10 December 1949 Blackpool 4 Stoke City 2
Stoke beaten in game of weak defences
TWO FOR SLATER
Blackpool 4, Stoke City 2
By “Clifford Greenwood”
STANLEY MORTENSEN, who, on his own confession, hates watching a football match, came to the Stoke City game this afternoon in spite of a bronchial cold which has been afflicting him ever since he was in special training with the England team for the game with Italy 10 days ago.
“I'd play if they'd let me," he said. But this time they would not let him, and I think they were wise, for he will be wanted for next week at Huddersfield and for the Christmas games.
Willie McIntosh, as a result, found himself facing Neil Franklin, the England centre-half, a little assignment which no centre-forward particularly wants, and W. J. Slater was reintroduced at inside- left.
The City played the men who beat Middlesbrough and won two precious points last week, including “Verdi” Godwin, the forward out of Blackpool junior football, who was having his second game an outside right, and Leslie Johnston, the new Scot from Glasgow Celtic.
SMALLEST CROWD
It was fine but bitterly cold in spite of the vagrant winter sunshine. Such a day and an early kick-off had an influence on the attendance, which at the kick-off was fewer than 17,000, the smallest of the season.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett, Johnston (H.), Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, McCall, McIntosh, VV. Slater, Wardle.
STOKE CITY: Herod; Watkins, McCue, Mountford (F.), Franklin, Sellars, Godwin, Bowyer, Peppitt, Johnston (L.). Malkin.
Referee: Mr. H. Holt (Rochdale).
THE GAME
First Half
Harry Johnston lost the toss and Blackpool defended the south goal. Within 10 seconds the fastest goal I have ever seen in a First Division game gave Blackpool a dramatic lead.
It was an amazing opening. McIntosh kicked off, glided the ball to Slater. The amateur took it and steered it forward to McCall, who, as it was passing him, lobbed it forward for McIntosh to chase.
The leader went after it with Franklin at his heels, a full-back crossing his path and the goalkeeper racing out to meet him. The four men fell in a heap.
The ball came out loose, and W. SLATER, racing to it, shot it fast into the roof of the net over the empty line for his first goal in the First Division.
This was sufficient to unsettle any team. It put the City out of the game completely for a couple of minutes, and it was not until the third that these Stoke forwards crossed the halfway line.
STOKE NEAR
Then a goal was not far away, Leslie Johnston accepting a pass after Blackpool’s left wing of defence had been passed and shooting a ball which hit the iron frame holding the net as Farm leaped at it.
Within a minute Blackpool might have had a penalty, and I think, should have had one as Franklin upset McIntosh in the area with a shoulder charge to which np exception could be taken but which was a deliberate case of obstruction.
Mr. Holt said “No,” and inside the next two minutes the Blackpool forwards, riddling the City’s defence every time they raced on it, were twice near a goal again The second time Matthews, who had wandered into the centre- forward position, shot a ball which cannoned out off Herod’s outstretched left leg a split second before the offside whistle sounded.
Neither defence was too compact.
CRISP ATTACKS
Godwin raider-in-chief for Stoke
Without ever testing Farm the Stoke forwards made progress in swift, crisp-passing raids - and in those attacks Verdi Godwin was often raider-in-chief. This fair-haired forward has come on a mile since I saw him playing with the Rovers two years ago.
Yet, in spite of these infrequent forays by the Stoke forwards, it was the Blackpool front line that always threatened the goals in the first quarter of an hour in raids often built by the studied passes of Bill Slater, a footballer every inch of him.
A second goal for Blackpool might have come in the seventh minute as Matthews, given at last a pass in his wing position, put inside a ball which McCall sliced yards off the beam in a position where I have seen goals scored many a time before today.
In the end, in the 17th minute, a Blackpool defence which had never been in as close order as I nave seen it during recent weeks surrendered a goal to a City forward line which repeatedly in the preceding minutes had been threatening to score.
IN TWO MOVES
It was a good goal, too, a goal in two moves.
Bowyer crossed a forward centre which Johnston put inside. Farm came out a fraction late, and PEPPITT, waiting for the pass - as he had called for it - shot into the roof of the net from almost on the line.
Yet the City were level for only three minutes. In the 20th Blackpool went in front again and this was a one man goal and a strange goal, too.
