4 February 1950 Blackpool 0 Manchester City 0
Passes astray in scrappy game
LITTLE PUNCH
Blackpool 0, Manchester City 0
By “Clifford Greenwood”
THERE was a time when a Manchester City match at Blackpool would have packed the ground. Those days apparently are gone - for a time.
This afternoon, with the City’s fortunes at such a low ebb that not one away match had been won this season, and with Blackpool preoccupied with the Cup, paddock tickets, scarce and nearly as precious as rubies a week ago, were still on sale half an hour before the kick-off.
There were not at that time 20,000 people on the ground. Afterwards the attendance increased rapidly, but obviously these Manchester City fixtures are not for Blackpool what they used to be.
After playing in 135 out of the last 137 League games and Cup- ties, Eric Hayward was out of the Blackpool team for the first time for 15 months.
As a result the team seemed almost unfamiliar, even if there were such an understudy as Johnnie Crosland to go into the gap.
YOUNG LEADER
The City forwards were led by 22-vear-old Billy Jones, a Liverpool recruit who was playing in his first First Division game of the season, with Billy Spurdle, the £12,500 signing from Oldham Athletic, making his bow in the Citv's colours.
It was not so cold as it has been. The turf was soaked by recent rains, and its apparently firm surface was, I suspect deceptive.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Crosland, Kelly; Matthews, McCall, Mortensen. Davidson, Adams.
MANCHESTER CITY: Trautmann; Phillips, Westwood; Spurdle, Fagan, Walsh; Oakes, Hart. Jones, Black. Clarke.
Referee: Mr. R. P. Hartley (Burnley).
THE GAME
Before the teams appeared in front of nearly 25,000, Stanley the duck was given a dress rehearsal for his Molineux appearance next week.
Harry Johnston celebrated his return to the captaincy by winning the toss.
Burt Trautmann, the Manchester City goalkeeper, the first German ever to play on the Blackpool ground in my memory, was in the Spion Kop goal. It was the other goal which was first menaced, Shimwell in the first half-minute conceding a corner to halt the City’s left wing.
It was an uncommonly long time, too, before the ball was cleared from the flag, and in the end it was left to Crosland to break up the raid.
Yet when the Blackpool forwards escaped the left wing built two raids in rapid succession. Adams crossing one centre which was a shade too fast for his partner before the man on the wing flighted over another ball which the fair - haired Trautmann held with complete confidence as he crouched close to the far post.
OFFSIDE DECISION
Afterwards the Blackpool front line raided continuously, one of those raids ending with a questionable offside decision against Davidson as this industrious Scot raced after a long-distance clearance by Shimwell.
Still, in spite of this brief pressure, a goal was near the next time the City’s front line went into action. Farm falling on his knees to hold a ball headed low at him and fast by Black.
And a minute later it required all Crosland’s speed - and he has plenty of it - to halt Jones as he went after another centre from the City’s fast, aggressive left-wing.
There were few signs in the subsequent football that the City were a team near the foot of the table. Twice, in fact, Crosland’s pace had again to be employed to close gaps which the speed of the City’s forwards was opening.
BLACKPOOL RAIDS
Shooting positions reached, chances missed
There was a little too much whistle for offences major and minor, and sometimes, as I saw it, for no offences at all.
Blackpool’s football, without being too convincing, was still creating shooting positions.
Davidson missed one bare sort of chance before McCall, working nonstop like the other inside man hit an awkwardly-bouncing ball high over the bar.
With 15 minutes gone it was about 50-50, and in that time one had scarcely seen Stanley Matthews in action at all.
The City were not on this opening quarter of an hour a team destined for relegation, and, in fact, in the 16th minute might have gone in front if Black had not lashed the ball high over the bar.
A minute later, too, Clarke nearly tore open the side net with a shot of almost venomous pace.
GREAT TACKLES
In City raids which followed it required great and desperate tackles by Garrett and Johnston within half a minute of each other to dispossess City forwards moving on to fast forward passes.
For a time afterwards it continued to be nearly all the City, with Blackpool’s passes missing their men repeatedly until at last Johnston found Matthews with a gem of a pass and the wing forward immediately lost the ball to a tackle which had no compromise in it.
Yet before the raid was cleared Fagan went thundering across to this wing to boot the ball completely out of the ground, which was presumably the measure of this centre half-back’s respect for the man on Blackpool’s right wing.
