Blackpool knock-out ’Spurs in extra time
MORTENSEN GOALS
Blackpool 3, Tottenham Hotspur 1
BLACKPOOL, BY BEATING SPURS IN EXTRA TIME THIS AFTERNOON, WILL MEET MANCHESTER UNITED, WHO KNOCKED OUT DERBY COUNTY, IN THE F.A. CUP FINAL AT WEMBLEY ON SATURDAY, APRIL 24.
AT 10 o’clock this morning: Villa Park was as quiet as Stanley Park at midnight. With 30 minutes to go to zero hour in the Blackpool v. ’Spurs F.A. Cup semi-final it was a bedlam.
Bells by the hundred were ringing, rattles by the thousand clattering. Mascots of both teams were parading on the cinder track with banners and flags.
The cockerels of the ’Spurs were exhibited in a nonstop procession past the packed terraces and in front of the stands.
Out in the centre the band of the Royal Marines m the glory of parade dress marched and played to the staccato music of the bugles, bells and rattles.
The attendance was 70,687, and the receipts £18,817.7s, a record for the ground.
The ground was opened two and a quarter hours before the kick-off.
BLACKPOOL: Robinson, Shimwell, Suart, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, Mortensen, McIntosh, Dick, Rickett.
'SPURS: Ditchburn: Tickridge, Buckingham, Ludford, Nicholson, Burgess, Cox, Bennett, Duquemin, Baily. Medley.
Referee: Mr. A. E. Ellis (West Riding).
A platoon of news reel cameras met the teams. The reception of the ’Spurs seemed to engulf the Blackpool cheers.
Harry Johnston won the toss from Ronnie Burgess. They were off on time with Blackpool moving faster to the ball than the ’Spurs in the first minute.
A raging excitement cut the first raids to ribbons before they were a dozen yards over the halfway line.
Bennett, the forward who scored the goal which put ’Spurs in the last four, nearly forced a path when the ball cannoned back to him but a massed defence repulsed him.
In the next minute, as Hayward lobbed a free kick high into a packed Tottenham goalmouth McIntosh headed the flying ball backwards and wide of a post.
HELPED DEFENCE
Backwards and forwards the game surged. Once, Matthews raced back to the aid of his defence with Tottenham’s left wing creating a shooting position before Hayward passed back 30 yards to Robinson with Duquemin, the scoring Channel Islander, thundering after the centre-half.
Boos and cheers filled the air as in the fifth minute Matthews went to earth in a clash with Ludford and came out with his shorts so torn that trainer Johnny Lynas had to he called from the line with a new pair for him.
Afterwards, for minutes, it was a Blackpool front line versus a fast tackling, resolute Tottenham defence, but no semblance of a chance for a shooting forward presented itself.
TYPICAL CUPTIE.
It was what they call typical cuptie football which is to say that there was a lot of pace, a tearaway pace, but not a lot else.
In the 12th minute came the first big incident. Blackpool advanced on the right. A fullback half sliced, half-hit a clearance.
Mortensen was on it, lost the bouncing ball, retrieved it. cut in, shot a ball which hit a post, cannoned out to McIntosh. On to it the leader swooped, shot wide.
There might have been a goal here, the early goal which wins cup ties.
A minute later and away darted Medley on Tottenham's left wing, crossed a ball which bounced out off Hayward for the first corner of the match.
FLYING LEAP
Ditchburn holds first
Blackpool corner
Blackpool’s retaliation was a corner in the next minute on the right, a corner which the giant Ditchburn held in a Frank Swift flying leap at the ball.
There was now greater order in the football everywhere. The forwards were darting fast into the open spaces.
Not many passes had yet reached Matthews. On him Buckingham and Burgess were packing close all the time.
There had been 19 throw-ins in the first 20 minutes. That shows how the football was still being cut up.
Minutes passed without a definite episode in a nonstop routine of long distance clearances by both lines of full-backs.