Franklin and McIntosh went after a loose ball. It seemed odds on the centre-half reaching it first.
That is what happened but as he reached it England’s centre half fell in the mud, and was still sprawling as the alert McINTOSH took the ball away from him, cut inside, and as Herod came out in desperation, hooked it low over the line.
Another two minutes and the City were level again. This was a gift goal - the sort which George Farm seldom concedes;
There was a raid on the City’s left wing, and sudden disorder in the Blackpool defence.
Two forwards almost under the bar called for a pass.
JOHNSTON squared the ball across, intended, I suspect, a centre, and watched instead the ball curl in and over the line as Farm fell late to it.
Four goals in 22 minutes - goals were off the ration at last at Blackpool.
Except when at last Matthews was given a pass and from the winger’s centre McIntosh hooked the ball over his own head on to the roof of the net, the dramatics in front of each goal ended for a time.
Yet the Blackpool defence was still curiously open. The goalkeeper and the men in front of him did not seem for a time to make a definite clearance.
CITY PRESSURE
The City pressure was menacing and at times persistent as the end of the first half-hour approached, and yet Blackpool nearly made it 3-2 in the 32nd minute, McIntosh in the end shooting in a ball which Herod reached at full length after he had half-hit a clearance to the feet of the waiting centre- forward.
Immediately afterwards Blackpool won a couple, of corners, the first of these two raids, as had^ others before it, being created by - one of Slater’s calculating, assured passes Yet still almost every time it went into action, which towards the interval was practically air the time, the Blackpool defence was strangely without confidence and often without position.
Hayward retrieved a couple of major crises before Farm forfeited a corner and a minute later held magnificently a ball which sailed in unexpectedly as it cannoned off Kelly’s head.
ANOTHER GIFT
Franklin (own goal) gives Blackpool lead
The ball was still being constantly lost in the tackle by Blackpool’s defence to the fast? terrier-tackling of the City’s forwards, and for 10 minutes it was seldom that Blackpool’s front line ever advanced beyond the centre circle.
Then with three minutes of the half left Blackpool went in front again with a gift goal.
There was a raid on the Blackpool right wing, and another of those infrequent passes to Matthews and McCall in possession.
The inside-right lobbed the ball across.
FRANKLIN was in its path. From the Press box it appeared to hit the England centre-half, rise off him and curve gently inches inside the near post as the hapless Herod stood watching it.
No mail even shook McCall’s hand, and presumably he didn’t expect them to.
Half-time: Blackpool 3, Stoke City 2.
SECOND HALF
Goals seemed so simple today. There was nearly another in the second minute of the second half when McCall chased a pass into an open space and shot high over the bar as the ball bounced awkwardly in front of him.
That could have been the sixth goal of the afternoon and only 47 minutes had gone.
Immediately afterwards, as if to underline the fact that their first-half game had been all wrong, the Blackpool defence redeemed itself twice as Kelly halted raids by the City’s front line, and, not content with halting them, opened attacks with long forward passes.
There was a new strength at this time in the Blackpool defence and a new aggression again in the front line. It was an aggression which built a raid which might have cost the City a penalty if Mr Holt had not refused a legitimate demand for one after Slater had been blatantly obstructed inside the area.
When will referees interpret this obstruction law to the letter?
BLACKPOOL RAIDS
Long shot from McCall hits bar.
For a time it was a repetition of the game’s opening, with Blackpool raiding pell-mell every minute.
Once McCall, with a shot from 30 yards out, hit the top of the bar, and twice, as he was working for position. Slater was treated with no sort of ceremony by a City defence pulling none of its punches.
Yet three times in as many minutes the Blackpool goal was near downfall. The first time only a neck-or-nothing tackle by Garrett took the ball from Godwin, with the ex-Blackpool junior moving into a shooting position, and twice the shooting Bowyer, one of last season’s ace marksmen, was near to a goal.
The first time his shot from 25 yards bounced awkwardly off a churned-up patch of mud and ricocheted out wide of the post, and the second time the shot was held by Farm on his knees.
There was not a lot in it afterwards. Both forward lines still seemed to be moving faster to the ball than the defences in their path.
