26 November 1949 Blackpool 3 Manchester United 3
Storming finish sweeps United out of game
THRILL OF A LIFETIME
Blackpool 3, Manchester United 3
By “Clifford Greenwood”
NEVER, EXCEPT FOR CUPTIES, HAVE I SEEN AS MANY PEOPLE ON THE BLACKPOOL GROUND BEFORE TWO O’CLOCK AS WERE PACKED ON THE KOP AND IN THE PADDOCKS AT THAT TIME THIS AFTERNOON.
Nor was that the only resemblance to a Cuptie for this repeat presentation of the 1948 Final.
Tangerine and white and red and white were scattered everywhere. “The Atomic Boys" football’s famous Palladium act, made a brief appearance, and the new duck Stanley, dyed a pale primrose, was there too, solemnly deposited in the centre circle, half an hour before the kick-off.
There was, too, that indefinable tension in the air which always prefaces a big match.
And this was one, with Manchester United fielding a defence which had not lost a goal in six games, Blackpool a defence which had lost only two in the last 11, and both clubs fielding forward lines which had in them three of the forwards who scored eight of England’s nine goals against Ireland last week.
It was a grey, overcast November day, but after the Hawthorns a week ago it seemed to possess almost a Californian brilliance.
“SONNY” in GOAL
The United had to field a reserve goalkeeper, Ignatius Feehan, who prefers to be called - and who’s blaming him? “Sonny,” a young Irishman from Waterford, who was appearing in only his second First Division game.
Blackpool for the first time in First Division football had Willie McIntosh at inside-left.
There were a few vacant spaces in the South Paddock when the teams appeared, but otherwise it seemed to be a full house and probably a record attendance, bordering on 30,000, for a November game in Blackpool.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, McCall, Mortensen, McIntosh, Wardle.
MANCHESTER UNITED: Feehan; Carey, Aston, Cockburn, Chilton, McGlen, Delaney, Bogan, Rowley, Pearson, Mitten.
Referee: Mr. F Walton (Goole).
THE GAME
There was drama before 60 seconds had passed - the loss of a home goal by Blackpool for the first time since the Wolverhampton Wanderers match on September 3.
After Johnston had won the toss and decided that Blackpool should defend the south goal there were three United raids.
In one of them Pearson headed wide of a post. The next ended nowhere. The third produced a goal.
Delaney was given a pass in a wide open space. Garrett was in a dilemma, could not decide whether to move on the wing forward or wait for him.
“Brittle legs,” as they call Delaney, decided for him, crossed the ball to the unmarked Pearson, who half sliced his shot, which still, with Farm falling late to the bouncing ball, hit a post, cannoned out, and crawled across the goal’s face.
BOGAN THERE
On to it raced BOGAN, the forward rejected by Preston, who almost walked it over the line, with Blackpool’s goalkeeper still sprawling near the other post.
They said it was a freak goal. It may have been, but for minutes afterwards it unsettled Blackpool, who beat off a few other raids and for a long time could build no real counterattacks.
Chilton had almost to win a high-jump championship to reach a long-punted clearance by Garrett which Mortensen was chasing, and twice Matthews had duels with the England full-back Aston, winning one and losing the other.
But all the time in the first 10 minutes the United’s front line employed the crisp direct pass which Blackpool’s front line seemed curiously reluctant to introduce.
There had not been a test for the United’s understudy goalkeeper with 15 minutes gone, and it was not, in fact, until the 16th that the United’s goal was seriously menaced.
MORTENSEN DASH
And a do-or-die tackle by Carey
Then three men planted themselves in a mass in front of the raiding McIntosh, and from the free-kick for obstruction the young goalkeeper came into the game at last, holding, losing and snatching up again as he fell yards outside his goal a ball which cannoned off a massed Manchester defence.
A minute later, too, a gap at last opened in front of the United’s goal, and into it Mortensen chased a ball headed by Wardle, and lost it only to Carey’s do-or-die tackle within half a dozen yards of the line.