NEW BALL
In the end, in the 23rd minute, the ball was taken to the referee by a ’Spurs wing half, examined, and rejected.
Out came another one but with that, too, neither front line could make for a time a lot of progress. That “The Duke” (Duquemin) is fast admits of no question. Once he gave Bennett a backward pass, called for the return, took it, ran 50 yards with it, shot wide under Suart’s despairing tackle.
A similar move enabled Baily to win ’Spurs’ second corner a minute later.
Another 30 seconds and again it might have been 1-0 for Blackpool. This time a chance offered itself unexpectedly to McIntosh, who took a bouncing ball inside shooting distance, was a half second too long in disciplining it, and in the end, shot high and wide.
MORE DIRECT
The ’Spurs were faster and more direct in attack in the first half hour but there was still little in it.
The two big chances of those 30 minutes had come to Blackpool and been rejected.
Too often the ball was being lost out on the Blackpool left wing.
In the 32nd minute the raiding ’Spurs were as near to the lead as Blackpool had been.
A shock raid battered a path in Blackpool’s defence. Out came the ball loose, Bennett was in position for it, shot from half-a-dozen yards out a ball which hit Suart, cannoned off him for a corner as Tottenham’s thousands were shouting “Goal” to soon.
That made it 3-1 in corners for the Second Division team who, at this time, were raiding almost without interruption until, in an attack on the right, Dick wandered out to his wrong wing and won a corner.
GREAT SAVES
That corner, too, would have produced a goal if Ditchburn had not been the great goalkeeper he is.
Mortensen shot low. Down to the ball Ditchburn fell in a sideways dive, reached it, punched it off the line.
On it Dick pounced, shot again. Down to his right the giant goalkeeper cast himself again, held this shot, too, on the line.
In spite of Tottenham’s pressure -and there had been plenty of it in this half - it was their goal which had been more often near downfall.
With eight minutes of the half left, Baily kicked completely over the ball with an open space in front of him and 15 yards out.
Then Robinson beat out superbly a centre crossed high from Medley out on the left wing. The Buckingham - Burgess partnership was keeping Matthews quieter than I have seen him for weeks.
Hayward made a great clearance at the feet of Cox before Ditchburn hurled himself in front of McIntosh with the Blackpool leader on the heels of the retreating Nicholson.
DARING DIVE
Duquemin was the Mortensen of Tottenham’s attack, released another grand pass to Cox, was in position to take the low centre, compelled Robinson to make a daring dive at his feet with a goal near again.
Blackpool had missed the big chances. The ’Spurs had been raiding for 25 of the 45 minutes. That was the first half in two sentences.
Half - time
Blackpool 0, Spurs 0.
Second Half
Twice in rapid succession Ditchburn fielded centres from Matthews and Rickett as the half opened with a couple of Blackpool raids which continued with other centres raking Tottenham’s goal.
To one after another the man in Tottenham’s goal leaped high, caught the flying ball and cleared.
They say Ditchburn is the best goalkeeper in the world today. He must be near it.
In the fourth minute of the half, with Blackpool’s pressure continuing, Bennett fell to earth in a tackle, required attention, went over the line but was back two minutes later as McIntosh suddenly appeared as an outside-right, outpaced Nicholson, who had dogged him out to the wing, and flashed a centre on to the roof of the net.
BLACKPOOL PRESS
It was nearly all Blackpool in the early minutes of the half. One of Johnston’s long distance throws forced Blackpool’s third corner of the match a minute before Mortensen crumpled up as an attack was being repulsed, was out to the world for nearly a minute.
Still Blackpool raided. Another corner, making it 4-4 for the match, came as Matthews inclined at this time to cross the ball as soon as it reached him, crossed it again, and hit the vigilant Buckingham with it.
Ten minutes of the half had gone, and Tottenham’s forwards had not once been within 40 yards of the Blackpool goal.
