PERFECT GOAL GIVES BLACKPOOL POINTS
But they had to fight all way
MORTENSEN GOT IT
Blackpool 1, Aston Villa 0
By “Spectator”
ALL the familiar early-in-the-season scenes prefaced Blackpool's match with Aston Villa at Bloomfield-road this afternoon.
Queues were standing outside the gates three hours before the kick-off. An hour before the teams appeared there was scarcely a cubic inch of space left on the Spion Kop tiers, and half an hour later a few of the gates were being closed.
Outside they were surging backwards and forwards from one turnstile to another, with the streets choked and nearly impassable. Every stand seat of the centre paddock was sold out early in the week.
With 15 minutes to go, police squads were escorting hundreds of people down the cinder track Cut of the bottlenecks behind the south goal.
It was the warmest Saturday afternoon for weeks. That always happens when they begin to play football.
MORTENSEN DOUBT
The Villa, who have been in Blackpool since the 3-0 defeat at Bolton on Wednesday, played the ex-schoolmaster, Jack Martin, at inside-right.
Blackpool introduced Billy Wardle for the first time, and until an hour or two before zero hour were uncertain whether it would be possible to play Stanley Mortensen. who has a swollen gland in one of his arms.
BLACKPOOL: Robinson: Shimwell, Suart, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, Munro, Mortensen, McCall, Wardle.
ASTON VILLA: Jones; Moss, Cummings, Dorsett, Parkes, Lowe, Goffin. Martin, Ford, Edwards, Smith.
Referee: Mr. W. B. Nixon (Manchester).
THE GAME
Winning the toss for the Villa, George Cummings decided to defend the south goal.
It was a goal immediately in peril, Blackpool's three inside forwards direct from the kick-off cutting through the Villa’s defence before Mortensen shot wide from the last pass.
In the next half minute Blackpool’s goal was as near downfall.
Suart, uncertain in these whirlwind opening minutes, lost the ball and with it Ford. Hayward came to the rescue to cut up ruthlessly a raid which continued until Edwards shot a low ball which Robinson held confidently full length on his line.
CUNNING PASS
Back surged the Blackpool attack, little McCall taking a cunning forward pass by Matthews with the Villa waiting for offside.
McCall reached the line with it all alone, and crossed a ball too fast for Mortensen, galloping into a scattered, unprepared defence, to reach.
Blackpool were using the short pass a lot, but using it at such a pace and with such precision that the entire front line was good to watch.
There was still an inclination to play nearly everything down the middle to Mortensen.
Otherwise there was little wrong with Blackpool’s football in attack in the first, 10 minutes.
The defence on its left flank was not too assured, but it was on the other wing that the Villa won the first corner of the match after a quarter of an hour.
There was a lot of Villa pressure and plenty of good ordered football being played by the Villa at this time.
Repelling one raid. Robinson raced out yards to take a long forward pass, with Ford pursuing it with all his Welsh fervour.
Few passes were reaching Blackpool’s wing forwards, scarcely one worth calling a pass to Wardle.
It was the Villa who came nearest to the lead in the 17th minute,
OVER BAR
Then Edwards cut inside, and gave Ford a shooting position.
Into the centre-forward’s path as he veered across goal somebody hurled himself.
Out came the ball loose. Goffin shot it. Robinson punched it out brilliantly as it was rising fast away from him.
As, eventually, the ball sailed high over the bar Mr. Nixon gave a corner to end the biggest patch of drama the half had yet produced.
NEARLY!
Matthews goes in and shoots
All that happened afterwards was a succession of free kicks against a Villa defence not at all disposed to pull its punches, particularly when Matthews was in the vicinity, and a low shot by Kelly which was as near to a goal as Blackpool had been for a long time.
But Blackpool were nearer one two minutes later and were unfortunate not to take the lead.
TOOK RANDOM PASS
In that 23rd minute Matthews took a random pass, appeared intent on cork-screwing into the Villa defence again, but shot instead.
He shot so fast that Jones, falling to his right, could only beat the ball against Jhe inside of a post and was left standing as it cannoned out again and across him.
The goal was only delayed. When it came in the 30th minute it was a goal in a hundred.
Three men were in it. Munro took a bouncing ball, juggled with it, heard Matthews call for it, and lobbed it forward.
Into the open space Matthews, in front of his watch dog Cummings for once, took it.
He reached the line, and crossed the ball as only he can.