Blackpool were piling on the pressure after that first minute thunderbolt had threatened to hit the team for six.
Yet these Manchester forwards still moved with a crisp precision whenever a pass was given them. Not for a long time have I seen a Blackpool defence so obviously uncertain of itself.
Delaney at times was corkscrewing about almost at will as if he were a second edition of Stanley Matthews.
OPEN SPACES
In the art, too, of waiting in the open spaces for the pass - and there were plenty of those gaps - these United forwards gave now and again an almost classic lesson.
Yet still the game was surging three minutes out of every four on the Manchester goal without ever seriously imperilling it except with long falling centres which that great trinity of Carey, Aston and Chilton invariably reached first in the air.
Aston, in fact, made one grandstand clearance from Matthews, hooking the ball over his head and over the wing forward’s, too, as he repelled one of several raids on this flank which Kelly’s use of the long crossfield pass was frequently creating.
One Blackpool raid after another broke on the wall of a Manchester defence still serene in its confidence and immaculate in its order.
Twice in breakaways the offside whistle halted the Manchester attack. The third time the trap was set again - assuming that it was set deliberately - and it cost a goal.
GOAL No. 2
Defence stands still as Pearson scores
It happened in the 27th minute, and again looked incredibly simple.
Delaney crossed a high forward centre into another of those unfamiliar spaces which Blackpool’s defence was leaving today.
I had the impression that the flag of the linesman on the wrest line was lifted. The Blackpool defence appeared to have that impression, too, for every man stood still as PEARSON leaped at the high ball and headed it wide of the falling Farm for a goal which seemed even to surprise the United when it was allowed.
Nearly every man in tangerine pointed excitedly to the man on the west line, but this time no signal was given and Mr. Walton said “Goal.” That made Blackpool 0-2 in less than half an hour after being in the United’s half of the field for not fewer than 15 of the 27 minutes. But always in this match as in every other in was direct football that was paying.
Blackpool stormed on against the Gibraltar defence from Old Trafford, constantly raced on to it with the ball instead of making the pass - and inevitably had to pay the price.
GRAZED POST
The United’s forwards were still showing how it should be done. Within a minute of the second goal, in fact, it was nearly No. 3 as Bogan, finding himself in another big gap, shot from 30 yards a ball which almost grazed the post as Farm hurled himself desperately at it.
The United were reducing football all the time to its simplest terms as the fast pass to the unmarked man. Blackpool were making hard labour of it.
Yet one had to admire the resolution of the Blackpool front line. Even with Matthews for once seldom outwitting his guards, attack after attack hammered on Manchester’s fullback and half-back lines without ever disturbing them, with the ball still being played too close and the one move too many being made.
It was left to Shimwell in the end to make one of Blackpool’s few shots of this half, and that was one of those shots which would have scored at Twickenham but is not allowed to count in this code.
Mcintosh floored
This Manchester defence stood on no ceremony, either, when a minute before half-time, as McIntosh was seeking a corkscrew passage through a massed line waiting for him, he was put to earth without any apology whatever.
The free-kick nearly gave Blackpool a goal, Mortensen taking it and shooting a ball which curled out inches over the bar as Feehan appeared to leap a shade late to his right to it.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Manchester United 2.
SECOND HALF
There was nearly another first - minute sensation - one, to be exact, in front of each goal.
In the first half-minute Mortensen went after a rebounding ball which had put him on-side, fell full-tilt under a tackle, and released a hullabaloo for a penalty which Mr. Walton ignored.
Direct from this assault two Manchester forwards swooped down. One of them, Rowley darted on to a loose ball, reached shooting distance with it and lost the ball
It rolled loose again to Mitten, who thundered it over the bar of an empty goal as he lurched sideways out of the path of his fallen centre-forward.
Within the next minute both trainers were on the field to attend to Bogan and Mortensen, And within another minute Mortensen, glided out to Matthews a ball which the wing forward put inside for Wardle to shoot wide as he raced on to it in the- inside-left position. Actually Wardle was playing in that position with McIntosh wandering about on the left wing and gently massaging his skull.