Hayward halted Tottenham’s first full-line advance with complete confidence, was given a complimentary pat on the back for it by his captain.
Dick and Matthews in a close passing partnership won Blackpool’s fifth corner of the half with only 12 minutes gone and a sixth followed it.
Tottenham’s line had faded out at this time.
Raid after raid hammered on their goal but there was still no big test for Ditchburn in a goal protected by a massed defence showing no mercy in the tackle.
All the time Johnston was sending up the passes as if on an assembly line.
NEAR DOWNFALL
Came another corner for Blackpool, and from it Tottenham’s goal was twice in 10 seconds near downfall.
The first time Ludford hurled himself in the path of Matthews as the England forward was preparing to shoot over the line from a position where he could scarcely have missed.
The second time Mortensen back-heeled a loose ball which Ditchburn, ever alert, scooped off the line when a lesser goalkeeper might have been deceived by the speed of the move.
That was in the 19th minute of the half.
THE LEAD
In the 20th, after being utterly outplayed for the first time in the match, the ’Spurs snatched the lead. It was one of those goals which so often decide these big matches.
Ludford took a free kick 40 yards out on the right wing. Tottenham’s forwards and the Blackpool defence massed to repel it. Over flew the ball.
I had the impression that Robinson half expected Suart to clear it, but still moved out to it.
In a silence which broke in the next split second into a tornado of cheers from Tottenham’s fans, the ball fell.
Robinson clutched at it, held it for a fraction of a second, then out of his arms the ball spun. To it DUQUEMIN darted, shot high into the gaping net.
A couple of mascots racing across the field joined the Tottenham players’ jubilation.
Within a couple of minutes, and with Tottenham launching an all out raid, Robinson redeemed himself with a brilliant punched clearance with five Tottenham forwards on him like a pack of wolves.
NEAR THING
Another two minutes and it was nearly 1-1. Matthews took a pass out on the left, apparently tiring of ever finding a gap on the right, crossed a ball which Mortensen hooked so nearly over the bar that it nearly scraped the whitewash off it.
Fifteen minutes left and the gates of Wembley were closing to Blackpool, who, however, were still fighting, still battling, every inch of the course.
The Matthews-Mortensen wing forced another corner with 14 minutes to go. Within a minute the roaming Dick got another.
Yet when the ’Spurs escaped again another goal was near, a comer being followed by a shot by Baily which nearly tore a hole in the side net.
Backwards and forwards it surged, twice Bennett darted away on his famous solo raid, raced 40 yards, shot wide at the end of each raid.
THE EQUALISER
Four minutes were left, came the goal which sent Villa Park into delirium. It was a goal which only half a dozen men in football could have scored and Blackpool possesses one of them.
MORTENSEN was the man I could hear him call for the pass from his partner 40 yards out.
Matthews gave it to him. On went the inside-right, on and on, almost brushing two men from his path, reached the penalty area, cut inside it, shot as a third man fell on him a ball which swerved away out of even the falling Ditchburn’s despairing dive, hit the far wall of the net.
Never have I seen a man mobbed as Mortensen was mobbed after this amazing one-man exploit.
Spurs won a corner in the last minute.
BLACKPOOL 1, ’SPURS 1.
(After 90 minutes. Extra time being played).
EXTRA TIME
The referee gave them less than two minutes for a rest. Ditchburn made an amazing save when Johnston shot wide of him from 30 yards, punched a long shot by Mortensen over the bar.
From the corner Rickett crossed a perfect centre which MORTENSEN headed out of Ditchurn’s reach to make it 2-1.
That was in the third minute of extra time.
’Spurs won a comer in furious counter attacks. Mortensen took a long forward pass from Matthews into a gaping defence, shot inches over the bar.
HIS THIRD
A minute of the first half of extra time was left.
Rickett escaped on the left, outpaced his man, crossed a ball which MORTENSEN headed wide of the falling Ditchburn to complete the greatest “hat-trick” in Blackpool football records.
