23 August 1947 Blackpool 3 Chelsea 0

BLACKPOOL TOO HOT FOR CHELSEA’S TRIERS

Mortensen fairly sizzles

VISITORS WILT

Blackpool 3, Chelsea 0

By “Spectator”

“THEY’RE off”

Fourteen weeks only after the Cup-holders, Charlton Athletic came to town to close the 1946-47 season, another London team, Chelsea, opened the 1947-48 season at Blackpool this afternoon, before a crowd of 29,000.

Blackpool fielded a forward line which, from outside-right to centre-forward had an international in every position, with another among the half-backs.

Chelsea had to make a shuffle after Tom Lawton, the England centre-forward, had pulled groin muscle in training.

Rumours that he was asking for a transfer were still denied by the Chelsea directors when they reached Blackpool last night.

Three-quarters of the playing area has been relaid during the summer. A fortnight of blazing sunshine - a sun which was still blazing on to the field this afternoon - has not, as a result, scorched the earth.

Teams:

BLACKPOOL: Wallace, Shimwell, Suart, Farrow, Hayward, Johnston, Matthews, Munro, Mortensen, Dick and McIntosh.

CHELSEA: Robertson, Winter, Bathgate, Goddard, Harris, Armstrong, Spence, Walker, Machin, Goulden and Dolding.

Referee: Mr G. S. Blackhall of Wednesbury.

Chelsea defended the north goal in the glare of the sun after Johnston had won the toss for Blackpool

Raging excitement, and a pace which could never last tore the early football to tatters.

In the first planned raid Harris beat Mortensen in a race after Johnston’s pass. A minute before the centre-forward hooked a high centre into Chelsea’s packed goal area as a prelude to an astute back pass which only just missed Matthews.

Blackpool’s pressure was non-stop for a time. Munro won one corner and Mortensen another within a minute.

The second was won by one of those forward passes which make Farrow such a great attacking half-back.

SOLO ACT

The first time Matthews entered the game as a solo act was at inside-right where he walked past two men before releasing a pass to Munro which the little man lost in a hit or miss tackle.

Chelsea’s defence was fast to its men and compact. Winter made one great clearance across the face of his own goal as Blackpool’s raids, many of them a little too close, continued.

When at last Wallace had a test, as Spence crossed a high falling centre, 12 minutes had gone.

The rest had been nearly all one-way traffic without a definite shooting position presenting itself until McIntosh, given a clear course by Mortensen. shot a bouncing ball into the side net.

BIG CHANCE

Three Chelsea men wait in vain

When at last a big chance presented itself to Chelsea, Machin, the deputy centre-forward who had wandered on to the left wing, crossed a centre on to the top of the net with three men waiting in a wide open and unprepared Blackpool defence.

It was helter-skelter football - a lot of it -but the pace was as fast as ever.

Mortensen swerved away once from Harris, a watchdog as close to him all the time as a brother, and compelled Goddard to the concession of Blackpool's third corner with the game still surging all the time on a Chelsea goal, but with few gaps gaping in front of it.

BIT OF A PANIC

A free kick was forfeited by a Blackpool defence in a bit of a panic with the Chelsea forwards at last making some sort of impression on the match.

A couple of minutes later, too, Shimwell halted a Chelsea left wing tearing into a shooting position. It was no longer all Blackpool.

Chelsea won another corner after Blackpool had demanded a penalty in vain as Mortensen, always in this game, as he seems to be in every game, fell under Winter’s no-nonsense tackle.

Yes, Mortensen was in it a lot. Matthews was still not in it as often as he might have been, and, I think, should have been. Too few passes were reaching him.

They were soon beginning to chant " Give it to Stan.” They were soon chanting a different chorus, for another Stan - the goal chorus.

It came in the 27th minute. It was a goal which had Mortensen written all over it.

A long ball came down the centre. The 5ft. 8in. of atomic energy which is the Blackpool centre-forward was waiting for it.

On to it this non-stop MORTENSEN swooped, raced away from one man as the bouncing ball eluded him, outpaced another, waited for the lone Robertson to come out to him, and hit the roof of the net a half second later with a shot to a tumult which nearly lifted the roof off the stands.

HAMMER AND TONGS

Chelsea defence hard put to it

A minute later this hammer and tongs raider nearly forced another path in a Chelsea defence which was at last visibly beginning to stampede under this sort of treatment.

Another minute and it was nearly 1-1, Chelsea’s centre-forward stabbing a short pass yards wide.

With 10 minutes of the half left Johnston was crippled, went out of the match for five minutes and returned to hobble at outside-left with Dick in the inside position.

