25 February 1950 Blackpool 0 Sunderland 1
Sunderland play fine football, survive late pressure
A GOOD SHOW
Blackpool 0, Sunderland 1
By “Clifford Greenwood”
STANLEY MORTENSEN, the Blackpool centre-forward, was taken ill during the night.
A doctor was called to his bedside today, diagnosed a throat infection and a high temperature, and ordered him to remain in bed.
This information reached Manager Joe Smith a few hours before the Sunderland match this afternoon, and if he did not say “It never rains but it pours,” I should be surprised.
Will Mortensen be fit for Liverpool?” I asked.
“Well,” said Mr, Smith, "we can only hope so.” Blackpool, as a result of this latest depletion of the club’s playing strength, had to take the field again with five reserves for the second successive week, and this time against a Sunderland team at full strength and climbing fast up the First Division table.
Willie McIntosh led the forwards, and Andy McCall, who had a transfer request refused this week, was reintroduced at inside-left.
AND NOW SNOW
Something always happens to the weather when Mr. J. S. Pickles, the Bradford referee, is given a Blackpool match. Last November it was fog at the Hawthorns.
Today a snowstorm raged for a few hours early in the day, and after it had ceased and the ground staff had swept off the snow and forked the soaked turf the field resembled a marsh, which was fated soon to be trampled into thick slime.
SUNDERLAND CHEERS
The sun was actually shining again but it was bitterly cold in the early afternoon and the attendance had not reached 22,000 when the teams appeared.
A few hundred people from the North-East gave Sunderland a big reception.
Teams:—
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Kennedy, Wright (J), Johnston, Crosland, Kelly, Hobson, McKnight, McIntosh, McCall, Adams.
SUNDERLAND: Mapson; Stelling, Hudgell, Watson, Walsh, Wright (A), Wright (T), Broadis, Davies, Shackleton, Reynolds.
Referee: Mr. J. S. Pickles (Bradford).
THE GAME
Harry Johnston chose the wind when he won the toss. Blackpool defended the south goal.
The ball was skidding away from the men all the time in the opening two minutes, during "which a couple of Sunderland raids were built.
Farm advanced to snatch away Shackleton’s perfect forward pass from the pursuing Davies to repel the first, and the second ended as Reynolds, the forward who wears the smallest boots in first-class football, escaped Blackpool’s left flank of defence and crossed a centre which sailed out by the far post.
CHANCE WASTED
The Sunderland forwards were moving fast and aggressively all the time, and yet in the third minute, in Blackpool’s first attack of the match, a goal might have come.
McIntosh’s pace took him past Walsh and left him in a shooting position which was squandered as he sliced into the side net a ball for which Adams was waiting unmarked in the centre.
Almost without interruption afterwards the game moved on the Blackpool goal.
Kelly delayed one pass as he was building one of Blackpool’s infrequent raids, lost the ball, and in the end, as it rolled loose, Sunderland won a corner from which Broadis headed at a great pace barely over the bar.
DANGER RAIDS
Wright and Johnston make fine clearances
These Sunderland forwards wanted watching.
Jackie Wright and Johnston both made great headed clearances, the half-back almost out of his own goalkeeper’s hands, before the elusive Shackleton, working the ball close and at an amazing speed in the mud, headed over the bar, with the Blackpool goal in a state of siege.
It was significant, nevertheless, that every time the Blackpool front line swooped on the Sunderland defence big gaps were revealed in front of Sunderland’s goal.
Into one of them McCall moved intelligently in the tenth minute to take McIntosh’s pass and to shoot a ball which Mapson punched out with both fists as he fell forward on his knees into the slime
CLOSE CALL
A minute later Sunderland were as near the lead, or even nearer it, as Tom Wright raced into a wide open space on his wing and put inside a ball which Broadis took in another open space and shot so fast and low that when it hit Farm’s legs and cannoned out it is questionable whether the goalkeeper knew a lot about it.
Yet afterwards, except when the fair-haired Davies leaped high to a centre and missed the bar only by inches, it was the Blackpool front line that played the direct football, with passes moving fast between the men.
One perfect raid was created on the right where Hobson took McIntosh’s pass, steered it forward again as the centre-forward called for it, and, in fact, left the leader in such a position that he had shot low into Mapson’s hands before another man in Sunderland’s laboured defence had moved to close the gap.
