15 March 1947 Blackpool 4 Sheffield United 2
DICK HITS TWO FOR WIN IN LAST EIGHT MINUTES
Action-packed game on quagmire
TWO GRAND SIDES
Blackpool 4, Sheffield United 2
By “Spectator”
FEW games at Bloomfield road have been played under worse conditions than the Blackpool - Sheffield United match this afternoon.
It was only three hours before the kick-off that the referee gave his permission for the gates to be opened.
The track bordering the pitch was a narrow canal an inch or two deep in the flood water which had been swept off the playing area.
Pools were forming before the teams appeared, and the side of the field fronting the main stand and the south goal area, which before noon were nearly a sheet of ice, were scattered with standing water.
Mcknight plays
George McKnight had his second game in the First Division. Sheffield United were at full strength.
Among the 10,000 spectators were the Leeds United team, whose game at Everton was cancelled. Leeds are in this district for three weeks in special training quarters in a bid to escape relegation.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Shimwell, Sibley, Farrow, Hayward, Johnston, Munro, McKnight, Mortensen, Eastham and Dick.
SHEFFIELD UNITED: Smith, Furniss, Cox, Jackson, Latham, Forbes, Rickett, Brook, Thompson, Hagan and Collindridge.
Referee: Mr. C. P. Womersley, of Davenport.
THE GAME
In the first half-minute there was a casualty.
McKnight went after a forward pass, raced half a dozen yards with it, and was halted by Latham, who fell and remained still, clutching a cut knee in the mud and ice until the trainer had been called to him.
Later without any sort of apology, Latham gave a corner as Mortensen pursued a down-the-centre pass - a pass perfectly released by McKnight, who was in the game a lot in these early minutes.
In the next minute, too, Dick was tumbled helter skelter into the shallow ditch flanking the line and came crawling helter skelter out of it covered in mud.
The referee gave a free-kick, and when a shot by Munro had cannoned out off a mass of Sheffield men refused a corner.
STRONG PRESSURE
Blackpool’s pressure continued, McKnight heading into Smith’s waiting arms with the United defence under constant fire Dick also raked the Sheffield goal.
All the time Blackpool were raiding. Smith could only beat out anywhere one ball shot at him from a narrow angle by Mortensen. Nor had that raid ended before Eastham had forced Smith to concede a corner.
In the first 15 minutes the United surrendered four corners and crossed the half-way line in strength twice.
Yet this Sheffield front line nearly snatched a goal, Wallace falling full length to hold a ball shot wide of him by Thompson after the centre-forward had taken Brook’s pass in a gap left by an unprepared defence.
UNITED AHEAD
Easy for Brook after a breakaway
A minute later, in the 17th minute of the half. Sheffield took the lead in a breakaway.
The raid was built on the left, and ended in a fast low centre.
Waiting for it was the unmarked BROOK who had merely to take the ball as it was passing him, halt it with one foot and shoot it past Wallace with the other.
Seven minutes after the United had taken the lead they lost it, and lost it because their defence was playing too far forward in aid of its front line,,
Shimwell made one of those long clearances in which he specialised at Bramall-lane.
MORTENSEN was waiting for it, swerved an unprepared centre-half, raced forward, and rocketed a shot into the roof of the net.
Immediately afterwards there was an incident. Johnston halted Brook with the inside-right racing after Hagan’s pass into a scoring position.
PENALTY CALL
Sheffield demanded a penalty, and Hagan was so indignant when it was refused that Mr. Womersley halted play and gave the England forward a lecture. In the 34th minute Blackpool went in front with a perfect goal.
Farrow took a forward pass, beat his man to it by a split second, put the right wing in possession.
MUNRO took the pass at full gallop, cut fast inside, and shot a low ball which skidded across the face of Sheffield’s goal, missed half a dozen men, and had passed the unsighted Smith before Mortensen almost walked it into the net to make certain of it.
I was assured that the ball was over the line before the centre-forward reached it.
Two minutes later it was 2-2.
BRILLIANT GOAL
And this was the best goal of the four,
HAGAN called for a forward pass in the inside-right position, zigzagged 15 yards through the mud, reached scoring position, and scored with a shot which was almost studiously steered wide of Wallace’s right arm.
Sheffield raided frequently afterwards, but with a minute of the half left Smith punched over the bar a fine rising shot by Munro.
