, Sibley, a half-back, Johnston, and a
forward, Willie Buchan.
The Town had only two of the 1939 men left. One who was out -out unexpectedly-was Bob Hesford, the schoolmaster goalkeeper, who graduated at Blackpool Grammar School.
Teams:
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN: McManus, Bailey, Simpson (J), Barker,
Briggs, Boot, Bateman, Glazzard, Price, Carr and Metcalfe.
BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Sibley, Lewis, Buchan (T), Suart,
Johnston, Munro, Buchan, Mortensen, Blair (J) and McIntosh.
Referee: Mr. W. B. Nixon (Prestwich).
COSTLY RAIN
Something went wrong with football’s famous
first-day-of-the-season weather today. Rain fell in Huddersfield for hours.
Not until an hour before the kick-off where the clouds beginning to lift. It
was fine when the teams appeared, but the attendance, which it had been
expected would approach 30,000, was fewer than 12.000.
“This rain has cost us a few hundreds” was what one of the
Town directors said.
I seem to have heard that at a few cricket matches during the
summer.
It made no difference when Harry Johnston, Blackpool’s new
captain, won the toss. There was not a breath of wind.
THE GAME
First Half
In the first minute Town broke away on the right after a
partial clearance by a Blackpool full-back.
In front of goal Bateman's centre was crossed. Two forwards
leaped at it and missed it. In the end Sibley cleared it under pressure from
two others.
Two other Huddersfield raids were repulsed in quick
succession. The Blackpool defence was composed under pressure, but too often a
Town forward was taking the ball in an open position.
Price raced into one of these unguarded spaces, and was
inside shooting distance as T. Buchan crossed him and passed back with complete
assurance to his waiting goalkeeper.
WALLACE’S DIVE
Blackpool were completely outplayed for five minutes and
would have lost a goal with six minutes gone if Wallace had not made a diving,
acrobatic clearance as Price swerved past a fullback accepted a forward pass
and shot.
Yet in the eighth minute, the Blackpool forwards’ first
full-line advance snatched the lead.
It was done in three fast direct moves.
Blair opened the movement with a perfect low pass to Munro.
On to it the little Scot pounced, cut a yard inside, and released it again as
Blair called for it.
Blair glided the ball forward, and left MORTENSEN, almost on
the line to hook it wide of the unprotected McManus with the Town defence
scattered.
BLACKPOOL’S TURN
Forwards Play Fast
Football
That was the end for a time of Huddersfield’s early
domination.
It was Blackpool’s forwards and wing half-backs who were
making progress fast and with the open game.
Immediately two goals came in a minute and a half.
Huddersfield won a corner on the right. As the centre was
crossed by Bateman from the flag, GLAZZARD hooked over his shoulder a ball
which Wallace reached as he fell to his right, but which eluded his grasp, hit
the post and cannoned inside.
Direct from the kick-off the Blackpool forwards raided.
BLAIR took a forward pass, zigzagged past two men, enticed
the goalkeeper out, steered the ball past him with all the composure in the
world for a brilliant goal.
Afterwards, the Blackpool forwards seemed to outwit the Town
full-backs and half-backs every time they met.
ELUSIVE BLAIR
Nobody could hold Blair, who made the third goal for his
team in the 20th minute.
He gave Mortensen a pass, and darted to the ball as McManus
beat the centre-forward’s shot out.
Then he passed it inside again to the unguarded MUNRO, who
shot it into the net in the next split second.
This 3-1 lead for Blackpool after 20 minutes was deserved.
Nearly all the time Blair had been playing at inside-right,
and Buchan at inside-left.
There was plenty of punch left in the Town. There always is
in these Yorkshire teams, whatever the odds.
With Blackpool still retreating. Wallace lost one centre and
a bouncing ball was cleared off the line by Suart.
Then the goalkeeper dived into a milling pack of men almost
under the bar and came crawling out of it the ball clutched to his chest.
TOWN’S MISSES
Buchan (T) cleared in front of another open goal, with the
Huddersfield forwards still all out to reduce the lead.
How the Town missed goals during this tearaway pressure I
don’t know.
Price still will not know how he sliced a ball wide of a
gaping goal, with no man within half a dozen yards of him.
It was the Town for minutes on end, but goals would not come
against a Blackpool defence which at times was reduced to shear desperation.
Scarcely, a pass reached McIntosh. It was Blair and the
other wing who created nearly every raid. Blair was the man of the first half.