Half-time extra time:
Blackpool 3, ’Spurs 1.
(Second Half) Extra time -
’Spurs were game to last but still outplayed.
Tickridge headed off the line a scoring shot by McIntosh with the Tottenham defence falling to bits.
Shimwell drove free-kick into packed Tottenham defence yard outside penalty area. Ditchbum made amazing dive to beat out great shot by Matthews.
Mortensen and Johnston carried shoulder high off field by fanatically delighted supporters.
Blackpool team having dinner at Newcastle-under-Lyme tonight, and expected to reach Blackpool about 11 p.m.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 3 (Mortensen 86, 93 and 104 mins)
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 (Duquemin 65 min)
First of Mortensen's three amazing goals tumbled game upside down. Blackpool forwards magnificent in extra-time, swarmed on Tottenham defence and shattered it.
Stars of match before front-line won were Harry Johnston and Eric Hayward.
SOMEBODY ONCE CALLED JIMMY WILDE “THE GHOST WITH A HAMMER IN HIS HAND.”
Stanley Mortensen often looks so deceptively pale and frail on a football field that I am calling him today, after his historic “hat-trick” against the ’Spurs in this dramatic Cup semi-final, “the ghost with a hammer in his foot,”.
There is probably not another footballer of his comparatively few inches and pounds who would have essayed the explosive full-tilt burst through the ’Spurs’ defence which ended in a goal four minutes from full time and snatched a Wembley passport from almost certain defeat.
Mortensen’s two other goals for the first “hat-trick” he has ever scored in first-class football for Blackpool merely confirmed that at his peak, his fastest, his most aggressive, there is no greater saboteur of opposing defences in Britain today.
They will always call this "Mortensen’s match.”
“THE OTHER LADS ”
Yet when I went into the Blackpool dressing-room after the game and Ted Ditchburn. the ’Spurs’ great goalkeeper - and he is “great,” the destined successor to Frank Swift - walked in, and shook the day’s wonder hero by the hand and said Stan, you were grand,” Mortensen’s answer was, “Well, Ted, that’s nice of you, but the other lads were in it, too.”
Which, I grant, is a fact. This was no one-man show.
There were two half-backs in Blackpool’s tangerine. Hayward and Johnston, who stamped their personalities in capital letters on the game.
Kelly, also, was absolutely first-class.
HAYWARD’S PART
The centre-half pitted himself against a centre-forward, the Channel Islander, Len Duquemin, who is one of the best in the game today, tall, direct, a specialist in the short brisk pass to his inside men. and finished 50-50, which was no mean feat.
Right half and captain, Johnston, was here, there and everywhere, and yet never out of position, serving up the passes all the afternoon until in the end not only the Blackpool wing in front of him - but the other - the darting, daring little Rickett and the industrious heavyweight, Dick - nearly dominated the critical extra time.
The ’Spurs, a fine, no-nonsense-about-’em team for 86 minutes, cracked as soon as the first of the Mortensen thunderbolts had hit them.
’SPURS ERROR
Watch on Matthews left attack marooned
But they lost this game, chiefly, I think, because in concentrating the Buckingham-Burgess partnership on Matthews, who can seldom have been in such remorseless shackles for all an afternoon, they too often left their forwards marooned.
That lost the ’Spurs their first-half grip of the match. A half-second’s confusion in the Blackpool goalmouth - one of those accidents which seem inseparable from these big games - cost Blackpool their first goal in this Cup series and gave the London team a lead.
NOT THE LEAST -
But once that lead had ’gone up in smoke it was all over - and the two men who had made a present of it to the ’Spurs, Robinson, an efficient, fearless goalkeeper, and Suart, a fullback of greater resource than his critics allow - were not the least of the 11 men who achieved the triumph.
A suitable tribute
HERE’S something Stanley Mortensen didn't know about the Cup semi-final.