BLACKPOOL ERR
Too many delayed passes
The United were still often in retreat again, but there were few signs in the first five minutes of this half that Blackpool had learned the lessons of the first 45 minutes.
Again there were too many passes, too many delayed passes, an inclination to take the ball on to the man instead of parting with it.
The United’s defence continued to repel all these complex raids Without losing either position or composure.
Mortensen went to grass again under a neck-or-nothing leapfrog tackle by Chilton. It cost a free-kick, caused a storm of protest on and off the field, and should have been worth a goal.
Shimwell took the kick, and when it was repelled lobbed it back again.
What happened afterwards - so many men were on the scene - was not discernible from the Press box, but in the end the ball skidded away from two Manchester men, seemed to be passing in front of Mortensen in the jaws of goal and was ultimately lashed wide of a far post by McIntosh as he cut in from the wing.
LEAD INCREASED
That was in the 14th minute.
A big price had to be paid for that error. For in the 15th the United went further ahead, and instead of 2-1 as it should have been it was 3-0 and the game for all practical purposes was over.
This third goal for the Old Trafford men came in two direct moves - a lesson in itself to Blackpool’s forwards.
Rowley took a pass from a halfback, released the ball down field and left PEARSON to chase it. That’s all that was required.
The inside-left went after the pass down a wide-open centre, reached it a split second before two Blackpool men fell on top of him, and shot it fast and low past the deserted Farm.
Blackpool immediately remodelled the forward line, with McIntosh at centre-forward, Wardle back on the wing, and the old “M” firm in partnership again on the right.
All that happened, however, for a few minutes afterwards was a free fight on the Kop which it required a couple of policemen to end and a scene of considerable confusion in front of the Kop.
There, after Garrett had sliced a clearance to Rowley, Hayward cleared a centre off his own goal line, heading it down to the feet of Farm after the goalkeeper had been lured a long way from home.
PENALTY SCORE
Then a rocket goal by McIntosh
Yet the shuffled forward line won a goal, even if it required a penalty to do it and a full-back to score it.
The goal came nine minutes after Manchester’s third.
There was a raid on Blackpool’s left. Wardle crossed a centre from the line. As I saw it, the ball hit and was not hit by - Cockburn’s hand.
Without hesitation, however. Mr. Walton gave a penalty, and SHIMWELL, who scored from the spot against this team at Wembley, scored again with a shot so fast that Feehan could never move to it.
That left Blackpool with at least a gambler’s chance. This chance was nearly lost in two lone United forays on a defence surging to the aid of its forwards, but with 15 minutes left, with the ground in a tumult, Blackpool reduced the lead again.
This time Matthews was in it, beat two men who were inclined to treat him scarcely as seriously as he should be treated, and allowed him in the end to cross a ball which McINTOSH rocketed into the roof of the net, with Feehan falling backwards in front of him.
UP WITH ATTACK
This was a great comeback by a team which 10 minutes earlier had seemed doomed to defeat.
The halfbacks, all three of them, even Eric Hayward, were surging up with the forwards every minute, and every forward was going into the tackle like a terrier after a bone.
Now and again the Manchester forwards escaped and were as menacing as ever, Johnston twice in rapid succession crossing to a right wing which was often escaping its fullback, and halting it at the cost of unproductive corners.
This was a grandstand finish. This late challenge inevitably began to wane almost under its own hell-for-leather fury. For a few minutes the United were raiding again non-stop.
Six minutes left . . . five . . . four. Then Blackpool exploded into another full-scale assault. Carey made the clearance of the great full-back he is, with Blackpool’s left wing of two forwards and a half-back at his heels.
Three minute left. Mortensen escaped, stabbed inside a ball which skidded away from McIntosh almost under the bar.
TWO MINUTES TO GO
Two minutes left. Matthews took a pass, beat one man, took the ball away from another, steered inside a ball which by some peculiar circumstance seemed to cannon off two men before rising twice the height of the bar in front of the besieged Manchester goal.