The Town missed too many chances. Blackpool took nearly7 all
theirs.
Half-time: Huddersfield Town 1, Blackpool 3.
Second Half
Rain was falling when the second half opened.
Nearly five minutes passed before either team built a real
attack.
Then, after Buchan had brilliantly created position for him, McIntosh, given a
pass at last, was apparently so surprised that he shot it wide.
A minute later Glazzard missed from a position where he
should have scored.
There was an amazing incident when Price suddenly found
himself in possession of the ball with only Wallace in the Blackpool half of
the field.
Wallace raced to meet him dived at his feet 10 yards outside
the penalty area, and so disturbed Price that the centre- forward sliced it
yards out of play.
Another great gap revealed itself in Blackpool’s defence a
minute later. Again Price raced into it.
This time Wallace made a grandstand clearance to a thunder of cheers.
WALLACE’S DAY
A great game this for Blackpool’s goalkeeper behind a
defence which was still not too compact.
The forwards and the wing half-backs were the men who were
making this match.
In the 17th minute of the half Mortensen came to grief.
Buchan made position for Munro, raced inside, and crossed a bouncing ball.
Mortensen chased after it as he had been chasing everything
all afternoon, missed it on the wet and treacherous turf, collided with the
post, and collapsed in a heap.
He must be tough. Everybody expected them to. call the
ambulance men. Instead, he was back again in less than a couple of minutes
after treatment by the trainer on the line.
MORTENSEN PUNCH
There was still plenty of punch in Mortensen. Less than five
minutes after he had been “out to the world,” he forced McManus to a clearance
on the line.
But it was the other goalkeeper, Jock Wallace, who was
qualifying for the headlines.
With 15 minutes left, even the Town seemed resigned to
defeat.
For the rest, it was merely a case of waiting for the end.
Result:
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
I should think there will be a “no change” decision by the
Blackpool selectors for the Brentford game after this defeat of a commonplace
town team.
I am not yet convinced that the defence can stand as firm as
they will have to do under pressure but two new men in it. Buchan (T.) and
Sibley, justified their selection.
Jock Wallace was as daring and resolute as I have ever seen
him-and at times, he needed to be.
The forward of the match for half an hour, the man who won
the game for Blackpool in 12 dramatic minutes, was Jim Blair.
Little was seen of McIntosh, for until the last 30 minutes a
pass seldom reached him. The Blackpool front line was led with tireless
enterprise by Mortensen.
Key To Blackpool Success - The Open Game
By “ Spectator”
WHAT SORT OF SEASON IS IT GOING TO BE FOR BLACKPOOL?
TAKE one of those Gallup polls in the town about the club’s
prospects, and the customers would answer in about this order:
GOOD ............ 20
per cent.
NOT SO GOOD 50 per
cent.
BAD ................
15 per cent.
DON’T KNOW 15 per
cent,
I think I would prefer to I think I would prefer to take the
line of least resistance, too, and be among those last 15 per cent.
For if ever there was a season in which anything might
happen -and probably will!-it is this first promotion-and-relegation dogfight
for seven years. It is the season of unknown quantities.
There have been such upheavals during the war years that it
is a fair bet that 50 per cent of the teams playing in the Second Division are
today the equal of half the teams among the First Division aristocracy.
Blind Man's Buff
AND for nearly as many First Division teams it will be a
case for a month or two of blind man’s buff, for one half has never met the
other half, except by chance in the Cup-ties, for seven long years.
Until they measure their strength against each other again
nobody can tell which are the giants and which the pigmies - and which the teams
of medium build.
Blackpool may be one of those last.
I see no championship team in the tangerine jerseys this
season -no team for Wembley. Yet there should be no bottom-of-the- table team,
either, at Blackpool H.Q.
It is the defence which is still suspect, as after its
in-and-out football-chiefly out-during the last three months of last season, it
must be suspect.
Half-Back Talent
THE half-backs should pass the test. In this line there is
almost an embarrassment of talent. Ten professional half-backs have been
signed. Seven of the, 10 are of First Division quality or bordering on it.
When a club has to play such a wing-half as George Farrow in
reserve there is patently no shortage of supply in this department.
Half-backs will suffice. And the forwards ought to suffice.
But will they?
A front line containing such a player as Stan Mortensen has
always a snap goal or two in it, or with such a player as Jim Blair must have a
bit of class in it, if only this gifted footballer can be persuaded not so
often to over-elaborate or to wander such a lot.
Problem Positions
IF there are problems they may be at outside-right and
centre- forward.