NEARLY A GOAL
Shackleton shot hits the bar
Sunderland should nevertheless, have taken the lead, and were unfortunate not to take it, in the 22nd minute.
At the end of another raid in which Tom Wright had been allowed to corkscrew across half the width of the field, Shackleton darted forward to the wing- man’s pass and shot a ball which hit the bar and cannoned out again, with Farm beaten by its pace.
A couple of minutes later Sunderland had an almost comparable escape.
This time the open space was in the Sunderland defence. Adams moved into it, cut inside, and shot a ball which seemed to be passing wide of Mapson as Arthur Wright, in a flying leap, headed over his own goal.
This Sunderland defence was definitely suspect. Hugh Kelly once corkscrewed through it as if he were Stanley Matthews the Second before slicing a shot - or was it a pass? - far off the beam.
FREE-KICK WIDE
Under fire, this defence repeatedly wilted and lost position.
After a lot of pressure it forfeited a free-kick a couple of yards outside the penalty area which McKnight shot a long way wide, and there was a time, in fact, as the end of the first half approached, when Blackpool’s front line was actually threatening to riddle it and came near to taking the lead in the 29th minute.
For a time George Farm was a mere spectator of the scene.
When at last he was in action he must have impressed the Scottish team selector in the Press box by his fielding of a fast raking shot by Reynolds after the Sunderland winger had darted on to a clearance sliced across the field to him by the left flank of Blackpool’s defence.
Three minutes of the half were left and Sunderland took the lead with a goal which, I suspect, was not in the strict sense even intentional.
STRANGE GOAL
Even the scorer is surprised
There had been a series of raids on the Blackpool goal. None had been definitely cleared.
In the end, the ball ran loose. SHACKLETON moved to it, took a lash at it 20 yards out, and watched it in undisguised amazement as it rose in the air and in a gentle arc escaped the unprepared Farm’s desperate but late leap at it.
The goalkeeper was sprawling, a hapless, dismayed figure, as this elusive ball hit the net frame and cannoned back into play.
I question whether Blackpool deserved to be losing at half-time, in spite of Sunderland’s glittering opening.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Sunderland 1.
SECOND HALF
In the first minute of the half it might have been 2-0.
This time it would have been a good goal as Broadis took a forward pass, escaped with It and shot wide of a post before the Blackpool defence could position itself to halt him.
Another minute, and with the Blackpool front line still playing to a fine open plan Adams crossed a centre which McIntosh shot fast and low at Mapson as a full-back crossed his path.
It was about 50-50 in the early minutes of the half.
Crosland averted one little crisis with a back pass to the waiting Farm, and in the next minute the Blackpool goalkeeper made a great clearance from one of the few comers the game had produced.
SKIDDING BALL
In another minute, to re-establish equality, Blackpool won a corner, and from it might have taken the lead.
Adams crossed it. Half a dozen men fell in a heap as they leaped at it and missed it. leaving McKnight to stab it wide of a post with half the goal open in front of him but with the ball skidding at him fast.
It was grand, dramatic football afterwards.
Sunderland nearly went further in front as Farm leaped out at a centre raking his goal from the right, missed it, but retreated into position sufficiently fast to reach a ball which Shackleton gently lobbed back towards the gaping goal.
In the next two minutes the Sunderland goal nearly fell twice:
HEADED AWAY
In the first raid Mapson raced out to the advancing Adams, collided with him, fell, and with his goal wide open was still prostrate as Stealing headed away almost under the bar a ball which McIntosh headed slowly forward towards the empty line.
In the next minute the aggressive McIntosh tore away on his own down the right wing before crossing a centre which was lost in a pack of men and lost, too, again by Mapson.
The goalkeeper was yards out of position as Adams, coming up under a full sail, sliced his shot yards away from the yawning Sunderland goal.
Goals always seemed near. Another was close for Sunderland as the alert Davies beat Crosland in mid-air and headed wide of a post.
It was good open football by both front lines.
FINE FOOTBALL
Sunderland forwards set the pace
With 20 minutes of the half gone, the Sunderland forwards were beginning to set the pace again, playing in the process, with the aid of two great wing halfbacks, some of the best football by a forward line I have seen on this ground this season.
Raid after raid was repulsed.