GREAT TACKLE
Johnston made one great tackle at the feet of Peppitt as the centre-forward was moving in to walk the ball over the line, and it was a fact that with 15 minutes of the half gone the City were moving almost nonstop on the Blackpool goal and at a pace still disconcerting to the defence.
Nothing serious happened - Hayward saw to that chiefly - but it was always threatening to.
The raids of the Blackpool front line were by contrast becoming a little too complex.
For minutes there was little to report except Stoke attacks, which invariably came to a standstill in the region of Hayward, who was still coming out of the ruck with the ball five times out of six.
Passes to Matthews were still on the ration. When one did arrive a raid was opened which reached its conclusion on the other wing, where Wardle took the last pass, outwitted two men. and shot a fast rising ball which Herod punched out high into the air.
IN DANGER
Johnston, on line, clears for Blackpool
It was still, however, the Blackpool goal which was being more often menaced, and was in fact, near downfall again in the 25th minute of the half.
Bowyer was in this raid, too, hurling himself at a ball which Johnston seemed to clear on the line as he stood sentinel at the far post.
With 20 minutes left, the City were still in the game a lot, still seeking a goal worth a point.
McCall shot low into the arms of Herod, and McIntosh stampeded Franklin into the concession of a corner as the City’s pressure began to wane.
All that happened afterwards was that three times in succession the Blackpool forwards were trapped in the offside snare, and in front of the Blackpool goal
Hayward made another of his resolute and farm a daring drive to snatch away a ball with two Stoke forwards on top of him.
With a quarter of an hour left the verdict was still in a delicate balance.
STOKE MISS
Then another Slater goal for Blackpool
With 11 minutes left, Peppitt headed wide of the far post when he should have headed a foot inside it.
That was a big chance missed, and the price had to be paid.
Seven minutes later the match was settled with a good goal. McIntosh made it with a forward pass.
SLATER was waiting for it a yard onside, never moved until the ball reached him, and as a full-back raced across a fraction late into his path shot high into the roof of the net from a few yards inside the penalty area with all the assurance of a man who has been scoring First Division goals for years.
Result:
BLACKPOOL (W. Slater 1, 86, McIntosh 20, Franklin 42og)
STOKE CITY 2 (Peppitt 17, Johnston 22)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
IT’S goals alone that count. That old lesson was the moral of this match.
Stoke City might never have lost it and would not have lost it if their forwards had been able to profit by one of the least convincing games a Blackpool defence has played for a long time.
During the first half and at times afterwards these City forwards had this defence in a state of disorder unfamiliar in these days.
One man in this defence retrieved it again and again, and that man was Eric Hayward, whose football was in an heroic mould today.
Elsewhere, the ball was too often lost in the tackle, even if long before the end Garrett had mastered his wing, promising and at times menacing as a lot of Verdi Godwin’s football had been before half-time.
FRANKLIN WORRIED
The Blackpool forwards had a game which ranged between the good and the indifferent. The aggression of McIntosh disturbed Neil Franklin as I have seldom seen the England centre-half disturbed, and the class of Bill Slater was always manifest.
Here is a footballer who makes his passes with an almost aggravating deliberation and yet always with a purpose.
Few of those passes, unfortunately, reached Matthews, and scarcely one pass on the ground, and as a result the winger could never approach his game in this match last season.
So often have I seen Blackpool lose after dominating a match. This time Blackpool took their chances, won, and, because goals alone count, deserved to win.
IT’S about time that Blackpool scored a goal at Huddersfield, scene of next weekend’s match.
It was 1-0 for the Town last Boxing Day. It was 2-0 a season earlier. And that seems all wrong against a team that lost four goals at Blackpool on the first day of the present season and four two years ago, and which before today’s meeting with Liverpool had lost 13 at Leeds-road this season.
The Town are a denial of the old proverb about the broken pitcher which goes too often to the well. Season after season since the war this Yorkshire club have been in peril of relegation, have spent six of the eight months of a season in the relegation zone, and almost on time have crawled out of the pit.
It is happening all over again this time, even with a team strengthened in defence by Derby County and England full-back, Jack Howe, and with a new young centre-forward, Jeff Taylor - a 20 - year - old opportunist from the RAF, understudy for the disabled Ronnie Burke - scoring three times in his last four games.