Whatever his critics say, Jock Dodds must be missed, if only
because he has the weight which is now ominously absent from the inside
positions-and because, however he played, there were always two or three
watchdogs after him, leaving open spaces for the other men.
I am told that Mortensen is prepared to play as a centre-
forward, even if it is not, in my opinion, his position, until George McKnight
or the new heavyweight. G. W. Dick, qualifies for it.
That may offer a solution.
11 Were Tried
But there is no such ready made answer to the position on
the right-wing, where no fewer than 11 men were played last season.
Alec Munro may come back to his pre-war game. I hope he can.
Men with war records such as his will always be given encouragement by this
department.
But if he can’t-well, that means a headache for the
directors.
They should not have such a lot of others-not if the team
plays the open game which its manager, Mr. Joe Smith, has been demanding in all
the trial games, and which he is entitled to see reproduced in the League.
No Disaster If -
THAT’S probably half the secret of it-cut out the fancy
stuff and Blackpool should at least escape the major disasters.
But as a prophet I prefer to be out of business for a week or two.
BLACKPOOL open the season with 36 professionals - 3 goalkeepers, 8 full-backs, 10 half-backs and 15 forwards.
WATCHING the second of Blackpool's public practice matches was Danny Blair, one of the smallest and one of the best full-backs ever to play in Scotland’s jersey. He had come up from the farm -his tomato farm - out on the Moss.
He has played his last game, but his name will live in
Blackpool’s history books.
The Villa had decided that his days were done when
they asked Blackpool only £1,000 for him in the summer of 1936.
It was three
years later before he took the field for the last time for Blackpool-and in the
first of those three years promotion was won.
Cheap for £1,000? It was one of football’s best bargain basement purchases.
***
Now that Alec Roxburgh has gone to Barrow, Bob Finan is Blackpool’s longest-service player.
Finan has had a cartilage operation during the summer. It will be a week or two yet before he is as fast as he still can be-and in his day he was probably the fastest centre-forward over 30 yards ever to play for Blackpool.
Has he had his last game in the First Division? I should say, “No-definitely not.”
Harry Kinsell, the West Bromwich Albion full-back, could probably have been signed for a few hundred pounds when first he came to Blackpool. Manager Joe Smith would have offered him terms-if he had been given permission.
Now the full-back is in the four-figure class, has played for England, and is a fixture at the Hawthorns, where they will not even discuss parting with him.
Behind the scenes there have been long negotiations before his transfer from Blackpool was completed during the summer. Once he promised to be Blackpool’s chief understudy for the centre- forward position, and he played in representative football in the Army out in the Far East.
Blackpool would have retained him, but he preferred to go to Morecambe, where he has family relationships. So, to Morecambe he went in the end, after the Lancashire Combination club had been persuaded that a nominal transfer fee would have to be paid.
The newsboys were on the streets with special editions every few minutes-and there was not a line of football in most of those papers. The question was: “Will he?” or “Won’t he?”
Would Hitler invade Poland? He crossed the frontier five days later.
We could not be certain, but we suspected, that day in August, 1939, that football’s days were numbered for a few years.
Nobody was particularly excited when Blackpool won 1-0.
He was only a youth and looked only a boy when he played for the first time as Blackpool’s outside-right in the 1929-30 team which won the club’s first promotion. Nine games he played in that team, and another 19 in the first of Blackpool’s First Division teams.
Soon afterwards he went wandering to other parts, never won the fame he once promised achieve, and yet was always a wing forward out of the common ruck. That’s a long time ago, but he is still a footballer of class.
BLACKPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB - READY FOR THE FRAY
Here are the men you will see in Blackpool's colours this season.
From left: Front row - G. Eastham, R. Burke.
Second row - J. Todd, A. Munro, R. Finan, S. Mortensen, J. Smith (manager), W. Lewis, C. Lawrence, A. Smith, H. Kelly.
Third row - J. Lynas (trainer), R. Suart, G. W. Dick, W. Buchan, J. Blair, H. Johnston, S. Jones, G. H. Farrow, M. P. Butler, H. O'Donnell, J. Duckworth (assistant trainer)
Back row - G. McKnight, J. Robinson, J. Wallace, E. Sibley, J. McIntosh, T. Buchan.
Fantastic initiative. Many thanks. Looking forward to reading these on a weekly basis.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely brilliant. Thanks for all your hard work and can't wait for more!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely love this, thanks for the time and effort.
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