One minute left, and a corner was won. Eight of Blackpool’s men massed for it, and 10 of Manchester’s. Wardle crossed it high. Down into this pack the ball fell. What happened afterwards was as lost to view from the main stand as if there had been another Hawthorn’s fog curtain.
All I saw was the south stand rise to its feet like one man to a cheer which threatened to lift the stand’s roof. Then out of the shambles raced JOHNSTON, every man in tangerine mobbing him.
It was presumably the captain’s goal to finish a match whose last 20 minutes will be talked about for years.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 3 (Shimwell (pen 69), McIntosh 75, Johnston 89)
MANCHESTER UNITED 3 (Bogan 1, Pearson 27, 60 mins)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
BLACKPOOL won back nearly all their stripes in the last 20 minutes of this game in as dramatic and courageous a challenge from a losing position that I have seen on a football field in 25 years.
It would be idle to speculate on what would have happened if that first minute goal had not been scored, or what the consequences would have been if that open goal had not been missed a minute before the United made it 3-0
Presumably, the United would have lost.
Yet when that third goal came the odds against Blackpool snatching anything from this match were about 100-1 - and no bookmaker in the town, I think, would have offered even that price.
Then Blackpool exploded into a neck-or-nothing assault which swept Manchester’s defence almost out of the game and in the end won a point in a last- minute finish which might have been taken out of the pages of “The Boys’ Own Paper” Everybody went home to tea prepared to forgive all this team’s earlier sins - and there had been plenty of them.
Viewing this drama - for it was less a football match than drama - nobody could dispute that for about two-thirds of this game the United played football which wins games and seemed destined to win this one.
Every pass in the front line had a purpose in it. The defence in its positional play seemed nearly impregnable.
UNSETTLED
The Blackpool defence, unsettled by that first-minute goal, has never this season been lured into so many false positions by crisp, direct passing.
The forwards, too, were always playing the one pass too many, were taking the ball on to a defence against which such tactics were suicidal.
But in the end everything was, I suspect, forgiven and forgotten.
Shimwell and Hayward were as decisive as ever in the tackle all the afternoon, and the two wing halfbacks, Johnston and Kelly, were constantly releasing passes to a forward line too long unresponsive.
They were men who would have been entitled to praise whatever had happened. Now, after that amazing 20 minutes, everybody is entitled to it.
IF Blackpool’s match at Stamford Bridge next weekend is in the class of nearly all the postwar Blackpool Chelsea games nobody will be asking for his 1s. 3d. back when it is finished.
It has become almost a tradition that whenever Blackpool and Chelsea meet they play Football with a capital “F” and yet introduce plenty of drama into it.
Last season’s match at "The Bridge” was an amazing see-saw.
Blackpool were leading 3-1 four minutes from time, and everybody was preparing to go home - and thousands of the 77,696 people, the second highest attendance at a League match in England since the war, had gone home - when the Chelsea attack thundered into action and in a last desperate assault on a Blackpool defence which had little Walter Rickett as a fullback, scored twice and made a 3-3 draw of it.
It was at "The Bridge,” too, in 1946-47, that George Dick as an outside-left scored his famous two goals in the first five minutes in the match which Blackpool won 4-1, and a year later that John Harris, the Chelsea centre-half and captain, headed a last-minute equaliser from a corner in a 2-2 draw.
As Chelsea have lost all their three games at Blackpool since the war Blackpool are obviously one of the London clubs hoodoo teams.
But - win, lose or draw - both teams seem intent on playing good football when they meet, and when that happens in these grim and earnest days the result is not of all that great importance.
And so the Mortensen Story opens...
THE DREAM - AND HOW IT CAME TRUE
By Clifford Greenwood
Jottings from all parts
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 26 November 1949
WHEN WEATHER WON
WHEN I had persuaded myself after a couple of excursions into the fog that there would be no match at West Bromwich last weekend, I began searching my memory for other games in Blackpool’s records when weather stopped play.