Blackpool on form should win this game to complete the team’s first double of the season. But form means so little in football, and Leeds-road is such a barren territory for Blackpool - remember the 10-1 defeat there in 1930? - that I should hesitate to call this a star away selection, writes Clifford Greenwood.
THE MORTENSEN STORY — Third instalment
JUST ANOTHER NAME ON THE BOOKS
Jottings from all parts
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 10 December 1949
And the other Stanley is - THE TALK OF LONDON
WHILE Stanley Matthews was employing all his elusive footcraft in eluding a pack of excited autograph hunters outside Stamford Bridge a week ago - and the pack was so excited that a police escort had to be called for him - his name was being discussed behind the panelled walls of those inner sanctums at “The Bridge” which common mortals are seldom permitted to enter.
There was Mr. A. V. Alexander, Minister of Defence and Chelsea director. There was Blackpool chairman, Mr. Harry Evans, the vice-chairman, Mr., Albert Hindley, and the club’s manager,
Mr. Joe Smith. There were several influential characters whose opinions even England selectors have been known to accept as authoritative.
And nearly all of them were talking of the Blackpool forward who at that time was en route by taxi for an early train back to Blackpool.
***
New chapter
BURDEN of their conversation was “He’s not finished yet,” and this sentiment was expressed in terms ranging from an undisguised incredulity to a mere naïve surprise.
What had happened?
In 90 minutes last Saturday afternoon the career of this; Peter Pan of wing forwards had entered on a new chapter.
I may be wrong, but I think that when this match opened the fact had been accepted almost without dissent that Stanley Matthews’ days in international football were over. I suspect that he himself had resigned himself to it.
***
Direct game
THEN he went out on the field at Stamford Bridge, and for an hour and a half, either by accident or design, played a game of such culture, such self-confidence, and. unexpectedly, a game so direct, so shorn of all little embroideries, that at the end of it 50,000 people were telling each other that Matthews was still as accomplished a footballer as he had ever been.
I am not pretending that this was the greatest game he has ever played. But at 34 he played with all the freshness and virility of youth, with that little extra something which nobody else in football still seems to possess.
***
Week’s holiday
IT may be that a week’s holiday from football had been sufficient to put him in this game with no sign of staleness about him. He spent all last week in London, and although he had his training every day he decided to cut himself off so completely from the game for one week that he did not even go to the international match
Then, after one brief week out of the game, he came back to it and, all m one afternoon, played himself back into the serious consideration of the England selection committee.
It may be that December 3, 1949, will rank as another milestone - and a not unimportant one, either - in this particular pilgrim’s progress.
***
Offer to Mr. Smith
A DAY or two earlier, I hear, there could have been another in another football career.
For, while the managership of Leicester City was still vacant, it was offered to Mr. Joe Smith, the Blackpool manager. The terms were £2,000 a year and a five- year contract.
This is the second time, within the last three years, that a similar offer has been made to Mr. Smith. The first came from Blackburn Rovers shortly after the resignation of Mr. Eddie Hapgood.
That he refused. This time he has refused again. But it is, I think, a nice compliment to a man whose services to Blackpool football are obviously appreciated no less highly outside the town than in it.
***
IT HAPPENED BEFORE
FLASH-BACK to the fog blackout at the Hawthorns.
Mr. Arthur Ward, of Blackpool, the former international referee, recalls a visit to Birmingham in his days with the whistle. He arrived in the city with another referee, who had been appointed to a match at the Hawthorns, but, when he ordered taxi to the West Bromwich ground, was told “Sorry, sir, but I’m not going there; the fog’s too thick."
Mr. Ward was booked for St. Andrew’s. The driver accepted him without a protest.
There was no play at the Hawthorns. The match at St. Andrew’s was finished.
That happened - except that there was 70 minutes’ play at West Bromwich but should never have been - three weeks ago.
***
Last at the Lane?
TALK of London town on football circles last weekend was not the Italian match but the traffic chaos which it caused.
Transport in the congested streets within a couple of miles of the Spurs’ ground was reduced to such a crawl that I heard of three newspaper men from the North for whom the Pressman’s nightmare became a reality. They left one of the London railway termini at noon and reached the ground at 3-40, which was less than a quarter of an hour before the game ended.