When all seemed lost a Blackpool tailor, Mr. Joe Barlow, of Whitegate-drive, who was among the ’Pool supporters at Villa Park, declared, “If Morty’ gets a goal I’ll make him a new suit.”
“Morty” did. and Mr. Barlow then announced, “He’ll get another goal and I’ll add a sports jacket and pair of flannels to the suit.”
“ Morty,” of course, did it again and again, and now Mr Barlow is prepared co do what ’Spurs couldn't do - take the measure of Stan.
ON THE AIR
And then the goals -
YOU could hear the cheers at Villa Park as the B.B.C. commentator spoke of an excited crowd of 75,000.
“There’s been very little good football, but plenty of excitement, and Mortensen hit a post,” he said.
“Buckingham is keeping an eye on Matthews,” added Ken Wolstenholme.
Then came a thrill,
Matthews centred to McIntosh. “Yes,” said Wolstenholme, “McIntosh is going to score - yes, no, Ditchburn has thrown himself at his feet and cleared.”
Other comments were:
“Perfect ground . . . perfect day.
“Both teams seem unable to get over their nerves.
“Rickett got in a grand shot.”
Then the goal - “Blackpool’s defence has given away a goal - yes, Duquemin scored it, after 65 minutes.”
And finally, biggest thrill of all, that four - minutes - from - time effort by Mortensen.
Team spirit put Blackpool in semi-final
By “Spectator”
THERE are several reasons for the first appearance this afternoon in football history of a Blackpool team in a Cup semi-final.
One is the England right wing triangle, another is a defence which is the only one in the country which did not lose a goal in the Cup en route to the last four.
There are other reasons for this major achievement. They have been written about until the public must be tired of reading of them.
Yet the chief reason has not been the subject of a solitary paragraph - and it explains before everything else a triumph which not even a defeat at Villa Park today could minimise.
The French have a word for it. They call it esprit de corps, which sounds all high-class and refined but can be translated as team work.
They have it to the nth degree at Blackpool these days.
No rumours now
WHETHER it has been studiously it has been cultivated, or whether it has merely happened - and I incline to the former view - is immaterial. That it is there, accounting for nearly all that has occurred in recent times, is indisputable.
It is only a few weeks ago that in nearly every mail I had letters from correspondents who had apparently taken a high-school course in secret espionage, so confidential and authoritative were their revelations about backstairs intrigues in the Blackpool boardroom and dissensions in the Blackpool team.
Everybody, according to their reports, was at everybody else’s throat, and chaos and dissolution were imminent.
Now, for a time, all the alarmists and rumourmongers have gone into retirement.
Contentment
THERE was little, or nothing, as I wrote at the time, in their cheap and often malicious allegations.
One could sense - but only sense - a minor disturbance in the atmosphere after the death of Col. William Parkinson, J.P., and the end of one regime and the beginning of another. That, I suppose, was inevitable.
But within a few weeks of Mr. Harry Evans assuming office - and I know that the new chairman will be embarrassed by this reference to himself - there has been noticeable at Bloomfield- road a contentment and tranquillity not always too apparent at times in the past.
It has affected the team, too.
Happiest team
I HAVE travelled thousands of miles with Blackpool teams during the last 20 years, have been in close contact with them behind the scenes, and today I can go on record with the considered opinion that this present team is probably the happiest Blackpool have ever fielded.
One or two cases can be quoted to substantiate this view.
As long as a season and a half ago Stanley Mortensen, without a murmur of complaint, consented to become a centre-forward at a time when his appearance anywhere in a forward line, except at inside-right, might have jeopardised his prospects in England’s team.
Captain’s part
HARRY JOHNSTON, the captain, whose greatest ambition except the winning of a Cup medal! - is to play for his country again, was no less unselfish as recently as last Christmas when he was asked to transfer from his own position of left half to right half, a transfer which England’s selectors would obviously not have approved if they had been consulted.