And I could recall only two, writes Clifford Greenwood.
One was a match at Leicester in February 1933 when snow had drifted so high on the ground that the gates were never opened and the teams had an unofficial snowball battle instead behind the locked doors.
The other was a pre-Christmas match at Blackpool in 1935, when snow, sleet and fog compelled the referee to call off the match.
Blackpool were one of the few clubs which had not one interruption of their First Division programme during the 1947 winter, and it is a fact - and a coincidence, too - that the last match abandoned at the Hawthorns before last weekend was during that Arctic month or two, and that the visitors were Blackpool Reserve.
***
THEY think a lot about George Dick up in Carlisle. These days the Blackpool forward who played at Wembley is the third Division club’s captain in a team in whose half-back line Tommy Buchan is giving good service.
The two of them still live in Blackpool, and if you asked the Carlisle manager, Mr. Billy Shankly, the former Preston North End half-back, for his opinions of them, everything he said would be complimentary.
I am glad to hear it and the Blackpool FC will be glad to hear it, too.
There is a conviction, too, that the day will come when Blackburn Rovers will not regret signing Ronnie Suart.
There is nothing dog-in-the- manger about Blackpool’s attitude to the men who leave the club. There are always glad when they make the grade elsewhere.
***
A REFEREE I saw last week left an abiding impression. The Welshman, Mr. B. M. Griffiths, of Newport, had a magnificent match in the international.
One of his decisions merely interpreted one of the simplest tenets in the game, and yet so often one sees referees who misinterpret it completely.
When Stanley Mortensen took the ball almost up the crouching and deserted Irish goalkeeper, Hugh Kelly, and, with the angle narrowed, cut a pass across to Jack Rowley for the centre almost to walk the ball over the line, there was not another Irishman within 30 yards of those two forwards.
How often in similar circumstances have referees given the man taking the pass offside?
Yet Rowley in this case had made the pass which had opened the movement, was always behind the ball, and, therefore, could not have been offside when the final pass was put back to him from almost off the line.
Simple? Yes, I know, but I am afraid that too often even League referees would have disallowed that goal because there was only the goalkeeper in front of the forward when the pass was taken.
***
Tom Finney - artist
WHAT a game Tom Finney w had in the Maine-road international. Here is in truth a great wing forward who has nearly everything a wing forward should possess.
If Preston North End could find one or two scoring inside forwards - and that is more easily said than done, as Blackpool will testify - he could put the Deepdale club back into the First Division.
Second Division full-backs must already be fearing him as if he were the Seven Plagues of Egypt incarnate.
He has a lot in common with Stanley Matthews, for his is the art that disguises art, which makes the subtlest move seem elementary.
No England team, I am convinced, writes Clifford Greenwood, will be complete for years and years to come without Tom Finney.
***
Yes, Lytham did it, too
COMPLIMENTS to Fleetwood from everybody in Blackpool football on reaching the first round of the Cup.
It is a great achievement by this enterprising club. Now, whatever happens, history has been made.
Yet it is not the first time that one of the Fylde’s clubs outside Blackpool has qualified to go into combat with the Third Division sides.
Lytham entered this exclusive circle once between the wars, being beaten by Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park.
The £ s d - and the glory - were both acceptable, and both deserved.
***
Sunderland first?
WRITES Mr. Gordon V. Woods, of Lytham-road, Blackpool:
“The ‘W' formation was not introduced by Arsenal. The first team to play it was Sunderland’s team of all the talents, and it was originated by the great star of those days, Charles Buchan, with Mordue.”
You can argue it out among yourselves.
***
Cheers for George
I AM glad to hear that a man who too often has heard the jeers was given the cheers at the end of the Blackpool Reserve game against Derby County last weekend.
When George McKnight retired to the half - back line after Walter Jones had been hurt, he played a great game which was not allowed to pass unnoticed. They gave him a little ovation as the teams left the field.
It’s good to know this, says Clifford Greenwood.
***
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