In continuing City pressure Crosland once stabbed back a ball too short, and in the end brilliantly retrieved his error as the alert Jones raced on to the pass.
CLOSE CALLS
Each goal has a big escape
Another minute - and nobody could complain that this game had no action and colour - it was nearly 1-0 against the City.
Adams raced away from his full-back and crossed a low centre which was beaten out once before Mortensen hooked It inches over the bar of an empty goal as he fell backwards under a tackle.
Three minutes later, exactly as the first half-hour ended, the Blackpool goal had its biggest escape.
There was a City raid down the centre. Crosland halted it, saw a forward tearing in on him, but obviously did not see his own goalkeeper racing out to take the ball.
In the end, the centre-half steered backwards a pass to a goalkeeper who was not there, stood watching, as 25.000 other people watched in silence, too, this ball bounce slowly towards an empty goal and miss a post by inches.
GOAL NEAR
The City should, I think, have been in front by this time and were, in fact, near to the lead again in the 33rd minute.
Black gave his partner a perfect pass inside the full-back, and Clarke crossed a fast ball which skidded away from the falling Farm, beat a couple of City forwards, and passed out by the far post.
Yet as often happens it was the other team that nearly snatched the lead and snatched it with a goal which would, in Jimmy Edwards’ phrase, have been a good one.
McCall accepted a pass from his partner and instead of making the expected pass shot barely over the bar at a pace which had Trautmann beaten.
It was the best shot a Blackpool forward had made all the half.
MATTHEWS
Brilliant run threatens City goal
Then in one brilliant move, all glitter and sparkle, Matthews careered across the field from one wing to the other and raced to the line before crossing a centre which Fagan was glad to clear anywhere.
Whenever Matthews was in the game, which was increasingly often as the interval approached, the City’s goal was in peril.
In one of these raids Trautmann fell forward to the right winger’s fast forward centre, and stood almost on his head in the mud as he snatched the ball away from the challenging Mortensen.
A couple of minutes later he made another clearance almost as theatrical at the centre-forward’s feet as this time the leader went haring after a copybook forward pass by Adams.
In between these two raids Black had shot wide.
These Maine-road forwards had missed too many of these chances in the first 45 minutes.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Manchester City 0.
SECOND HALF
Farm was soon in action after the interval, falling full length almost in the first minute to reach a ball hit back at him fast by Garrett.
Within a minute Matthews won a corner and won it by pace and craft, and when inside the next minute the City raided on the right Farm held Oakes’ cross shot brilliantly.
It was, in the old phrase, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Neither team in the early minutes of the half could Achieve anything approaching a complete command.
Backwards and forwards the game surged.
One minute Kelly cut through superbly on his own before crossing a centre which Fagan reached to make an any port-in-a-storm clearance.
The next minute Crosland headed down short a ball which Black shot back at such a pace that Farm had to make one of the great saves of the afternoon by holding the ball brilliantly under the bar.
KELLY’S PASS
The next minute Kelly opened a raid with a fine crossfield pass to Matthews, and from it Matthews won another corner which was as profitless to Blackpool as corners always seem to be.
Yet there were signs at this time that Blackpool were pulling out all the stops at last.
In rapid succession Trautmann beat out centres from Matthews and Mortensen, the second after the leader had hooked the ball over his bodyguard’s head to make position brilliantly for himself.
All the time afterwards the City were going back in a retreat which, under pressure, revealed weaknesses in the Manchester defence.
Everywhere Blackpool were moving faster and with greater decision to the ball. Blackpool at last, in fact, appeared to mean business.
WINGS CHECKED
Shimwell and Crosland in grand clearances
Shimwell made a succession of grand clearances to hammer back City’s left wing, and Crosland twice halted the right wing.
A greater purpose was still revealing itself in Blackpool’s football, but passes were still wandering off the target, the inside men being the chief offenders, and it was seldom that a concerted advance was built.
Kelly was hurt as he was obviously just coming into his game, and with 20 minutes left Blackpool had him hobbling on the left wing, with Davidson among the half-backs.
Still, even with this formation. Johnston and Matthews in partnership forced a corner, and this time when the ball was crossed Trautmann punched at it and for once missed it, and for a bare second his goal was open.