The Sunderland wing forwards escaped repeatedly before Tom Wright walked away from his namesake, reached the line, and glided across a square pass towards the waiting Davies which Crosland intercepted brilliantly,
It was almost a mass offensive for a time, with Broadis thundering one great shot over the bar and the Sunderland front line advancing down its entire length to a plan which had revealed a purpose in every pass.
Blackpool forced one comer, which Sunderland disputed, on the left. Otherwise it was for a time an almost nonstop traffic on the Blackpool goal
OFF TARGET
When at last McIntosh found himself in another patch of territory which no man in the Sunderland defence was guarding he shot wide with McKnight unmarked and almost under the bar waiting for a pass.
Obviously this Sunderland defence could be scattered if only Blackpool had the armaments to scatter it.
Crosland made another great tackle to halt Davies as the centre-forward took a rebounding ball and found himself on an open path.
Sunderland were beginning to fade again with 10 minutes left, but at that time that one freak goal seemed fated to decide the match.
ALL-OUT BID
In the last five minutes drama raged as Blackpool made an all out bid for a point. During it McIntosh had his name taken by the referee, and within a minute of this episode, after the centre-forward had been heavily charged to earth by a Sunderland full-back, Mr. Pickles gave an indirect free kick half a dozen yards from the Sunderland goal.
The inevitable pantomime ensued before it was taken, and after it had been taken and the swarm had been dispersed two Sunderland men were discovered prostrate, and it was a minute be fore they could be sent into action again.
A corner was won as Blackpool swarmed to the attack as if they had forgotten the date and were playing at Anfield a week in advance.
A second corner came, and to repel it Sunderland called on every man in a desperate protection of a goal unexpectedly under raging pressure.
It was a gallant bid. It failed - but it was still gallant.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 0
SUNDERLAND 1 (Shackleton 42)
IT was the result I expected at Blackpool. Unexpected was the great resistance offered by this shadow team to one of the best forward lines I have seen this season.
There were times in the first half when Blackpool were actually threatening to win, with the forwards playing to an aggressive open plan which often had Sunderland’s defence losing position and scattering.
All the afternoon McIntosh chased everything there was to chase and during the first half-hour McKnight was repeatedly putting through the passes which he could chase.
FORWARDS FADE
The line faded later until its late desperate bid for a goal, and all the time it had its inevitable limitations on the wings.
It was the defence which nearly stole the show by its second half football.
Johnnie Crosland had his best game ever in the First Division, and the two wing half-backs, Johnston and Kelly, constantly put the brake on those two match-winning tacticians Broadis and Shackleton
THE GAP CLOSED
Out on one wing Tom Wright in the last half-hour was often too elusive for his namesake, but always in the centre there were the half-backs to close the gap.
This, in all the circumstances, was a good show by Blackpool in spite of the game ending in the team’s first home defeat since September 3.
TRADITION is as much a bar to Liverpool’s Cup successes as the Blackpool team itself, writes “The Green’s” Liverpool football correspondent. Liverpool, in their 57 years’ existence, have proved themselves capable of winning: everything - honour, glory, championships, but never the FA Cup.
Liverpool used to believe that they had a Cup bogey, and that is why you will never hear anyone connected with the club ever mention the possibility of a Cup victory.
Eight times Liverpool have won either the First or Second Division championships, but the nearest they have been to the Cup was in 1913-14, when they reached the final; they were beaten at the Crystal Palace by Burnley.
In that game a goal scored by Bert Freeman, the former leader of Liverpool’s local rivals, Everton, decided the issue.
Liverpool made a great Cup bid in the first post-war season, for they got to the semi-final only to find Burnley awaiting them again to repeat the 1-0 success.
That season Liverpool had to be content with the First Division championship, but here they are three seasons later back again, striving and straining for the same two honours.
Nicely placed
YES, and they are nicely placed for the League, for they have a two points lead and show little signs of cracking. Only once since they took over the leadership from the Wolves at the beginning of November have they lost it. Then it was for just one week only - to Manchester United.
The success of Liverpool is due in part to the fact that the players have not only ability, but the will to stand strain - remember that unbeaten run of 19 matches at the start of the season, which set up a new record on December 10. Their impregnability made every match a cuptie. Liverpool accepted the challenges eagerly, just as they are eager now to accept the challenge of Blackpool.
The side is the ideal blend of youth and experience, possessing amazing team spirit and that fighting streak which is so essential Only four members of the team cost Liverpool a penny- piece in transfer fees, the costliest being Albert Stubbins for whom they paid Newcastle United £12,500 in 1946.
