25 March 1950 Blackpool 1 Birmingham City 1
Last-minute point-saver in dismal show
PUNCH MISSING
Blackpool 1, Birmingham City 1
By “Clifford Greenwood”
THERE was the Grand National at Aintree this afternoon. There was the second Cup semi-final at Maine-road. There was the Birmingham City match at Blackpool.
The stakes were as big in this game as in the other two events - a prospect of a championship for Blackpool, the menace of relegation for the City.
It was a day fit for Test cricket, with the sun shining and the afternoon, in spite of a breeze, as mild as if a June day had crept into March
Both teams were as selected, Neither was at full strength. Johnny Crosland was back at centre-half for Blackpool, but, with W. J. Slater in the fashion with a chill the versatile Scot, Willie McIntosh, who can play anywhere in a forward line, appeared as the partner of the young South African, Bill Perry.
BLUE AND WHITE
A few dozen visitors from the Midlands, massed in a little colony, made a patch of blue and white on the eastern terraces, and there were 22,000 or 23,000 people on the ground when the players took the field.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Wright; Johnston, Crosland. Kelly; Hobson, Mortensen. Mudie, McIntosh, Perry.
BIRMINGHAM CITY: Merrick; Badham, Jennings; Boyd, r Atkins, Ferris; Stewart, Dorman, Dailey, Brennan, Berry.
Referee: Mr. W. H E. Evans (Liverpool).
First half
Blackpool lost the toss and defended a north goal which had the sun slanting across it. In an unexciting and almost slow-motion opening the game moved for a time on this goal. Farm held a high centre from the City’s right wing to repel the second of three successive raids built in this quarter, and, in fact, the Blackpool forwards were only once in the game in the first three minutes.
Then Mudie unexpectedly took a fast throw-in and gave Hobson position to cross a ball which Atkins took away from McIntosh as the Scot moved a fraction late to it.
Immediately the City won a comer which was worth nothing as Dailey headed high over the bar. Still, nearly all the pace and whatever order revealed itself remained in the City’s football in these preliminary skirmishes.
Wright made one clearance, juggling with the ball audaciously on his head, to halt one raid by Birmingham’s aggressive right wing, and another.
All the time Blackpool’s were either missing their men or being played a shade too short.
One had the impression that Blackpool were going slowly into gear this afternoon, and yet in the sixth minute the Birmingham goal was definitely, if unexpectedly, in peril, when Johnston’s long throw-in hit the baked mud in a packed goal area and bounced so high that Atkins was glad to clear it wherever he could hit it.
PERRY’S CENTRE
Brilliant clearance by Jennings
A minute later, too. Perry who had seen singularly little of the ball, took a pass away from his full-back by sheer resolution before crossing a high, fast centre which Jennings, on the other wing, cleared brilliantly.
Two minutes later the City were near to the lead. The Irish international Bob Brennan made position perfectly for his partner, steered forward a pass inside Shimwell, and left Berry to chase it.
Within shooting distance of Farm, and all on his own, Berry missed it completely as the bail bounced away from him.
Within 15 minutes gone Blackpool’s football had still to reveal a plan, had still to move without the short pass shackling it.
INTERCEPTED
Mudie twice mastered this elusive bouncing ball, worked it perfectly, waited for a man, to move into position for 'the pass, and in the end had the pass intercepted by a Birmingham team first on the ball in defence and still assertive in attack.
Bill Perry was still hunting for the ball, seldom being given it on his wing.
Yet it was the other flank which nearly gave a goal to Blackpool with exactly 20 minutes gone.
Mortensen and Mudie in a rapid exchange of passes built a raid which ended in the wing man crossing a perfect centre which Merrick snatched away by the near post as Mudie leaped past him over the line.
Another minute and with the ball at last being released fast Hobson lobbed forward a pass which escaped Mortensen and Mudie almost in the jaws of the goal and was eventually stabbed out by the centre-forward.
CITY IN FRONT
Berry centre - and a goal for Stewart
In the 25th minute the City went in front with as neat a goal as you would see in a month of Saturdays.
It was made by the wing forwards. Berry was, I think, shade faster to the ball than Shimwell had expected, swerved away from the full-back, put the ball away from him in the tackle, raced on alone, and crossed a centre which raked a wide-open Blackpool defence.