YARDS WIDE
Nothing happened, however, and within a minute Oaks, racing down the centre after a long forward pass, shot yards wide as he fell under a challenge.
There was still little in it, and nothing whatever on the score board, as the game approached its last quarter-hour.
Five minutes from time Matthews zigzagged past four men before rolling to Adams a pass to which the left wing forward moved a shade late, with the goal gaping in front of him.
The City, content with a point, only the fourth this team have won away from home this season, were at times in unashamed retreat to hold this point in the closing minutes.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 0,
MANCHESTER CITY 0
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
THIS was not one of those games which will be talked about for a long time.
The City had a lot of it, sufficient of it in the first half to have been in front by half-time. Afterwards Blackpool’s football had a new punch in it, and in spite of the positions supplied by Stanley Matthews, the oldest and still the best forward on the field, nobody could do anything in those positions.
Both the inside men made too many false passes for fluent movements ever to be built, and there was not, in fact, another forward in the line who ever threatened to break down a fast- tackling City defence.
The Blackpool defence served its purpose. Harry Johnston was tireless in defence, but fewer passes came from this half-back line than I have seen this season.
Johnny Crosland had nothing wrong with him, and such speed that it redeemed his occasional tendency to head his clearances short
GARRETT’S GAME
I thought Garrett had a convincing match all the afternoon, and Shimwell, in the last 45 minutes, nearly put out of circulation a wing which earlier had been eluding him.
Farm was as good a goalkeeper as he has been in every match I have seen him play during the last few weeks - and at times he required to be.
Blackpool’s game was too close at times on a ground never suited to such a game, but the Blackpool forwards, neither in front of goal nor in the open, were a scoring force today.
This was the first away point won by the City since October 22
WOLVES' IN-AND-OUT FORM MAY GIVE BLACKPOOL CUP CHANCE
From Our Wolverhampton Football Correspondent
THIS GLOOM IS ALL SO PREMATURE
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 4 February 1950
WHY ALL THIS DEPRESSION ABOUT NEXT WEEKEND S CUPTIE?
The Blackpool public have become so accustomed to their team meeting and slaying rivals of no high repute that as soon as the Cup lottery sends them out of town to meet a team of relatively high class the reaction to the news is expressed in the terse phrase of the war years, “They’ve had it! ”
I’ve heard that and similar comments all the week since the fifth round draw was published on Monday.
There is little to warrant them.
There is, admittedly, the indifferent game against Doncaster Rovers a week ago. Nobody at headquarters seems inclined to excuse it, and, frankly, it was to this reporter almost incomprehensible.
A pitch in the grip of frost played havoc with whatever team plan Blackpool may have prepared. But the fact is - and it would be ungracious not to admit it - that £he Rovers adapted their game to the day as Blackpool never adapted theirs.
One of those days
IT was one of those days for Blackpool. Every team has one. Now that it is, so to speak, out of their system it may do Blackpool a bit of good, and will, I am convinced, send them into the fray next weekend intent on redeeming whatever reputation was lost against the gallant Rovers.
There is, definitely, no reason whatever because of this one fall from grace - even if it accentuated certain forward problems which may yet this season have to be remedied - to think defeat must inevitably be Blackpool’s lot next weekend.
Manager Joe Smith, who views his football with the stem impartiality of a realist, refuses to think so.
The big ’uns
"We can’t always come first out of the hat, and we can’t always expect to meet teams in a lower division,” he said.
"It wouldn’t, in any case, be good for the morale of any team.
"Why,” said this old warrior who captained Cup conquerors at Wembley, “we used to say at Bolton when they asked us whom we’d prefer to meet, ‘Why, the big ’uns every time. Let’s get them out of the way first!"
That is, unquestionably, the stuff to give the troops before a Cuptie, and a little of it would, I think, be sufficient to cure Blackpool of any sort of inferiority complex which the semi-fiasco of the Doncaster match may have induced.
Away record
BUT there are facts and figures too, apart from managerial "pep” speeches, which should encourage Blackpool in next week’s assignment.
For this Blackpool team away from home has not only played football which it has seldom approached on its own doorstep, as I can testify, but it has won at Portsmouth, Maine-road, Birmingham, Huddersfield, and Charlton, which is no mean sequence, and has collected a total of 14 points from 12 games on tour this season.
