7 September 1946 Blackpool 2 Wolves 0
Front-of-Goal Chance Taken - BUT LITTLE IN IT
Blackpool 2, Wolves 0.
By “Spectator”
STANLEY CULLIS, the England centre-half and Wolverhampton Wanderers’ captain, had an X-ray examination a few hours before the match at Blackpool this afternoon.
It revealed that no bone had been chipped in the ankle he
hurt at Grimsby in midweek.
“But,” said Mr. Ted Vizard, the Wanderers’ manager, “it is
not wise to play him today. He would be fit by Wednesday, but we are taking no
chances."
Galley deputised at centre-half, and Crook, a young wing
half, who often played for the Wanderers last season, was given his first game
in big League football.
Ramscar played at inside-left instead of Dorsett.
Blackpool fielded the selected team.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Sibley, Lewis, Buchan (T), Suart, Johnston, Eastham, Buchan (W), Mortensen, Blair (J) and McIntosh.
WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS: Williams, Morris, McLean, Crook, Galley,
Wright, Hancocks, Pye, Westcott, Ramscar and Mullen,
Referee: Mr. A. Baker (Crewe).
I think the people were packed closer than at the Brentford match.
The attendance probably approached 27,000 when the teams appeared, the Wolves
in white because of a colour clash.
THE GAME
Blackpool won the toss and defended the north goal. There
was no wind—but a lot of excitement, which cut the early football to ribbons.
Lewis made a sound clearance to repel the Wolves’ first
advance on the right.
The first goalkeeper in action was Williams, who dived at a
ball headed low at him by Buchan (W.) with Mortensen racing in.
Blackpool's raids continued.
In the fifth minute, in a fast counter-raid, Pye, the tall
young forward from Nottingham, raced away from Blackpool’s defence and shot
into the net, but offered no objection as Mr. Baker refused the goal for
offside.
There was little in it with 10 minutes gone, except that the
Wanderers forwards shot every time they reached distance, shot fast, too.
Blackpool were playing in the first quarter of an hour to a plan
which stood out a mile. It sas “Give it to Mortensen.” It was not coming of,
even if the Wanderers "were forced to concede four corners, two of them
under desperate pressure.
Another corner came when a shot which might have scored hit a pack of men and cannoned off them inches wide of the post.
There was a lot to admire and plenty of menace, too, in the
Wanderers’ less frequent open advances.
In one of these tearaway breakaways Lewis dispossessed
Westcott with the centre-forward racing to accept Mullen’s pass in a scoring
position.
Afterwards, the fast Wolverhampton forwards were often in
the game.
For the second time in the half, in a Blackpool attack. McIntosh
crossed a low ball which two Blackpool forwards could not reach. with the goal
gaping.
The Wanderers might, or might not, have been missing Cullis. There was nothing wrong with Galley, a born footballer in everything that he did.
For a time it was a goalkeeper’s holiday. Then Williams, in a big leap, punched over the
bar a centre crossed from the left wing by Mortensen, who was still chasing
after everything.
Once, from Eastham’s pass, he hooked a ball wide of the far post, with no other forward in position to walk it over. the line.
Yet it was the Blackpool goal which had the big escape of
the half.
Mullen, all on his own raced 30 yards, forced Wallace to
leave his goal, and shot slowly at the untenanted line - so slowly that Suart
appeared from nowhere and cleared from almost under the bar.
Another couple of minutes, and Suart cleared again, with the
goal wide open behind him.
It was all-out Wolves pressure, With Blackpool’s goal in constant Peril.
THE LEAD
Then in a breakaway in three moves, Blackpool snatched the
lead five minutes before half- time.
Mortensen opened the movement with a pass to Buchan (W.). The
inside-right put Eastham in possession.
'With a quarter of the field open for him and the Wolverhampton
defence, for once, out of position EASTHAM cut inside, swerved a full-back, and
with his-left foot calmly glided the ball wide of Williams.
Two minutes later it might have been 2-0, as Blair, in an
unmarked position_ blazed a shot which Williams with a cat's leap lifted over
the bar.
Half-time: Blackpool 1, Wolves 0
SECOND HALF
The Wanderers won two corners in the first two minutes of the
second half. Neither led anywhere, but the Wolves continued to raid and Suart
continued to halt them.
Yet at the end of it all Blackpool raided for the first time
in the half and had the ball in the net for a disallowed goal with the Wolves’
defence scattered again.
It was another right wing exchange which built the raid and
Mortensen completed it in front of an open goal as Mr. Baker's whistle refused
a goal, presumably for offside.
It was still a game of phases. Wolverhampton were in command for five minutes, and Blackpool in command for the next five. There was still little in it.
PACE TELLS
And Passes Begin To Go Astray
Passes were beginning to stray. The pace was telling its
tale in heat and sunshine. Yet it required a daring dive at Mullen’s feet by
Wallace to avert a certain goal for the Wolves, who were still raiding often
and at times nearly dominating the game.
I lost count of the times Suart headed away forward passes
and centres which, with 20 minutes left, were crossing or opening Blackpool’s
defence.
Yet, as happened in the first half, Blackpool’s front line
escaped out of this pressure and scored.
Again the Wolves’ defence was yards out of position on its
right flank as Blair zig-zagged past two men and shot a ball which seemed to be
lost in a pack of men as Williams reached it but could not hold it.