On to it on the other wing JACK STEWART raced, and shot it past the deserted Farm within a split second of reaching it.
This lead was, I think, about deserved. Blackpool’s football was still not recognisable for the game the team played at Old Trafford a week ago.
One could, in fact, after that Manchester exploit, call the first half-hour a Blackpool anti-climax.
FEW THREATS
After the goal there was scarcely one attack by Blackpool with the promise of a goal in it, and not many by Birmingham, either.
Yet still the City always seemed to be playing with a greater aggression, and Blackpool with something in reserve, often, in fact, at an almost leisurely pace and with the short pass still being employed to excess.
A corner was won on the right, and from it the alert Mudie had a shot which cannoned back off Atkins as the centre-half cast himself into its path.
Again, too, Johnston had a raid on his own nearly half the length of the field.
Within another minute, with full-scale pressure at last being hurled at the Birmingham goal, position was created for another assault which was lost as Mudie’s pass missed the waiting Mortensen by yards.
PASSES ASTRAY
That was happening nearly all the time - a raid being built and the last pass monotonously going wrong.
Twice inside a minute a goal to make it 1-1 was near.
The first time Mudie was halted by force of numbers after a sinuous corkscrew foray on his own, and a minute later Hobson shot a ball which Merrick punched over the bar for one of the half’s few corners.
Yet in the last minute before half-time it was the Blackpool goal that had the escape. Birmingham making an excited demand for a penalty as the ball appeared to hit Wright before bouncing off him into Farm’s waiting hands.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Birmingham City 1.
SECOND HALF
There was an ironical cheer when Perry was given a pass in the first minute of the half. Again he revealed that he is not afraid to take the ball up to his full-back.
That time he lost it, and in the next minute, too, he stabbed a ball intended for a centre a long way off the target Still, there were early signs that Blackpool meant business, and in the half’s opening minutes raid followed raid at a speed and with an intensity which had never been revealed before halftime.
The first time Birmingham raided Wright was in the wars, catapulting over the line and finishing underneath the bench where the ambulance squad sit.
He was soon back, however, refusing any treatment.
STALEMATE RAIDS
And the Blackpool forward line, which had Mortensen drifting in and out of the centre-forward position, was soon back on the offensive, too. two raids in rapid succession finishing in a stalemate as Hobson’s centres hit his full-back.
The purpose was there now. but still little plan and, in fact, it required a grand headed clearance by Crosland to halt one Birmingham raid which the speed of the City’s wing men created.
There was, in fact, no test for Merrick in the Birmingham goal in spite of all Blackpool’s sustained pressure until from a corner Kelly shot a ball which the City’s goalkeeper held magnificently.
ACCIDENT
Birmingham forward carried off
Twelve minutes of the half had gone, and there was an accident in front of the Blackpool goal which cost Birmingham a man.
Wright and Dorman leaped at a flying ball, collided in mid-air, and fell to earth as the ball rose high off one of them and almost scraped the bar as Farm leaped at it.
The full-back was soon in the game again.
The Birmingham forward appeared to be a serious casualty, was carried over the line, and ultimately into the dressing room by the ambulance men.
Immediately Blackpool won comers on both flares, the second being repelled only after Shimwell had thundered in a shot which Merrick clutched to his chest with two forwards racing in on him.
PENALTY CALL
Within another minute, as Mudie took Perry’s pass out on the wing and crossed the ball, there was a hullabaloo for a penalty as the centre hit a Birmingham man’s hand.
It was, as I saw it, the sort of unintentional offence for which Blackpool were given a penalty last week.
Referee “Bill” Evans said “No,” and I think he was correct.
Ten-men Birmingham were under relentless pressure afterwards, their depleted forward line in the game only in breakaways.
All the Blackpool guns were firing at last, but nearly all the firing was off the beam until Johnston, twice in rapid succession gave his forwards a lesson on how to shoot, nearly brushing the white-wash off the post before missing the bar by inches.
With 20 minutes left the match Was resolving itself into one question “Could desperate Birmingham hold out?”
Mortensen by that time had gone centre-forward presumably for the remainder of the match, but there were few indications with five of the last 20 minutes gone that Birmingham’s defence could be taken by storm by Blackpool's lightweight forwards.
Still, in one raid a corner was won almost direct from Johnston’s free-kick, and from it Merrick made the save of the match leaping to and punching over the bar a shot at him at a great pace by Perry.