When they asked him the Blackpool captain said, “I'll play anywhere for this team.”
A week or two ago, Alec Munro, after playing in three successive Cupties and never being out of the first team for months, was made 12th man and the new forward from Sheffield United, Walter Rickett, played in his position.
What were his reactions?
"Good luck to him,” he said.
"He’s a grand player - I know - I’ve played against him.
One of the lads
THAT is the community of interest which has been created at Blackpool these days.
You hear no recriminations after a defeat, no vain glorious trumpeting after a victory, no patronising of the rest of the team by the stars in it.
Those folk - and there are still few - who think, as one illustration, that Stanley Matthews considers himself too nearly a demi-god to hold converse with ordinary mortals, have no knowledge whatever of a man whose fame is equalled only by his modesty, who would tell you, if you asked him, that he’s “just one of the lads” - and proud to be.
This is the sort of team that put Blackpool into the Cup semi-finals. No other sort of team could have done it.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 13 March 1948
SIGNATURE TUNE
CHAMPION autograph - hunters of England are at Portsmouth. There are not so many of them as in a few other cities and towns, hut every one is a specialist, a master of all the strategems of the craft.
The Blackpool team was hounded up and down the streets from the time it reached Southsea last weekend.
When the match was over and the players were waiting for the London train at Portsmouth Town station they were still given no peace. The “Sign, gentlemen, please" brigade bought platform tickets and were still brandishing pencils and notebooks as the train steamed out
The club purposely chose a quiet residential hotel in Southsea as the team's quarters, but the bush telegraph must have been operating, for half a dozen of the clan were waiting outside the hotel when the team booked in.
***
TOM GARRETT, the young reserve full-back, qualified for the £1 bonus for a draw with Blackpool at Portsmouth last weekend.
He travelled with the team as 12th man.
I hear that Garrett is one of the most versatile footballers in the game. He is a competent goalkeeper, can play, and if he were asked, would play in any position on the field.
Blackpool. I think, will be content for him to remain a fullback. for the day is coming - so
I am told by people whose judgment I respect - when he will be one of the best in the land.
FLASHBACK to last week's drama festival at Blackpool:
One of the plays was produced by the wife of Eric Hayward, the Blackpool centre-half, and in the cast was the young daughter of Louis Cardwell, the man who played in the centre-half position at Blackpool for years before the war.
ON, Stanley, on . . . Stanley Mortensen, the only player in the country to score in every round of the Cup up to the semi-finals, has played in nine games since the beginning of 1948, including four Cupties, and missed scoring only in two of them.
His total for those 10 games is 11 goals. He scored his 14th First Division goal of the season at Portsmouth last weekend and increased his total for all games, including three internationals to 25.
He finished last season in League and Cup for Blackpool with 29.
IVOR POWELL, the Queen’s Park Rangers wing-half, who was flown back from the replayed Cuptie weekend to the sick bed of his wife, was not the only man who spent a few sleepless hours last weekend.
Back in Blackpool Tommy Browell, the ex - Manchester City and Blackpool forward, was constantly on the telephone asking about the progress of Mrs. Powell, who is his daughter and who married Ivor in Blackpool during the days when he was playing as one of Blackpool’s guest stars during the war.
There was often a time during those war years when Tommy was driving a Lytham St. Annes Corporation bus - as he is still driving one - and when one of his two daughters was the conductress on the bus.
***
If Blackpool have defeated the 'Spurs today and Derby County dismissed Manchester United, the two Cup finalists will be meeting twice at Easter inside four days - at Blackpool on Good Friday and at Derby on Easter Monday.
And if Manchester United have won, the curious and yet not unprecedented position will be created of the two teams who should have met in a League match at Blackpool on Final Day meeting instead at Wembley - with another possible meeting in a postponed League match four days later.
