30 August 1947 Everton 1 Blackpool 2

BLACKPOOL WIN IN GAME OF LOST TEMPERS

An orange peel shower

FISTS HELD UP

Everton 1, Blackpool 2 

By “Spectator”

An hour before the kick-off nearly all the stands were packed and there were 100 yards of queues outside Goodison Park this afternoon.

Every street within a quarter mile radius swarmed with excited thousands, and were so nearly impassable that mounted police had to clear a path for Blackpool's coach to reach the players' entrance.

NEARLY 40,000 were massed on the terraces so early, and there were prospects that the gates would have to be closed.

It was a midsummer scene for a winter game. Under the grilling sun thousands squatted in shirt sleeves, many of them wearing sun helmets fashioned out of newspapers.

Blackpool had three new forwards in the line.

Everton, led by Jock Dodds, who is still considered the best investment the Goodison Park people have made for years, reintroduced Wainwright, leaving out little Alec Stevenson, one of Blackpool’s wartime guests who scored in both games between the teams last season.

The attendance was estimated at 60,000 when the teams appeared.

Teams:

EVERTON: Sugar, Saunders, Greenhalgh, Bentham, Humphreys, Farrell, McLlhatton. Wainwright, Dodds, Fielding, Eglington.

BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Shimwell, Suart, Farrow, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews. Buchan. (W.), Mortensen, McKnight. McCormack.

Referee: Mr. R. Duerden (Lancaster).

I hear that Harry Johnston is almost certain to be fit for the Huddersfield game on Monday.

Hayward captained the Blackpool men. who had a reception which indicated that not all the motor - coaches to football matches are off the roads yet.

The winning of the toss by Blackpool left Everton to defend a goal facing the sun.

There were a couple of inconclusive raids on the Blackpool left wing in the first minute with Mortensen chasing the final pass, and chasing it each time as fast as ever in spite of the strained neck muscles which were one of the legacies of the Huddersfield match, and which for a time made it improbable that he would play today.

Hayward crossed to the aid of the outpaced Shimwell in Everton’s only raid of the first five minutes.

NEAR A GOAL

In that time Blackpool were twice near a goal. The first time Buchan headed down a high bouncing ball which Mortensen shot into the falling Sagar's arms.

The second time, a minute later, as Mortensen raced after the forward pass, a tackle halted him with the referee refusing to whistle for the penalty which Blackpool to a man arms lifted in protest demanded.

During the first 10 minutes Blackpool played football of a quality which was never revealed at Huddersfield.

Yet Everton nearly snatched the lead in the 12th minute with a sort of goal which once Jock Dodds scored for Blackpool, the big centre-forward racing fast to a ball which Shimwell had missed as it bounced off the baked turf three feet over his head, and shooting at such a pace that Wallace was in mid-air as he reached and held it.

EVERTON

They had the big chances

All this time Matthews had scarcely been in the game and yet Blackpool were raiding nearly all the time, even if the big chances were offering themselves to an Everton front line which, in approach, played superb football with the ball never in the air.

Another came in 16 minutes as again the bounce of the ball beat a Blackpool man. It was Hayward this time, and left Eglington all on his own to run forward a dozen yards before shooting wide.

Yet Blackpool were still not outplayed. One raid was built up of short crisp passes.

This was a different Blackpool - a team playing to a plan

When Matthews entered the plan it nearly produced a goal, too. the England forward squaring a low pass which a full back intercepted in the last second with Mortensen waiting to shoot it past Sagar.

Twice in rapid succession Dodds was forced to a standstill in a shooting position, the second time brilliantly by Hayward.

Slowly at this time the side was ebbing against Blackpool.

GOAL PERIL

There were several amazing Matthews manoeuvres out on the right, prefacing centres which every time imperilled Everton’s goal.

But twice between the incidents Everton's forwards missed the sort of chances which First Division forwards should not miss.

The first time Fielding raced in to meet a falling centre, tumbled over the ball as it bounced at his feet in front of a nearly open goal.

The second time Eglington darted to a loose ball, lost it Wallace was sprawling on the grass, and as it rebounded to him shot it at the goalkeeper's chest as he was still lying on the ground, with the rest of the goal open in front of him.

After half an hour it had been about 50-50. In the 31st minute it was nearly 1-0 for Blackpool as Sagar fell full length to punch out Farrow’s long, low swerving shot.

