2 September 1946 Blackpool 4 Brentford 2


FEW TEAMS COULD HAVE HELD BLACKPOOL

Blackpool 4, Brentford 2. 


By “Spectator”

IN theory Brentford should have hammered Blackpool last night.

The London team had everything which once beat Blackpool - a tall heavyweight defence and a line of forwards who were after the ball the second it was released.

Last season it would have been about Brentford 4, Blackpool 2.

It was that score, but in reverse this time, writes “Spectator.”

Brentford took the lead, too, and held a definite command for 20 minutes. But this was a different Blackpool.

That 5ft. 7in. and 10st 10lb, of atomic energy called Stan Mortensen tore a path in a compact and composed defence in the 30th minute, and a shot at goal in a 100. Afterwards for a time Brentford went to bits were stampeded out of the match, and lost two goals to Buchan in the next four minutes.

THUNDERBOLT SHOTS

The thunderbolt shooting of McIntosh, made it 4-1 before Brentford reduced the lead from a gift penalty. 

No, it would never have happened a few months ago.

There was an inclination to leave unguarded the right wing of Brentford’s fast-for-goal attack. Now and again, too, the close pass crept into the forwards’ game. Otherwise, after those first 20 minutes, scarcely anything went wrong.

Sibley is so vastly improved as to be hardly recognisable as the full-back of last season. He mishit a clearance for the first time when the game had. been in progress for over an hour.

The rest was first-rate.

The half-backs were a. grand line, too, with Johnston playing the 30th minute, and shot a goal one of those unexcited calculating games which a captain ought to play.

Jim Blair was not the forward who baffled Huddersfield a couple of days earlier, for he was slow and hesitant.

Eastham was a success, first half especially, in an unfamiliar position, and Mortensen and Buchan had no equals on the field, one racing after everything and the other creating positions all the time by adroit and subtle football.

 Few sides could have held this Blackpool last night.

Teams:

BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Sibley, Lewis, Buchan (T), Suart, Johnston, Eastham, Buchan (W), Mortensen, Blair and McIntosh.

BRENTFORD: Crozier, Gorman, Oliver, Scott, Smith, Manley, Hopkins McAloon, Durrant, Wilkins and Roberts.

Result: 

BLACKPOOL 4 (Mortensen, Buchan 2, McIntosh) 

BRENTFORD 2 (Durrant, Wilkins, p.)






Blackpool FC Officials Took No Risks

Hundreds were Shut Out At Bloomfield-road Game

Hundreds of people who arrived one minute after the kick-off found themselves too late to see Blackpool’s football game with Brentford at Bloomfield-road last night. 

They were shut out of the ground when, for the first time since Blackpool’s record gate of 31,783 against Leicester City, on September 18th, 1937, officials gave orders for the entrances to be closed.  

LONG queues were packing the turnstiles at the north end of the ground when the instructions to close were given. 

Afterwards there was a rush to the Bloomfield-road end where supporters hoped to ‘find one or two turnstiles still working. 

Those who got there first were lucky. They gained admission to the match just before the last entrance was closed, 10 minutes after the game had started. 

Later on a few hundred people were marshalled through the players‘ entrance and were filtered into paddocks which had not become overcrowded.

“Bloomfield-road was not filled to capacity. It was just comfortably full but we closed the gates because we are determined there shall be no repetition of the Burnden Park disaster here," an official of Blackpool FC told “The Evening Gazette" after the match.   

CAREFUL WATCH

“We kept a careful watch the whole time the crowds were pouring in,” he added. “It was obvious half an hour before kick-off that the gates would have to be closed. We shut down the ground gradually, section by section, and were inspecting the embankments all the time on the look-out for. overcrowding.” The Chief Constable (Mr. H. Barnes) went to the ground with Supt. C. W. Johnson to check up on the arrangements made for dealing with the thousands of spectators. 

Mr. Barnes told “The Evening Gazette" that repair work carried out at the ground during the summer had strengthened the stands and terraces and had stood up to the test of the first big crowd of the season. 

Before the match hundreds of people trying to get home on trams and buses running in the direction of Bloomfield-road were unlucky. 

There were amazing scenes as the football crowds approached the ground. “Just like a Cup-tie,” someone said and everybody else agreed. It was a great start to the season. 


The Crowd And The Cash 

IT was a “big money" match. 

Officials of the club reported today that the attendance was 24,230, and the gate receipts £2329. 

If the receipts are not a record for a League match they are not far short. 




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