Good honest football without any nonsense about it had given Blackpool a deserved half-time lead.

In the closing minutes of this half Matthews had played in nearly every position in the line - once he was visible at outside left - in a search for the passes which were still seldom coming to him on the right wing.

Half-time: Blackpool 1, Chelsea 0.

Second half

I heard at half-time that the gates had not been closed.

Blackpool took the field with Dick at inside-right, McIntosh at inside-left as partner to the limping Johnston, and Munro at left half.

A full length dive by Robertson to hold a ball shot wide of him by the alert Mortensen. and a grand interception by Hayward as the Chelsea forwards swooped on him in a line, were the two major incidents of this half's first five minutes.

There were early signs that Chelsea were no longer content to submit indefinitely to Blackpool’s earlier dictation.

A corner was won by a forward line moving with a greater decision everywhere, and the corner had not been cleared before Wallace made a brilliant despairing leap to his left to reach a ball which nearly gave Armstrong his first goal in his first League match.

UNBALANCED

Chelsea were raiding almost non-stop against a Blackpool team palpably out of balance in its shuffled formation.

They were saying “It’ll be 1-1 any minute” when it was 2-0 in the 11th

Again it was a one-man goal, and again, almost inevitably, it was MORTENSEN who shot it.

No vestige of peril appeared to beset Chelsea's goal. Another long lobbed ball came down the centre. Blackpool’s centre-forward was in position for it. took it with his back to Chelsea’s goal, cut inside, outpaced the left back, and, as the right was closing in shot a ball which hit the far wall of the net as Robertson, unsighted by the other back, was still in mid-air diving at it.

But Chelsea were still not out of it. Walker and Goulden, two grand inside forwards, built raid after raid, even after this second goal.

Once Wallace held magnificently high over his head and in a big leap a ball which the inside-right had headed away from him.

Mortensen, nursing a finger, was over the line for three minutes’ attention as these raids continued to hammer on the wall firmer than they had been, of the Blackpool defence.

FORWARD LINE

No settled plan this half

Afterwards the Blackpool of the first half began to reveal itself again, even with a forward line which could achieve no settled plan with its forces in an excusable disorder.

Chelsea were forced into retreat again. conceded two corners, and in the concession of the second were embroiled in such a foray under the Blackpool bar that, when at last the ball was cleared, a fullback was left so limp that it required a trainer and an ambulance man to make him fit for the game again.

Blackpool stormed on. A third goal came from a Chelsea defence by this time in an almost complete panic.

A ball bounced forward towards Mortensen, HARRIS intercepted it, cleared it anywhere, sliced it instead at such a speed that Robertson could not reach it in a full length dive as it passed a yard on the wrong side of the post.

That was a minor tragedy for Chelsea’s big star of the day.

It settled this match.

In the last five minutes McIntosh hit the outside of a post with the best shot of the match.

Result:

BLACKPOOL 3 (Mortensen 27 and 56 mins, Harris og 75 min)

CHELSEA 0

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COMMENTS ON THE GAME

It is said that Stanley Mortensen would prefer to play at inside right because there he may play for England.

He should lose no sleep about that. He could play for England as a centre-forward if often he repeats the game which won this match for Blackpool.

It was his opportunism, his chasing of forlorn hopes against all the odds, which gave Blackpool a 2-0 lead.

Afterwards, in spite of courageous challenge by a Chelsea front line too deliberate in approach and without any punch in front of goal - how they missed Tommy Lawton! - the game was always Blackpool's.

 

No glittering succession of miracles matured on the right wing. That was chiefly because for too long too few passes reached the wing.

Stanley Matthews has still no partner. One will have to be found. Yet with limited chances what a great player he can be.

The Blackpool forwards were always moving in an attacking formation, were seldom lost in maze of short passes, and, with a great half-back line aiding them in the first half, ultimately hammered Chelsea’s defence almost to a standstill.

No complaints about the Blackpool defence after one or two minutes of panic before the interval. To win this game with four men and a cripple in shuffled forward line was no little achievement. To play it for 90 minutes at such a pace was very nearly a miracle.

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Crowds swarm to Bloomfield-road

ALL STAND SEATS SOLD
HOUR BEFORE START

By “Spectator”

Three thousand people were waiting in queues outside the Blackpool ground when the gates were opened for the Chelsea match two hours before the kick-off.

AN hour later all the approaches to the ground were nearly impassable, choked with traffic and with surging thousands spilling into the roadways.

Reinforced police squads were posted close to the turnstiles and at all the main entrances.