To the pass MORTENSEN hurled himself, hit it with his head as fast as a bullet past Jones for his first goal of the season.
DESPERATE TACKLE
In the next minute, it might have been 1-1 and would have been if Suart had not halted Goffin with a desperate tackle as the outside-right prepared to centre a ball into a goal area where two of his forwards were waiting in scoring positions.
In the 40th minute of the half there was a peculiar incident.
With no player near him Trevor Ford, the Villa centre-forward, fell in a heap inside the centre circle.
For nearly a couple of minutes he was under attention with the game at a standstill. Then he was assisted over the line.
For a time before this happened and even with 10 men afterwards the Villa were repeatedly raiding.
Shimwell made one grand headed clearance to halt Smith a minute before Ford, apparently unaffected, came back into the game again.
A minute later, too, Robinson, with all the new confidence he was revealing today, punched out decisively a high centre crossing his goal.
It was nearly all the Villa to the interval - a Villa whose forwards were moving fast to the ball and direct every time on Blackpool’s goal.
Half-time: Blackpool 1, Aston Villa 0.
SECOND HALF
In the first minute of the Second half the Villa might have equalised, and I think should have done.
Hayward was unfortunate to lose a rebounding ball which in the end Smith crossed low.
BIG CHANCE
Goffin was in position for it, shot from an unmarked position a ball which Robinson could only punch out with clenched fists. Out it went to Ford.
It was the big chance of the match, and Ford missed it, hooking his shot excitedly wide with the goal gaping near him.
Matthews, elbowed out of the way by Cummings, who protested indignantly that he had committed no infringement, lobbed a free-kick high into a packed Villa goalmouth.
A minute later Wardle crossed a centre superbly for Mortensen to meet it in mid-air and head it so fast that Jones was glad to punch it over the bar.
Back went the goal-hunting Blackpool, and again the man who will not shoot - Stanley Matthews - was discovered in the centre forward position.
He shot again, but this time a long way wide.
ESCAPES
Twice in a couple of minutes afterwards the Villa goal had big escapes.
The first time Wardle shot n fast rising ball which appeared to sail over Jones’ uplifted arms before being headed out under the bar by a massed defence.
It happened again a minute later, the fair-haired Moss leaping like a high jump champion to head out, again under the bar. a ball which Mortensen had headed outside the diving goalkeeper’s reach.
OFFSIDE TRAP
Villa forwards brought to standstill
I was losing count of the number of times the Villa forwards had been brought to a standstill in the offside trap.
It must have approached 20 !With 15 minutes of this half gone.
Johnston shot low into Jones’ arms after the referee had given a disputed corner kick to Blackpool and amended his decision after consulting a linesman.
In the next minute Robinson made a great clearance, falling brilliantly to his left to beat out a ball which Ford, swerving away from Hayward, shot low and wide of him.
OVATION
They gave the goalkeeper an ovation for that, and he was entitled to it. Just as Mortensen was entitled to his cheers when three minutes later a sudden spurt took him past Parkes at such a pace that in the end the centre-half and his goalkeeper lost the ball which passed wide oi the far post of an empty goal.
With 25 minutes left there were signs that the Villa, resolute as their defence continued to be, were being remorselessly worn down.
There was still, however, not such a lot in it.
Edwards headed into Robinson’s arms at the end of one of those Villa raids which were less frequent than they had been, but which could still snatch a point in spite of Blackpool’s greater pressure.
Tempers were becoming a little frayed as they have a habit of becoming in Villa games at Blackpool.
Shimwell and Smith both had to listen to a long lecture after an incident which prefaced a Villa raid and a corner which threatened to end in another clash.
ALL OUT
The Villa were going all out for a goal worth a point with 10 minutes left.
In the end Referee Nixon called both captains to him, presumably asking for a little order, while Munro and Edwards were both under attention after another head-on collision.
McCall shot wide when he might have scored in the last five minutes of a game which was not definitely decided until the last whistle had gone.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 30 mins)
ASTON VILLA 0.
THIS match was no classic - Villa games at Blackpool seldom are. But Blackpool deserved to win it.
There was still, however, little in it except the perfect goal which decided it.
The Villa forwards, I think, had the greater precision in approach, but the Blackpool line created the greater number of scoring chances and possessed, too, the game’s greatest forward. Stanley Matthews, who can win any game and was in the goal which won this one.