They say it will be the last international ever played at White Hart-lane, writes “C. G.”
***
WITHIN half an hour of the final whistle in the Chelsea-Blackpool match a week ago, Stamford Bridge had been converted into a greyhound racing stadium.
Arc lamps flooded the track. The traps were in position. The finishing gate was erected.
It happens every time I go to the Chelsea stadium, and every time I am amazed by the remarkable staff work which achieves this transformation scene.
“The Bridge” is so huge that ball boys - as at Bramall-lane - have to be engaged to retrieve the ball whenever it passes out of play. Last week they were in new fawn mackintoshes and as smart as young Guardsmen.
***
They see both sides at Chelsea
WHERE is football's fairest crowd?
I cannot decide between Portsmouth and Chelsea, writes Clifford Greenwood.
But at both grounds the visitors must sometimes wonder whether they are playing at home, so appreciative are the people it they play good football.
Most visiting teams think it is as good as being at home. Blackpool often think it’s even better!
***
HE said he’d be there - and he was.
Jim Parks, the Blackpool CC’s professional, promised that he would watch this winter every match the Blackpool football team played within reasonable distance of his home at Haywards Heath.
He was at the Arsenal game, and last weekend he was at Stamford Bridge. And so was Mrs. Parks.
And so, incidentally, among other Blackpool exiles, was Mr. Jack Cox, the ex-Liverpool forward, who was playing for England before any of the present Blackpool team were born.
***
Likes the Bridge
THERE seems to be something about Stamford Bridge which suits little Andy McCall.
The Blackpool inside forward scored two goals on this Chelsea ground last season - the only First Division match outside Blackpool in which he has yet scored twice - and last weekend, playing there again, had his first goal since August 22.
***
REUNION in London last weekend.
Port Vale were guests for an evening in the hotel where Blackpool spend their London weekends. First man from the Third Division club they met was little red-haired Jimmy Todd, the wing - half who won fame with Blackpool late in the war, when, a few months after he had been playing in inter squadron football with the RAF, he went into Ireland’s team on Manager Joe Smith’s recommendation.
No stylist, Jimmy, but what a tireless 90-minute terrier!
Basil Hayward, younger brother of Blackpool’s centre-half, was not in town. This former Blackpool amateur - and how Blackpool regretted losing him- who was the Vale’s captain last season, was hurt in one of the pre-season practices, had his first game for the Vale’s second team only last week.
Played there before
IT is good to hear that George McKnight is still making the grade as a wing-half in Blackpool’s Central League team.
Now the Irishman who for a long time has not been charitably treated by a section of Blackpool’s public is being given unfamiliar cheers in every match.
General impression that he is in a completely strange position at right-half is fallacious.
He has played as a wing-half in representative boys’ football in Ireland.
***
STANLEY MATTHEWS faced his strangest audience last weekend when he went to Warrington to give a talk and demonstration on Association football to men who have never played it and the majority of whom have never seen it played.
Yet the USA airmen gave him an ovation at the end -and loved every minute of it. Commentator was Mr. Tom Moss, the revue producer, comedian and ex-King Rat.
***
LATEST innovation in Blackpool football is a Is. magazine devoted to the club. The first issue of “Blackpool Soccer Fan’’ is out today. It is an attractive publication.
No. I contains articles by Harry Johnston and Stanley Mortensen. and there are pages of letterpress about the club’s affairs and pages of pictures, too.
“The Fan” will be published once a month.
***
THEY play head-tennis at Stamford Bridge two or three days a week during training hours. Who are the two stars?
I was told at Chelsea last weekend that the men who invariably win are the men who never head a ball - unless it’s an accident-on the field - the two goalkeepers, Harry Medhurst and Peter Pickering.
That makes no sense, but it’s true.
***
Pleases Norwich
NORWICH CITY have had no cause - and I am convinced never will have cause - to regret the signing of Bill Lewis, the Blackpool full-back.
In his first three Third Division games for the City not a goal has been lost. It will not now be long before Bill leaves Blackpool for his new home in Norwich, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Next prospective tenants of the house in which he has lived with his wife and baby in Blackpool - a house which belongs to the club - are Mr. and Mrs. W. Wardle.
Leave a Comment