Billy Fagan, from Preston North End, cost £8,000 in 1937, Phil Taylor, from Bristol Rovers, the present captain, cost a couple of thousand in 1935, and Cyril Sidlow, from the Wolves, £4,000 in 1946.
Home product
FOR the remainder it is a case of “home product,” for Spicer, Hughes and Payne are Liverpool-born; Lambert and Baron are from the Merseyside area; and Billy Liddell and Bobby Paisley, although coming from Fifeshire and Bishop Auckland respectively, went to Anfield as juniors and graduated through the junior teams.
Lambert, Spicer, Hughes, Paisley, Payne, Baron and Liddell did not play in any but the junior teams until after the war. And their cost? Under £500, which went as a donation for Paisley. Liverpool certainly stand out as a striking argument for those who contend that money in football cannot buy success.
What Blackpool have to fear, as much as the Liverpool players next Saturday, is the famous Anfield “Roar” which seems to inspire the men in red jerseys and strike fear into the hearts of the opposition.
On Merseyside they contend that the Roar is worth a goal start to Liverpool, and there may be truth in that contention if one reflects that Liverpool have yet to be defeated at home in 28 League and Cup matches this season.
ALL-TICKET MATCHES ARE NOT THE SOLUTION
They’re a paradise for spivs
By Clifford Greenwood
***
***
***
***
TWO years ago only it was since Blackpool played at Fulham in the 1948 Cup quarter-finals.
Yet transfers and casualties had in the meantime so shuffled Blackpool’s forces that of the men who played in the Cuptie, three only, Eddie Shimwell, Harry Johnston and Stan Mortensen, were in the First Division match two years later.
Fulham had seven survivors, if one counts Harry Freeman, the full-back, who early in the Cuptie was taken ill and was in hospital ward before half-time.
***
THE Blackpool team had a preview in London last weekend of the BBC's star act. “Take It From Here,” which has been booked for one of Blackpool’s summer season shows.
Their view is that it will be an unqualified success up in the North.
***
BOUND FOR RIO?
ONE or two reputations were tarnished in the Blackpool- Wolverhampton Cupties, writes Clifford Greenwood. But there was one man who came out of them with his name in front of the England selectors again.
I hear that there is a prospect that Harry Johnston, the Blackpool captain and wing-half, may be transferred from the Canadian tour and at least have trials with the 15 to 18 players who will ultimately go to Rio for the World Cup.
Stanley Matthews may be given a similar invitation.
Shortly after the Cup semifinals next month another selection will be made of most of the players destined for South America, but it will not, I am told, be until after the May internationals on the Continent that the team will be finally nominated for Rio.
The team will not leave England until June 19.
***
AFTER Bloomfield - road I should think that Craven Cottage is now the least pretentious ground in the First Division. Everything is packed into the smallest conceivable space
There is in one comer, above a players’ tunnel from which the teams unexpectedly appear almost on top of one of the comer flags, a pavilion which resembles a Victorian relic from Lord’s. The paddocks are as close to the line as are the paddocks at Blackpool.
And a curious sense of unreality is given to everything when beyond one of the low walls bordering the terraces the sails of the ships on the Thames are visible, slowly drifting by. Amazing to realise that there have been 49,000 people on this ground without any of them falling in the river.
***
Slater out of Cuptie
THERE is no question, I think, of W. J. Slater playing for Blackpool in next weekend’s Cuptie at Anfield.
As an amateur he is a free agent, and could decline the invitation to play in the international classic of the year, England v. Scotland, which coincides with the Cup quarter - finals, but he could scarcely be expected to decline it, and nobody at Blackpool would ever seek to persuade him to forfeit such an honour.
It will be an all-professional team in white jerseys again at Liverpool. The major problem facing Manager Joe Smith is: Will it be a full-strength team? The odds earlier this week were only about even.
***
Scots selector watches Kelly and Farm
IN Blackpool today to watch the Blackpool - Sunderland match at Bloomfield - road was Scottish FA selector Mr. Andrew Cunningham.
Official reason for his visit is undisclosed.
Off the record he is here to watch Blackpool’s left- half Hugh Kelly and goalkeeper George Farm.
***
THERE’S FUN BEHIND THE SCENES
Dressing room pranks help team spirit
By Stanley Mortensen
Leave a Comment