Second to him I rank Mortensen, who still requires a lot of watching, even when a defence is allowed to mass on him, and McCall, one of two grand little foraging forwards.
Wardle was on a diet of passes, even below austerity level before the interval and afterwards played as a man in an unfamiliar team, still seeking self-assurance.
DEFENCE
Tile defence had its uncertain moments, but stood tolerably firm against a Villa attack which offered no mean problem with Hayward firm again in the middle, as lie always is, and the full backs retrieving desperate positions after now and again losing them.
Robinson this time played a game which had no blemish in it and at times verged on the brilliant.
The Villa have still to beat Blackpool in a postwar game.
Yes, down to earth, but -
NO NEED TO PANIC
Two defeats - and the lessons
By “Spectator”
DOWN TO EARTH HAS COME BLACKPOOL FOOTBALL.
There is no particular depression at headquarters - nobody, at least, confesses to it - but a Blackpool public which went to watch this team in all its glory at Wembley last April - if it had the tickets! - and expected it to begin again exactly where it left off at Preston in May, is utterly unable to reconcile itself to two defeats in the first weekend of the new season.
Are those two defeats serious?
The loss of four points is not serious at all. The reasons for their loss could be if they were often repeated.
The defence lost six goals in those games at Sheffield and against Manchester United two days later. Last season six goals had not been conceded until eight matches had been played. Obviously there was something wrong there.
The second match of last sea son was lost at Huddersfield in as miserable a fiasco as I have ever seen on a football field, but it was not until September 20 when Sunderland won at Bloomfield-road in the ninth engagement on the Blackpool card that a second defeat was entered on the records.
Two years ago—
AND, two years ago, Blackpool won their first four games in a row and lost only two of the first 10. Not content with that, either, not a home point was forfeited until the middle of November.
So the beginning of 1948-49 scarcely conforms to those early-in-the-season spurts.
What has been wrong?
The figures in the “against" column are a sufficient indictment of a defence which last season was probably the strongest ever fielded by Blackpool. One man cannot be blamed for this minor eclipse.
The forwards at Bramall-lane had a game which was crisp and alert as two days later it was complex and laboured. What accounted for that? Your theory is as good as mine.
The truth is, I suppose, that football form never completely stabilises - or people would never win those fortunes on the pools! - and that at the beginning of the season it abides by no particular formula at all.
All that happened - or did not happen - at Sheffield a week age and at Blackpool on Monday may be merely a passing phase. And Blackpool, in all the circumstances, on the reasonable assumption that no team sheds all its talent in a summer, are still justified in considering it as such.
But unless the Villa match has redeemed those two early failures there will not, I think, be any inclination either in the manager’s office or in the directors’ board room to imitate the ostrich bury heads in the sand, and say. “It’ll all work out in the end.”
Search goes on
THE QUEST for a goalkeeper A has been continued this week.
And it may be, unless Jim McIntosh can become again such a centre-forward as he was for months last season, that the hunt for a front-line leader may also have to be intensified, however great the odds may be against it.
For there have been signs that Stanley Mortensen, big-hearted player as he is, cannot indefinitely stand all the punishment he has been taking in recent years, and may, in fact, be no longer disposed to take it.
It is a long time since Mortensen played three hours in a Blackpool forward line without scoring a goal. It is even longer since he was offered or made for himself so few scoring positions in two successive matches.
Blackpool, in the end, may have to play him, whatever his preferences may be, at inside-right, the position where he plays for England, where he will have greater space to work in and where defences cannot so ruthlessly mass on him.
A precedent
THEY had to do that with Jimmy Hampson. There is a precedent for it.
Yet all this, I know, may' be blown sky high before these reflections are ever read. There is no reason to panic, no reason whatever to begin shuffling the team like a pack of cards.
And it would be grossly unfair to begin so early in the season discarding en masse men who only a few months ago were the Blackpool public’s idols and whose praises the annual meeting was singing only seven or eight days ago.
There is no landslide yet - and it is my view that there will not be.
The problems which have so soon presented themselves were more or less unexpected. One was inevitable. It concerns the grievous limitations of a ground which is a First Division enclosure in name only.
Lock-out
THERE was another version of the storming of the Bastille when Manchester United came to town five days ago.
Thousands who were locked out were not content to go home again immediately - and there is no law to compel them to - but the congestion which they caused resulted in dozens of ticket-holders entering the ground late and not a little dishevelled after storming through the sort of Twickenham scrum which impeded their passage.