WAINWRIGHT SCORES

In the 38th minute it was 1-0 for Everton. The right wing created the position and converted it

Fast passes left the left flank of Blackpool’s scattered defence. When Mcllhatton crossed last of the passes into the centre WAINWRIGHT had merely to stab the ball wide of Wallace in a position so near a post that he could scarcely have missed. Blackpool's football had no longer the punch which Everton’s was belatedly revealing. There were still as many Blackpool raids but they were nearly ail ending nowhere in particular.

It should have been 2-0 for Everton with four minutes of the half left.

Blackpool’s defence fell into one of the oldest traps in football. Dodds positioned himself for a free kick half a dozen yards outside the area. The entire. Blackpool defence massed itself in front of him expecting one of the old thunder shots.

Instead, the centre-forward lobbed the ball to the unmarked left wing, where Eglington and Fielding, presumably as surprised as the Blackpool defence, fell over the ball and lost it with Wallace out of position.

It should have been 2-0 for Everton in the 42nd minute. Instead it was 2-1 for Blackpool in the 44th.

In two minutes Blackpool made it 1-1. and half-a-minute later in the stunned silence went in front.

TWO-MEN GOALS

Both were two-men goals. For the first McKnight went racing into an open gap which an unprepared Everton defence had left, leaped high at a bouncing ball, headed it to his right.

There waited MORTENSEN all on his own to shoot No. 1 before another man moved.

Half-a-minute later it happened again. This time Mortensen returned the compliment, found McKNIGHT in an unmarked position.

On went the Irishman and as Sagar fell at his feet, half hit a ball which skidded away from the goalkeeper's clutching fingers, hit the foot of a post, and rolled slowly into the net..

It was an amazing somersault. 

Half-time: Everton 1, Blackpool 2.

There was little to write about in the opening minutes of the second half after all the first half drama.

The 60,000 were still silent until an Everton forward made such an indignant protest about one decision against him that Mr. Duerden halted the game and gave him a lecture.

Then they made a lot of noise, all of it critical of Mr. Duerden.

But for minutes before and afterwards there was scarcely anything for them to make a noise about.

Once Matthews made one of his famous zigzags across the face of the Everton goal until he was far away in the outside-left position, where a mesmerised defence permitted him to cross a centre which no Blackpool forward could reach.

In the next minute Farrow made a great double clearance with half the Everton attack swarming on top of him.

Everton were raiding nonstop, but seldom creating shooting position.

Tempers were becoming a little frayed, too. so frayed that the referee in the end took a forward s name, and a minute later had to restore peace between two men who stood face to face with fists lifted.

It was hot off the field. It was even hotter on it for a time. In the middle of it all a shower of orange peel rained on to the turf as Fielding limped out of the battle for attention!

Afterwards, Everton were no longer in command. Blackpool s football still had a composure and an order that were too seldom revealed in the first two games.

With 20 minutes left Blackpool were still leading and the lead was not apparently too insecure with the defence steadying all the time.

Wallace made a great clearance under the bar from a corner surrendered by Suart in Everton’s pressure which was becoming intense as the end approached.

Yet Everton had an incredible escape with 15 minutes left. Far row and Buchan created perfect position for Mortensen.

The centre-forward took the chance, shot a ball which spun away from Sagar, hit the inside of the far post and bounced back into the goalkeeper’s hands.

A minute later Dodds shot at Wallace’s knees less than couple of yards out and the rest of the goal open.

Five minutes from time Wallace had to be given the trainer's attention for a couple of minutes after a collision with Dodds who, a minute later, moved to inside-right with Wainwright in the centre-forward position.

Result:

EVERTON 1, (Wainwright 38 min)

BLACKPOOL 2. (Mortensen 43 min, McKnight 44 min)

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COMMENTS ON THE GAME

It was a new Blackpool I saw today. The forwards were raiding to a plan all the time.

The defence was passed now and again on its flanks by two wing forwards, but whenever a gap opened there was always a man to close it. That man again was often Hayward.

Kelly again worked his First Division passport in a half-back line which in the second half was the best division in the team.

I have the impression that McCormack, in common with a few young Scots strange to English football, has not yet accustomed himself to the pace of the game on this side of the border.

Yet this line, immeasurably strengthened by McKnight and Buchan, deserves another game.

Mortensen was again a great raider and not as often on his own as he has been.