In the end MORTENSEN, always on the scene, forced it over
the line.
There was a peculiar incident at the kick-of when Westcott
and Mortensen appeared to collide in the centre circle.
The referee took the Wolverhampton forwards name, and after
a delay of two minutes, while both players were being attended, Westcott
hobbled over the line for treatment and Mortensen remained in the game with a
pronounced limp.
The Wanderers for a time afterwards were almost out of the
game with 10 men.
Williams knew nothing at all about one clearance he made
from McIntosh a minute before Westcott came into the game again. That second
goal had settled it.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 2 (Eastham 40mins, Mortensen 70mins)
WOLVES 0.
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
Blackpool won this match by two goals, but there was even
less than 2-0 in it.
The Blackpool forwards seldom entered the game as a five-man
line. but when they mobilised all their forces they had punch in front of goal
which the Wanderers never revealed.
These young Wolves had no bite today. Yet it required a
desperate defence to hold them at bay.
It required-a great and daring goalkeeper, Wallace, and a
magnificent centre-half, Suart, who in this match had the aid of two full-backs
who seldom made an error.
Blackpool were not as strong at inside-forward as they have
been, but goal-a-game Mortensen was still there.
Blackpool are a team these days. It makes all the difference. These Wolves would have eaten them up a few months ago.
Team Spirit Gives Results
By “ Spectator”
THE French have a word for it. They call it “esprit de
corps.” Which sounds pretty high-class for something which in football is
nothing more than team spirit.
Not all the transfer fees on earth can create it. Yet it can
be cultivated, and, once it has been, it can make 11 men into a team - and
often a winning team.
It has, I think, happened at Bloomfield-road.
Blackpool have won two games in three days - and won both
against the odds.
Nobody is pretending - certainly I am not - that these two
unexpected and convincing successes indicate that Blackpool have a championship
team or anything approaching it.
This team can come a Humpty Dumpty fall yet, and one of
these days, unless the defence learns to close the gaps, such a fall will come.
The team may suspect that the manager, Mr. Joe Smith, knows
it.
They are living in no fool's paradise.
Manager Talks
What he said during those 30 minutes I may never learn, but
I shall be surprised if he was merely exchanging compliments about the win at
Huddersfield.
I would take a bet that once he had said, “Well done,"
he devoted the next 25 minutes to giving the defence a lesson or two on reducing
an opposing forward line's living space.
Too often a Huddersfield forward - and two days later a
Brentford forward found himself in an open space with sufficient time either to
race on goal unchallenged or to find another forward in a shooting position.
Yes, they know all that.
Getting Results
AND these manager - and - team sessions today are producing
results. You could see that in the first two games.
They are producing results because they have a team at
Blackpool all out for the club, all prepared to play for the team.
That’s what team spirit is. That is what they have created at Blackpool. Such a team can go a long way. It deserves to.
Stan Mortensen estimates that he is two or three yards faster than when he finished last season, but he was never able to race away from the man who put a watch on him at Leeds-road. One was as fast as the other - there was not an inch between them.
WHEN the war came and Blackpool F.C.’s administrative Offices were almost completely denuded of staff, Mr. C. R. Gaulter, a principal of the club’s auditors, offered his services to the club.
He was admirably equipped for this silent service. For not only had he all the qualifications which were required - a knowledge of football government and regulations not least among them - but he was another of those who never seek publicity, content to serve efficiently and to expect no headlines.
That was seven years ago, They still think at Blackpool that he was one of the best unofficial signings of the war years.
BLACKPOOL teams went nearly everywhere by road instead of rail during the war years. They are still going by coach this season to all games within 80 or 90 miles of the coast.
Only for games up in the North-East, down in the Midlands and in London will the team be sent by rail. They think road transport is still preferable for a time.
When They Last Met
WHEN last Wolverhampton Wanderers came to Blackpool, it was the day after the first black-out, the second day of the mass evacuation to the coast, the day before Britain declared war.
Nobody should have had a shred of interest left in football. Yet 20,000 people were on the ground and were in a tumult of excitement - Hitler and everything else forgotten - for an hour and a half while Blackpool were winning 2-1.
Bob Finan and Jock Dodds scored the Blackpool goals for this team: Wallace, Sibley, Butler, Farrow, Hayward, Johnston. Finan, Astley, Dodds ,Buchan, and 0’Donnell (H.)
It was football's swan song for seven years – but for 90 minutes it lifted the massing shadows.
Eric HAYWARD, the Blackpool centre-half, may have been watching the Wolverhampton game at Blackpool this afternoon.
If he has it will have been the the first match he has seen in England for nearly two years. His troop- ship from India berthed a couple of days ago.
He is to be sent to the Fylde for demobilisation. How long will it be before he is in football again? Not many weeks.
BOB HESFORD, Huddersfield Town’s goalkeeper from Blackpool, was not out of the team which played his home town club last weekend because the selectors preferred another man for the position; but because he was hurt in a practice match a few days before the opening of the season.
“He'll be in again as soon as he’s fit,” said a Town director.
SIGNED by Gainsborough Trinity - Frank Bokas, the wing half-back who played for a season or two for Blackpool between the wars and will be chiefly remembered because he could - and still can -throw a ball nearly as far as George Farrow throws one.
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