Many of them have written to this department complaining that the club is to blame. But, in all justice, what can the club do about it?
Except, I suppose, build that stadium. And at the present time - and for a long time to come, I suspect - Mr. Aneurin Bevan won’t let them.
'Another two-game week for Blackpool
FIRST ITS MANCHESTER - THEN NORTH TO SUNDERLAND
By “Spectator”
ANOTHER TWO GAMES NEXT WEEK FOR BLACKPOOL IN THE TWO-MATCHES-A-WEEK SERIAL WHICH OPENS THE SEASON.
The first is on Wednesday evening at Maine-road, where Manchester United and Blackpool, who have already met twice since the Cup Final, clash again. These two teams should know each other.
Last season, on the City ground where the United still play as guests with Old Trafford’s war scars unhealed, the United were held to a 1-1 draw, Stanley Mortensen shooting a late goal to give Blackpool a point.
Stan Pearson, that unobtrusive Manchester forward, who always seems to play his football by stealth - until he storms into a game to win it - scored for the United.
Up to Sunderland at the end of the week, Blackpool have not Won at Roker Park since the war, were beaten 3-2, after taking the lead, two years ago, and by an only disputed goal late last season.
The 1-0 match in April came at a time when Blackpool were less concerned with winning games than ending them intact and fit for Wembley... It. therefore, had no particular significance - except that in it Ronnie Suart twisted a knee and, as a result lost his position in the Final team.
And the only significance of that accident appears to be that if a game has your number on it - as this match must have had for the Blackpool full-back - you’re for it, whatever precautions you take.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 28 August 1948
THE RIGHT SPIRIT
COMPLIMENTS to Sheffield United and Blackpool on the good temper of the game at Bramall-lane. There were only eight free-kicks, and not one tackle of malicious intent.
There were also - if you are interested in statistics - only two corners for the winning team, Sheffield United, and six for the losing team, Blackpool.
One of these days Blackpool will learn how to score goals from corners. It will be a long time, in any case - I hope - before Blackpool concede three goals again in a match in which Joe Robinson had to take only nine goal - kicks.
One goal for every three goal-kicks is an almost indecent mortality rate.
BIG WELCOME FOR BILL
THE Clitheroe people gave Bill Slater, the Blackpool forward, a rousing reception when he played in the Richardson Cup against Burnley “A” on Thursday.
In the first half he had a great game, and during the match scored the two goals which won Blackpool a replay.
Clitheroe’s interest in him is not unexpected. He comes from Clitheroe where they have always said that one day he would be a big personality at both football and cricket, Blackpool holds similar views.
I expect that Slater will be in the Reserve team for the visit of Manchester United on Monday evening.
In a week or two he will be going, on a course to Leeds University, but Blackpool expects to field him most weekends, and one day to sign him as a professional.
MURDOCH McCORMACK, the Scot from Blackpool, scored Crewe Alexandra’s first goal of the season . . .
George Eastham was in the remodelled Rochdale team defeated at Hartlepools. And so was another ex- Blackpool forward, Cyril Lawrence . . .
Douglas Blair was at outside-left for Cardiff City at Bradford, and his brother,. Jimmy scored one of Bournemouth’s winning goals at Newport . . .
George Farrow’s Bacup Borough 1ost their first match at Netherfield, where Ronnie Suart used to play . . .
Alec Roxburgh’s Hyde United beat Altrincham 5-1 . . .
Harry Eastham, who has gone to Tranmere from Blackpool via Liverpool, was in the Rovers’ team which lost to Hull City.
BLACKPOOL still rank among the glamour teams of the First Division.
Few other sides in the land could have attracted 45,997 people to a match even on the season’s first day and even in Sheffield, where half the population is football crazy.
Those were the figures - and rain fell in torrents from noon - at Bramall-lane a week ago.
On eight grounds last season Blackpool played in front of the biggest attendance of the season. It’s beginning all over again.
THAT was a magnificent game which Johnny Aston played against Stanley Matthews the other evening at Blackpool.
The England forward was the first to admit it.
I should say they finished about 50-50. A full-back doing this is nearly entitled to a medal.
This Manchester full-back, not once guilty of a dubious tackle, enhanced his reputation both as a footballer and a sportsman.
It was nearly incredible to gaze down from the Olympian heights of the Press box at Bramall-lane on football’s first day on a pitch green and almost as level as a billiards table.