There was no chaos but under the hot midsummer sun it was one of the biggest sieges of the ground in history.

A new system operated at the 48 turnstiles. Every turnstile for the terraces and embankments was given in advance an allotted number of admissions. When that number was reached the turnstile was closed.

AVOIDING CONGESTION 

“Only by that system can we avoid congestion and know immediately when capacity has been reached’’ reported one of the administrative staff.

Home office regulations restrict the attendance to 29,500.

Half-an-hour before the teams appeared - Blackpool in brand new jerseys and shorts - there were 25,000 people on the ground, massed on Spion Kop in a pattern of white shirts and coloured frocks.

Every seat in the stands was sold an hour before the gates opened. That left only 16,000 for the rest of the ground. There were still between 5,000 and 6,000 filing at a slow march in the queues with 10 minutes to go.

Loud speakers, first instalment of the batteries which the Supporters’ Club are presenting to the ground, were employed for the first time at Blackpool directing the milling swarm from one sector to another as the turnstiles began to close.

Backwards and forwards from Bloomfield-road to Henry-street, as the shutters went up, the people surged.

IT'S SOCCER ONCE AGAIN

Blackpool should have a good season

By “Spectator”

A YEAR ago everybody was down in the depths about Blackpool Football. "They'll finish nowhere - unless it’s the Second Division," I was told by the people who said they knew.

They were all wrong.

Now everybody is up in the air. Now they are talking about a Division championship, are as confident as 12 months ago they were depressed.

They could all be wrong gain. Blackpool should have a good season. With the men who climbed to the top and finished among the first half-dozen in 1946-47, plus Stanley Matthews - and this England forward is a big “plus” sign in a position which has been a problem for years - there is no particular reason why it should not be as good as it would appear promises to be.

But - yes, there’s always a “but.” Football has always been and will always be such a gamble.

Two or three casualties at a critical time, and, whatever the strength of the Reserves, a team can be thrown out of gear and disaster fall with the rapidity and finality of an avalanche.

Front-line problems

"WE ought to be near the top” comments Manager Joe Smith, but he has been in the game too long to commit himself beyond that non-commital observation.

There will be problems, I think, in the front-line.

Shall Stanley Mortensen play at centre-forward? Mr. Smith has one answer.

“Yes,” he says, for he thinks - and I am inclined to agree with him, too - that he has nearly the best centre - forward in the country in this young lion-heart who, if he consulted his preferences, would probably play, as he wants to play for England, as partner to the incomparable Matthews.

The major question

THAT’S the question - the major question - as I see it. Who is to be the England outside-right’s partner? Time may afford the answer.

There will be arguments about the outside-left position, too.

And. unless I am wrong, there will be a young man called Johnny Crosland challenging for inclusion in the first team before long, and another, Tom Garrett, who will soon have acquired the status of a First Division full back.

Junior international

AND if the public trial is worth anything, which, admittedly, is questionable, the Scottish junior international. Andy McCall, may soon have to be seriously considered.

All this, however, would appear to indicate an embarrassment rather than a poverty of talent, an indication that Blackpool’s team-building has been expressly designed to duplicate as many positions in the first team as possible.

If it has - and I think Manager Smith has ensured it, this manager who has achieved such a lot at such a comparatively small cost - then all these people who will never learn that there is nothing predictable as football - unless its the roulette wheel at a Continental casino - may be justified of their present sublime faith.

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Jottings from all parts 

BY "SPECTATOR" 23 August 1947

Just to remind you.

BLACKPOOL finished fifth in the First Division last season.

Stanley Mortensen led the marksmen with 28 goals in 38 games.

Blackpool held a 100 per cent, home record until Grimsby Town won at Bloomfield - road on November 16.

Blackpool led the First Division from September 23 to mid-November.

Total of 50 points created a First Division record for the club.

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The free list at Blackpool is to be cut. Too many people were on it - or considered they ought to be on it. Restrictive measures are being taken this season.

Why not? Nobody expects to walk into a theatre or to a cinema without paying. Why into a football ground.

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THE players’ wives and girl friends have not lost their reservations on the south stand now that a reserved box has been opened in this stand at Blackpool.

I am glad to hear it. This was one of the little privileges which players appreciate. Not every club offers it. One club lost a famous, international not unknown in Blackpool because an officious commissionaire refused his wife admittance to the ground.

***

They all want to sell programmes at Blackpool this season. I announced last week that boys were required as programme sellers. The next day there was a queue of 100 waiting outside the ground at 9-30 a.m.

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THE gates were closed three times last season at Blackpool.