Matthews seemed able to outwit Everton’s defence whenever he felt inclined.

Two goals in a minute and a half won the match but 90 minutes of good football with class all over it at times entitled Blackpool to the points.

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THAT HUDDERSFIELD TOWN GAME

Faults stood out a mile

By “Spectator”

I NOTICED no particular depression over Blackpool's H.Q. when I called the day after the Huddersfield defeat.

Manager Joe Smith is one of those men who can face facts.

The fact he had to face a couple of days ago was that his team had played a game at Huddersfield which had left several famous critics in the Press box - critics who only a week earlier had been telling their million or two readers that Blackpool had a wonder team - in a state of almost abject incredulity.

“If I hadn’t seen it I’d have said I’d been dreaming it" one of them lamented.

That was. a pardonable exaggeration. Every team has its nightmare match. They are common early in a season.

Yet the Blackpool manager was not inclined to dismiss it as one of those little accidents which are beyond rational explanation.

The causes of Blackpool’s defeat stood out a mile. The same fault stood out in the Chelsea match, but were conveniently, obscured by a meek acceptance of the oldest fallacy in football, “Never change a winning team.”

Something wrong

SO Mr. Smith, without going into mourning about it, said, “There's something wrong - and something must be done about it.” 

The result was the omission of three forwards from the match at Everton this afternoon and the introduction of one man, Willie Buchan, who has the football cunning in him which has been noticeably absent from the line in its inside positions in the first two games.

There has been no forward against either Chelsea or Huddersfield holding the ball, luring out of position a half-back or full-back, releasing the pass into the open space which this elementary but essential move has created.

All that such a forward can mean to a team Peter Doherty revealed the other evening.

Given his chance

SO Buchan is in, given the chance to which he is entitled, and there is an entirely new left wing and, if the selection of this afternoon’s team had been influenced by public demand, Andy McCall would have been one of those new left wingmen too.

The temptation to field him must have been great after the games he as been playing in practice and in the Central League.

But Manager Smith takes the view - and I agree with him that to introduce so soon into the First Division a young forward who outside the Services has played only in Scottish junior football would be a gamble - unless future events compel it-unfair to the player and to his club.

They can come into the big game too soon. The forward whom the barrackers are always after at Blackpool - Jim McIntosh - might have been twice the player he is today if in his first term at Blackpool he had not been played until he was nearly punch-drunk.

For stardom

THAT must not happen to McCall, who, unless I am wrong, may be destined for stardom.

There you are, then - two points from two games - and Blackpool still to play as Blackpool were expected to play.

Nothing to begin weeping and wailing about. But a few of the signs and portents are ominous. The Everton match may answer a few of the unexpected questions.

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Jottings from all parts 

BY "SPECTATOR" 30 August 1947

The Stanleys agree

BIG talking-point in Blackpool football this week has been “The Evening Gazette” editorial on
“The Two Stanleys”

Two men never made a team was the article's subject. Most agree with it.

Two who are in complete approval of it are - “The Two Stanleys” - Mortensen and Matthews.

“That needed writing” they said. Neither pretends to be a miracle man, or wants to be regarded as one.

***

TOM GARDNER, the platinum blonde footballer, one of the game’s first gentlemen, who played in Blackpool’s Cup - winning team of 1943, has left Wrexham and is playing this season for Wellington Town.

The Town have signed a man who is in the autumn of his days as a player, but one who will give them 100 per cent, as long as he can stand up.

***

STANLEY MORTENSEN has soon laid the one-goal-only-a-match bogey this season.

He had to play until February 15 last season - the Preston match at Blackpool - before he scored more than one goal in a game.

Now he has done it in the first match of 1947-48.

***

FRANK HILL, captain of Blackpools 1937 promotion team, has no intention of finding himself without a goalkeeper at Crewe this season.

Manager of the Alexandra - he is in bis third season there and his directors think he is one of the best in the Third Division - he has signed no fewer than 11 men for the last line of defence, seven of them amateurs.

It is the only club in the land with a complete eleven of goalkeepers.

***

When Blackpool’s Reserves played at Leeds-road last weekend one or two of them were certain that one of the goals on the ground was too small.

JOCK WALLACE stood in it before the match on Wednesday, lifted an arm, and ex-pressed the opinion that the bar was not less than six inches too near the ground.