"The Lane” so often in recent years has had a closer resemblance to the less attractive sectors of Passchendaele during the first world war. Thousands of pounds - £10,000, I was told - have been spent during the summer on draining a pitch which for years has been one of football’s thickest glue-pots.
If it achieves its purpose the money will have been worth spending.
***
FIRST day curiosity: Alec Munro. who did not score a First Division goal until the last day of last season, scored in the third minute of the first match of the new season.
And the other little inside forward. Andy McCall, who played in 12 First Division games before he shot his one First Division goal last season at Easter against Arsenal, put his name in the marksmen’s sheet on the season’s opening day.
A FTER-the-match comments at Sheffield a week following Blackpool’s defeat at Bramall-lane:
Mr. Teddy Davison, the Sheffield United manager and always a good sportsman: “We’ve been the luckiest team in the world today.”
Harry Johnston, the Blackpool captain: “We must be millionaires - the way we throw £2 away."
Mr. Harry Evans, the Blackpool chairman and always a philosopher: “Why worry? We’ll often play worse and win."
***
SO Blackpool are not to go to Brussels after all for the Armistice Day match on November 9. It never made commonsense for Blackpool to go with the team playing at Portsmouth two days later.
A big guarantee was offered and it was an honour to be invited, but when a condition was made that "the two Stanleys” should play Blackpool called it all off.
I am not blaming the club. In my view, the invitation should never have been accepted. But, in any case, how could Blackpool promise the appearance of the two England forwards with England playing Wales the day before the Brussels game?
To ask for such a promise was unreasonable. Now there will be no need to charter that special plane.
***
JOCK WALLACE is out of the Derby County goal for the first time since he was signed.
Billy Townsend was preferred for the first game at Maine-road a week ago and nearly stole the match.
Now what happens to the big goalkeeper from Blackpool?
There are rumours that he may be leaving English football - as he left it when he was at Blackpool - not this time to return.
It is possible that he will finish his days where in big football he began them - with Raith Rovers.
***
HUGH O’DONNELL is still wandering. Preston - Blackpool - Rochdale has been his route. Now he is at Halifax, and scored for the Town this week the goal which defeated Barrow.
Of his brother, Frank, who was once his partner with the Celtic in Glasgow and afterwards led the Blackpool forwards for a few months. I seldom hear these days.
Last I heard of him he was retiring from football.
***
ONE of Burnley “A’s” two goals against Blackpool “A” in the Richardson Cup this week was scored by Tony Hapgood.
The name is familiar? Of course it is. Tony is the son of Eddie Hapgood. the ex-England and Arsenal full-back, who resigned the manager’s post at Blackburn last season and is now at Shrewsbury.
It was a strong team that Burnley played in this match. The other marksman was George Knight, a forward who has often been in Burnley’s First Division forward line.
***
SAM JONES is this season to be the second team’s unofficial manager, is to travel with them wherever they play, and attend them in all home games.
They will play for the Irishman, I know, to the last inch and the last minute - as the first team played for him at Derby on Easter Monday, even if they were beaten.
Sam - or should it be “Mr. Jones” in future? - is serving his apprenticeship in - a managerial capacity, but this appointment, which the entire football public of Blackpool will approve enhances his status.
I notice, by a coincidence, that another Irish international, the Blackpool wartime guest, Alec Stevenson, has been given a similar post at Everton. This is another case of loyal service deservedly recognised.
AWAY MATCH PLANS
T'HE Supporters’ Club outing to Sheffield on Saturday was a great success, and the committee hope that it will be the forerunner of many more. The result of the match was the only disappointment.
As we hope to make these trips to away matches very popular we are issuing to all members shortly a brochure giving full details of the arrangements for the travelling and meals.
***
A SPECIAL meeting of all members will be held at the Central Library at 7-45 p.m September 16, to approve the new rules and for general discussion.
We hope that members will make a note of this date and come along to show their interest in the club.
AGAIN I appeal for members and the continual support of our old friends. The membership is barely 2,000, and our aim this season is 5,000.
We are definitely lagging behind other clubs. Surely this is not like Blackpool - the more members we have the more we can do.
New members and those who have not renewed their subscription for this year are asked to call at the Supporters’ hut at the south-west corner (near the players’ entrance) of Bloomfield- road, give their subscription of 2s. 6d. to any member of the committee, or forward it to the treasurer, Mr. Tom Newton, c/o the ground.
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