And if Blackpool have lost to the ’Spurs - well, all this will be of no particular interest to you at all.
***
THE Blackpool trainer, Mr. A Johnny Lynas, was on and off the field several times during the Portsmouth match at Fratton Park a week ago.
Yet he never went out to the first man to be hurt, for that man never said a word about it, but played from the third minute of the match with a thigh torn by the studs of one of the Portsmouth player's boots.
George Dick can certainly take it - he probably learned how to do that in the boxing ring. “I just carried on,” he said after the match. He carried on to such purpose that he played, in my opinion, his best game for weeks.
Meteoric has been Dick’s career in football. Unknown, an applicant for a trial in the summer of 1947, he is playing today a year and a half later in a Cup semifinal.
Men have been in football for a generation and never been in one of the last four in the Cup. Until today Stanley Matthews was one of them.
***
LEONARD DUQUEMIN - "The Duke” - menace No. 1 to the Blackpool defence in this afternoon’s Cup semi-final in Birmingham, will seldom talk about his years in his native Channel Islands during the German occupation.
There were times when he feared that he would never play football again, when he lost two stones and was in a state so closely bordering on malnutrition that he could never have lasted an hour and a half in a fast game. Now it’s all a nightmare which he wants only to forget.
He might not have been given his chance with the ’Spurs - a chance he has taken with both feet - if Manager Joe Hulme had not failed on a mission to Blackpool last season.
The ’Spurs’ manager came to town for George McKnight, and when Blackpool said “No” went back and put “The Duke” in the centre of his forward line. He has never regretted the experiment.
IN town this week - and not seeking a Cup semi-final ticket but a job, Jack O’Donnell, the full-back who between the wars often had his name in block capitals in Blackpool football news.
Jack is just out of the Army after being in khaki for six years.
Stanleys - and Ted
BLACKPOOL’S “Two Stanleys" and Ted Ditchbum, the ’Spurs giant goalkeeper, will soon have an intimate acquaintance with each other.
The two Blackpool forwards will have been in a line intent on shooting the ball past Ted this afternoon, and next Wednesday at Newcastle will be in a team whose goal will be defended by Ditchburn in the inter-League match.
Blackpool goals last time shook Anfield
THE last time a Blackpool team played at Anfield, where another will be playing next weekend if the Cup semi-final has been settled this afternoon. Liverpool were chasing the championship which ultimately, a few weeks later, was won.
Next week Blackpool will meet a team not yet out of the relegation belt, as desperate for points as they were last Easter, but for a different reason.
Blackpool have a 100 per cent, record against Liverpool since the war - a double last season and a 2-0 win at Blackpool last November.
Last season’s game at Anfield was the most dramatic of Blackpool’s year. Twenty minutes from time Liverpool were leading 2-0, and it seemed to be a case merely of counting the goals.
It was - but they were Blackpool goals. In those last 20 minutes Stanley Mortensen twice and Willie Buchan once had the ball in the Liverpool net.
Five only of the men in that Blackpool team were playing in the Cup semi-final today - Shimwell, Hayward, Johnston, Mortensen and Dick - and only two. Eddie Shimwell and Eric Hayward, were in the positions where they appeared at Anfield.
Evening Gazette 15 March 1948
Blackpool’s new theme song
“Please could you let me have a Cup Final ticket”
SITTING behind a mountainous mail in his office at Blackpool F.C.’s ground today was Manager Joe Smith.
Dozens of the letters contained compliments on his team’s triumph in the semi-final at Villa Park. Ninety per cent, asked, “Could you let me have a Cup Final ticket?”
That has already become Blackpool’s new theme tune. It will continue and will increase in volume now every day for the next, six weeks until Wembley Day on April 24.
“I’ll have to return the lot, said Mr. Smith. “The club’s orders are that no applications can be considered until after Easter.”