It was too late to do anything about it, and, too small as it may be, it was not so small that the Huddersfield centre-forward could not shoot two goals into it in the first 15 minutes. But somebody ought to measure it all the same.

***

ENGLANDS new outside-left may be Vic Metcalfe, the Huddersfield Town raider.

One of the England selectors watched him playing against Blackpool this week at Leeds- road, and must have been impressed.

He is fast - to the ball and with it - cuts out the frills, is 100 per cent, effective. Not a classic footballer - but he would always be in my team.

Of course, he’s fortunate - he has a great partner, a certain never-grow-old Irishman called Peter Doherty.

 ***

EVERYBODY at Huddersfield was saying that if Willie Buchan, who watched the game from the line as 12th man, had been playing for Blackpool, it would at least have been 2-1.

They said he would have converted the penalty. Probably he would.

Yet he beat Bob Hesford, the ex-Grammar School boy, with his going-the-wrong-way shot from the “spot” at season. Would Bob have fallen for it again?

Such a great goalkeeper might not have done. When he punched George Farrow’s shot wide of a post half the Huddersfield team mobbed him in a jubilant swarm.

 ***

HARRY JOHNSTON was on Blackpool’s casualty list only once last season. That was as late in the season, too, as the last away match at Middlesbrough. And that was not a field casualty, either, but a boil on the leg, a little affliction which partly accounted for his indifferent game for England at Wembley although he was too modest to make excuses about it.

Now he’s been under treatment after one game.

When he pulled a thigh muscle in the Chelsea game it was the first time he had been put out of action since he came home from the Middle East 18 months ago.

***

GEOFF BARKER, Blackpool wartime guest, had a less tormenting time against Stanley Matthews at Huddersfield than the majority of fullbacks will have to endure.

Now and again he was left standing or going the wrong way - what full-back hasn’t been in these particular circumstances? - but he played the master with a greater confidence than most people expected.

It will be interesting to watch what happens when they meet on Monday.

 ***

AMONG those present at Huddersfield: Mrs. Stanley Mortensen, Mrs. Harry Johnston, and Mrs. Peter Doherty.

The last-named enjoyed it, loyal as she is to Blackpool - but, after all, her first loyalty must be to her husband’s club. The other two? I was too polite to ask them - but I know what the answer would have been.

  ***

Liverpool likes its football

BLACKPOOL travelled today to a city deeply bitten by the football bug.

I was at Goodison Park on Wednesday to see Everton beat Manchester City 1-0 in an evening game.

Kick-off was at 6-30. Two hours before, the centre of the city became unusually quiet. Where were the people? Fifty-three thousand of them had gone home to early tea or were snatching a meal in overcrowded snack bars and railway refreshment rooms

Then, an hour before the kick-off, the tension broke. Seemingly endless streams of fans queued for seemingly endless streams of buses and trams. I counted 39 fully-loaded trams at one terminus.

THOUSANDS WALK

Thousands more walked, others hitch-hiked on cars, lorries, wagons.

Outside the ground mounted and foot police marshalled the crowd. There was no disorder; everyone got in - and apparently everyone liked Jock Dodds, Blackpool’s former centre forward. They cheered his every move.

Good sports, these Evertonians.

 ***

No figure has been disclosed by Blackpool or Sheffield United, but I hear from a Sheffield source that the transfer fee paid by Blackpool for Edmund Shimwell was £7,000.

They think at Blackpool that it may be one of the bargains of the year.

This was as nearly a model transfer as such a transaction can be in these ballyhoo days.

There were no preliminary headlines - no closed-door conferences - no undignified bartering. It was all settled in less than a couple of hours.

The player was left to choose between Barnsley and Blackpool He chose Blackpool because he preferred to play in the First Division.

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Our keen and hard working chairman, Mr. H. Markland, entertained the committee to dinner last week.

He intimated that the season would give plenty of opportunity for hard work and enthusiasm by the Supporters’ committee and that it was hoped to hold many social events.

Information hut

THE information hut at the south-west corner of the ground, near the office, is open at every match and members or intending members are invited to call for any news they require.

Broadcasting system

THE broadcasting system which is now being installed should be in use in the course of two or three weeks. 

The temporary "mike" and speaker installed for the control of the crowd at the south end of the ground last week was most effective and helpful. 

Programme

Don't forget to send your programme comments, views, or criticisms to "Supporter." c/o The Ground, Bloomfield Road.

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