Cupties are, I know, different from League matches. I always think that to be at home in a Cuptie is nearly the equivalent of a goal start, or ought to be.
Blind pessimism
AND yet, in spite of that, I think also that Blackpool must have more than an outside chance in next week’s match.
A lot of people said a week ago that Doncaster Rovers had lost the tie at Blackpool before ever it began.
Events proved them wrong. And events may also prove wrong the people who are saying now that Blackpool are doomed before the teams go into action next weekend.
Blind pessimism is often as stupid as bland optimism.
EASTER MAY DECIDE IN CENTRAL LEAGUE
EVERYTHING is sorting itself out in the Central League for a couple of key matches which may decide championship during, the Easter weekend.
Blackpool, the present leaders, have Burnley, the reigning champions and closest challengers for the title, as visitors on Good Friday and play the return match at Turf Moor on Easter Monday.
The results of those two games may settle the championship problem.
Blackpool, I think, were wise to play at Derby last weekend the match which would otherwise have been played on the Saturday between these two Burnley fixtures.
Now everything can be concentrated on the two Burnley matches assuming, of course, that there is no big upset at the top of the table in the next two months.
***
BILL ORMOND, the wing forward who left Blackpool for Oldham Athletic a few weeks ago, scored his first goal for the Athletic in the Third Division in the match with Darlington last weekend.
Watched in Army football by Mr. Sam Jones and on his report signed for Blackpool.
Ormond never fulfilled his early promise.
Yet he was always content at Bloomfield-road, and it can now be disclosed that when another club made Blackpool an approach for his signature last season with a promise of first- team football he said he would prefer to remain beside the seaside.
“I’m happy enough here,” he said. Which was a nice compliment to the club which in his own interests he had to leave in the end.
***
HOW soon the public forget!
There has not, I hear, been the response to the Andy Curran Testimonial Fund which its chief sponsor, Coun. George Peeks expected.
The younger generation knew only the name of this former Blackpool centre-half who in the mid-20’s gave as loyal service to the club as a player has ever given.
But there is still a generation which once admired him and often cheered him, and now in these days when illness and adversity have beset him should remember him.
It was not at Andy Curran’s instigation that the fund was established. He would probably have preferred to remain anonymous and unnoticed in these dark days. But a “Thank you” at such a time is worth such a lot. Donations should be addressed to the Manager. Williams Deacon's Bank, Talbot Square, Blackpool.
***
Understudies Lawton
GEOFFREY BRUNT, a young centre-forward who was playing for Blackpool's “A” team last season but was unable to remain in in these parts - he is employed in one of those police laboratories where they solve crime by test-tube - has had greatness thrust upon him this season.
The forensic laboratory where he is now engaged is close to Nottingham, and, I hear, he is on the County’s books, is the reserve team’s leading scorer and first understudy for Tommy Lawton.
He has had one or two goals already in the Third Division.
***
Wednesday shock
IF Blackpool should be in a drawn Cuptie next weekend - and, as hope springs eternal, there seems to be a majority of folk in these parts who think they will be - the replay would be on the following Wednesday, February 15.
This would be the first midweek Cuptie played in Blackpool since the famous Luton match in 1937. But why bring that up?
For the Town, after playing a 3-3 draw at Luton, came to Blackpool, and when everybody sat back waiting for a massacre, won 2-1. It was probably the biggest sensation ever in Blackpool’s Cuptie career between the wars.
***
ONE for the record books. If Eddie Shimwell, the Blackpool full-back, had not been hurt in the season’s second game and missed the next four matches, he would have been making his 100th League appearance for Blackpool at Manchester this afternoon.
Now, if he keeps out of the wars, his 100th First Division game for the club will be at Highbury in the Arsenal game on October 22.
***
THERE is only one other Blackpool forward besides Stanley Mortensen who has a double figure total of goals to his name this season in the First Division or the Central League
Little Jackie Mudie qualified for the honour with his winning goal, his 10th of the season, at Derby last week.
This leader is smaller than a centre - forward ought to be, unless he happens to be called Hughie Gallagher, and yet he keeps on scoring, and one of these days, however few his inches, he is destined for a first team chance.
***
THE MORTENSEN STORY — No. 11
The Dynamos - and was no “Love in the mist" affair
ALLISON PLEA WAS VETOED
By Stanley Mortensen
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