This corner was followed by another, which made three in a minute in something which was beginning to resemble a siege, with even Shimwell at times up among the forwards.
Reports reached the Press box that Don Dorman, the Birmingham inside-right, had been taken to Victoria Hospital suffering from concussion.
PRESSURE, BUT -
The pressure continued, but always seemed fated to end in the fiasco which had been threatening all the afternoon.
As the game entered on its last 10 minutes it was actually Birmingham’s four forwards who were raiding and, on the right wing, offering a big menace.
Blackpool’s last bolt appeared to have been shot by that time.
Then with less than 30 seconds left Blackpool snatched a point. Another corner came. There was scarcely time to take it. Perry flighted it across perfectly. There was chaos and confusion everywhere in front of Merrick.
All I saw from the Press box was the ball passing out by the far post and that remarkable opportunist STANLEY MORTENSEN hurling himself at it, and in a flying dive heading it wide of the Birmingham goalkeeper’s left hand.
There was only time to centre the ball afterwards.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 89)
BIRMINGHAM 1 (Stewart 25)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
BLACKPOOL, who were expected to win by a distance today, had to make a photo-finish of it even to take a point.
They would, I think, be content with that point and unquestionably ought to be. I and 23,000 other people had given the game up as lost when Stan Mortensen gate-crashed his 22nd goal of the season with actually less than half a minute left on the clock.
Birmingham could have won both points, and deserved them.
Nearly all the afternoon the City’s defence was too compact for the Blackpool forwards and the City’s front line, too, moved with a precision which Blackpool seldom equalled, persistent as Blackpool’s pressure was on 10 men in the last half-hour.
FINE FULL-BACK
THEY call it the Baseball Ground at Derby. There must be times, I think, when Blackpool regret that they play football there, writes Clifford Greenwood.
For this is one of those grounds where Blackpool teams seldom win It was 3-1 for the County last season, and 1-0 in an Easter match in 1948 - the winning goal, by the way, was the last goal Raich Carter ever scored for the County - and even if the 1946-47 match was won it was only in the last minute that Jim McIntosh shot the deciding goal.
It seems strange, reviewing the glamorous personnel fielded by the County, that they are not higher in the table, for, assuredly, if big names means anything, the County ought to be.
Yet the records reveal that four teams have gone to the Baseball Ground this season and returned home with a couple of points each, and three other visiting teams have drawn.
In such circumstances, therefore, the present Blackpool team, which can spell “surrender” but has nothing whatever else to do with the word, must have something other than a remote chance on this ground next weekend.
Obviously the plan to be pursued must have as its primary targets for the afternoon the subduing of that volatile personality, Billy Steel, and that scoring centre-forward, Jack Stamps.
Once hold those two, and the forwards may be mastered, and a defence which has recently lost Leon Leuty - and 47 goals before today’s match - appears to present no insoluble problem.
It is a big test, but not a forlorn one, for Blackpool on the eve of the three-matches-in-four-days Easter trial by endurance.
GREATEST WIN FOR YEARS OPENS WAY TO HONOURS
Away games test for Blackpool
By Clifford Greenwood
***
Now they're sorry
WHERE Manchester United guilty of a major blunder in advancing the date of the Liverpool match at Old Trafford from the last day of the season to a midweek fixture last week?
Nobody seemed to think so when it was being assumed that the United would win two points from Liverpool and two more from Blackpool - all in four days - and finish the week way out in front in the championship race.
But they were talking differently after the match last weekend, when the two games had been worth one point instead of four.
People, I know, are always so wise after the event. Yet it was playing with fire to concentrate two such key games into one week, and now the United have been scorched.
Why was it done? Because both Liverpool and the United are going to the States for a close-season tour, and leaving May 6 open was convenient for both of them.
***
HOW many of the 1948 Cup Final cast were playing at Old Trafford a week ago?
Manchester United had eight in last week’s team - the goalkeeper, both fullbacks, two of the half-backs and three of the forwards. Blackpool had only four of the Wembley team - Eddie Shimwell. Harry Johnston, Hugh Kelly, and the solitary forward, Stan Mortensen.
***
THE MORTENSEN STORY — No. 18
Internationally speaking -
SOME FAMOUS GOALS
By Stanley Mortensen
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