Half-time: Blackpool 2, Sheffield United 2.
SECOND HALF
Attack after attack by Blackpool battered on the Sheffield goal in the first five minutes of the second half.
Snow was beginning to fall again.
When at last the United raided, the lead was nearly snatched again as Collindridge cut in from the wing, shot a ball which Wallace half lost, and clutched again as he crouched near a post.
In counter-raids Blackpool were as near a goal before 10 minutes of the half had gone.
Dick and Smith both lost one centre from the right almost under the bar of Sheffield's goal before Mortensen and Munro in rapid succession, hit the side net.
From one of Hagan’s passes' Collindridge nearly made it 3-2 with a shot which passed out by the far post, with Wallace on his knees in a mud bath and the snow falling thicker than ever.
First one line of forwards and then the other took command of this fluctuating game.
AMAZING SAVE
Wallace made one astonishing clearance, falling backwards to beat out Rickett’s centre after the little winger had escaped almost for the first time in the match from the alert Sibley.
Another minute, and Wallace was twice in brilliant action, parrying Collindridge’s scoring shot before holding another from Thompson and while still on his knees snatching a bouncing ball away from Brook.
This was action-packed football.
Blackpool demanded a penalty in vain as Mortensen raced into a gap on his own, reached scoring position, and was preparing to shoot as two men closed on him and tumbled him into the slime.
CHANCE MISSED
With 10 minutes left, a big chance went astray as McKnight lost Munro’s centre in the jaws of a gaping goal. Then, with only eight minutes to go, Blackpool were presented with one of those freak goals which on such a quagmire were almost inevitable.
A raid, which appeared to contain no particular menace, was built on the left.
DICK, far out on the wing, half stabbed a long low centre. Everybody waited for Smith to field it.
The goalkeeper fell forward into a sea of mud, lost the ball as he fell, and was still sprawling as it appeared to crawl under his body and over the line.
It was a gift goal - and it won the game.
This man DICK had seldom been in the game in the first half-hour for the reason that he had seldom been given a pass.
Yet when the passes came he shot a fourth goal to settle it with two minutes left - and made his name all over again.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 4 (Mortensen 24min, Munro 34min, Dick 82 and 88min.)
SHEFFIELD UNITED 2 (Brook 17min, Hagan 36min)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
It is sufficient to record that if Blackpool had possessed on the left a wing to equal the aggressive Munro-McKnight partnership on the right the game would have been won earlier.
These two - the Irishman and the Scot - plus the always-at-it Mortensen. often rattled and in the first half-hour nearly shattered an uncompromising Sheffield defence.
It required a game of daring and resource by Wallace, nevertheless, to hold at bay a Sheffield forward line which knew the shortest route to goal through all the mud and took it.
Two on-the-post goals by the amazing Dick settled it. There was nothing else between two grand teams.
CRISIS-BUT NOT AT
BLACKPOOL
- But Blackpool look ahead
By “Spectator”
THE REF. DID NOT SAY ‘YES’ TILL NOON
BLACKPOOL GAME WAS IN DOUBT
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 15 March 1947
Why, one of the Blackpool players actually heard him apologise to his partner when he put a pass wrong to him in last week’s match.
A pity they can’t play all their games in the capital.
(2) The 60-yards raid by Harry Johnston which made Stanley Mortensen a present of his 20th goal of the season at Chelsea last weekend.
“I wish Harry’s centre had gone in - and it nearly did.” said Mortensen after the match. “What’s it matter?” asked Blackpool’s captain, “as long as it went in afterwards.”
Three tired footballers and a manager no less tired arrived back in Blackpool early today from a Wednesday football match in Scotland, writes “Spectator.”
PAGES from the diary of Manager Joe Smith, of Blackpool, two of his staff, Harry Johnston and Stanley Mortensen, an.1 the England outside-right, Stanley Matthews:
Yesterday: Back to the station for the 10-15 a.m. train. Transferred to the 10-30. Remained in it, the train at a standstill until 1-55. Then the guard blew his whistle.
Comment by Mr. Joe Smith:
“It might have been worse. We nearly took the Carlisle train on Thursday. It was buried in a snowdrift!”
THE committee have arranged two Easter trips, one to Everton on Good Friday. and the other to Liverpool on Easter Saturday. The return fare is 5s. 6d.
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