LETTERS RETURNED
The office staff confirmed this information, were also returning letters by the dozens, and outside the closed doors had exhibited a notice: “No applications for Cup Final tickets can be considered. An announcement will be made later in the Press.'
I am told that the two clubs in the Final will this year be allotted, not the customary 25.000 each out of the gross 100.000, but between 13,000 and 14.000 only each.
REDUCED NUMBER
This reduction was sanctioned by the F.A. Council, with the consent of the League, earlier in the season to meet the demands of the 88 League clubs, the county associations, and other affiliated units.
“We have had no intimation yet of the actual number of tickets,” I was told at Bloomfield-road this afternoon. “If it is only 13,000 or 14,000 the demand will definitely exceed the supply.
“Blackpool and Fylde applicants will be given priority.”
The club sold over 20,000 tickets for the semi-final last weekend.
EASTER GAMES
Stands and paddocks to be reserved
Two major fixtures on the club’s lists are the Derby County and Arsenal games on Good Friday and the following day.
Stands and paddocks are to be reserved for these two matches. There has already been an enormous number of ticket applications by post, and allotments are being made today. The balance of the tickets will be on sale to the public at the ticket kiosk at the east end of the ground from 10 a.m. tomorrow.
Increased prices for these two games are: Centre stand 7s. 6d., wing stands 5s. 6d., south stand 4s. 6d., centre stand paddock 4s. 6d., wing and south paddocks 3s.
Too fast for the camera
THE newsreels of the Blackpool v. ’Spurs Cup semi-final, to be seen at the cinemas tonight, show Mortensen’s three goals quite clearly, although the speed at which the first one was achieved has baffled the camera and should really be given in slow motion to appreciate the lightning thrust.
Also there is a curiously subdued atmosphere about the scene by comparison with the frantic noise which split the Birmingham heavens.
***
His tangerine
AN ardent Blackpool supporter was Wing Commander J. R. Robinson, M.P., who accepted the invitation of the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur to travel with them from London in their special coach.
But as he wore a tangerine pullover, and at frequent intervals pulled out from his pocket a tangerine and gazed at it lovingly, he was regarded as something of a cuckoo in the nest.
Wembley "Topper” to boost town
There was a trilby hat disguised as a “topper” in Blackpool F.C.’s colours of tangerine and white on the desk of chairman Ald. Jacob Parkinson J.P. when the Corporation Publicity Committee met today.
Across the colours in black were the words: Blackpool, a holiday winner.
THE Director of Attractions and Publicity (Mr. W. Foster) suggested that Blackpool should “cash in” on the Wembley game by distributing such a dummy-topper amongst the cup final crowds and so secure a useful form of holiday publicity in London.
The committee reached no decision, decided to hold a special meeting on Friday, to discuss the details.
Ald. Parkinson told an “Evening Gazette” reporter that the Publicity Committee had decided to ask the Mayor (Coun. J. R Furness, J.P.) to make a reference at the next Council meeting to the fact that for the first time in history a Blackpool football team would be playing at Wembley on April 24th.
MANY coaches and a special train left Blackpool today for Birmingham carrying members of the Supporters’ Club to the Cup semi-final. I trust they have had a grand day, and the next outing will be Wembley in a few weeks’ time.
The ladies’ committee are holding a whist drive at the Liberal Club every Tuesday evening. Do not forget to go along each Tuesday evening.
Gala night
NEXT Wednesday evening is the great gala night at the Tower. At the big dance there will be a “mystery man,” novelty prizes including Cup final tickets, and a special iced cake - a replica of a football field.
Late transport will be arranged. Tickets are going very quickly. Please purchase yours as soon as possible and help to make this a great success.
Membership grows
THE success of the team has led to an increase in membership - perhaps with a hope of a Cup final ticket.
Old members are reminded that subscriptions for 1948 are now due and should be paid immediately. New members, too, are welcomed.
A new supply of badges is now in stock, and these can be had for 1s. from the Supporters’ Club hut.
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