The first time was for the Brentford game - a Monday evening match, too - the second was the Wolves match, the third the Villa game.

At Blackpool’s first six home games in 1946-47 the total attendance was 148,114 and the receipts £14,081.

***

NO five-day 40-hour week for Blackpool’s office staff since the season-ticket stampede began. They have been working every night until 10 o'clock for the last fortnight. 

Assisting them has been Sam Jones, the Irish International half-back, who has ended his playing career and is learning all about the game’s behind- the - scenes administration. 

He is a good pupil - and he has some good tutors at Bloomfield-road.

 ***

ERIC SIBLEY, at 6ft 1inch is still the tallest player on Blackpool’s staff. Alec Munro who stands 5ft. 5 half inches is no longer the smallest. 

The new 17- years-old inside forward from Netherfield, Matthew Ferguson, is also under 5ft. 6in and a flyweight, too. But according to all reports he’s good. Several First and Second Division clubs thought so. But Netherfield gave Blackpool the first option.

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McCall shines in practice game

 18 August 1947

PUBLIC practices may serve a purpose, but it is questionable. When they are played in a temperature in the 80’s there is little to be learned from them.

Everybody knows that Stanley Matthews is a great forward. This match merely confirmed it. In the second half, in Blackpool’s only public trial, when at last he was given a pass or ‘two he was a jewel in the sun.

But everybody was aware of that in advance - and of nearly everything else that happened.

Almost all the men destined for the first team will probably have their passports stamped after this match.

RESERVES

There were, nevertheless, one or two reserves who attracted a lot of attention.

One of them, McCall (inside forward from Blantyre Celtic) confirmed that although there is little of him, what there is is good.

Crosland, who had the best first half on the field, was - if the simile is permissible on such a day - as cool as a cucumber, and the game confirmed yet again that one day Garratt will be a First Division full back.

But we knew nearly all this before.

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All Blackpool waiting for kick-off

 22 August 1947

MATCH FORECAST: Blackpool should beat a Chelsea team containing two front-line reserves and with Tom Lawton out.

ATTENDANCE FORECAST: The gates, open at 1-30, will be closed before 3 o’clock kick-off. All stand tickets will be sold by tonight.

WEATHER FORECAST: Too hot for football.

After the shortest close season on record, 14 weeks only after the last 1946-47 game was played on the ground, Blackpool take field again tomorrow with a team containing three internationals in the attack, another in the half-back line, and one of its full-backs, Eddie Shimwell, an England trialist.

Such a star cast is not necessarily fated to win all the medals, but Blackpool as a town has gone crazy about it, has for a month been in the grip of a raging football fever.

SEASON TICKETS

A year ago hundreds of the 750 season tickets were not sold. Today 2,000 have been printed and not a ticket is left.

Every day since the first was offered for sale there have been queues at the club’s office, where the staff has been working a 12-hour day.

A ground whose turnstiles will be allowed to admit only 29,500 people in accordance with Home Office instructions - legacy of the Burnden Park disaster last year - has become the famous pint-pot into which a gallon cannot be poured.

A decision has been taken already by the directorate, dreaming of the day when there will be a 60,000 stadium in the town, that the stands will have to be reserved for the next three home games - the evening matches with Huddersfield Town and Blackburn Rovers - and the visit by Wolverhampton Wanderers a fortnight today.

“UNLESS........"

"Unless we take these precautions,” announce the board "there will be chaos.”

Three times during the first month of last season the gates locked hundreds out of the ground.

Today high pressure work on the new broadcasting system has been ordered to enable commentaries on the match to be relayed to the people who may again have to be refused admittance to the ground.

Half of the pitch has been relaid. A 2d. eight-page programme is being printed again.

It is to be pre-1939 football at Blackpool again at last - and never has there been such a public for it, seldom a team of greater promise in the tangerine jerseys.

“They’re off!" at 3-0 pm tomorrow. These are the men at the post for the first test:

BLACKPOOL: Wallace: Shimwell, Suart, Farrow, Hayward, Johnston, Matthews, Munro, Mortensen, Dick, McIntosh.

CHELSEA: Robertson; Winter, Bathgate, Goddard, Harris, Armstrong, Campbell, Walker, Machin, Goulden, Dolding.

Lawton - “Pure conjecture”  - Manager

A report that Tommy Lawton, Chelsea - and England centre-forward, has asked his club for a transfer was vigorously denied today by Mr. W. Birrell, the Chelsea manager.

“The club has not considered any application from the player and the whole thing is pure conjecture,” he stated.

“This subject blows up every season and it is time that it was scotched once and for all.”

Lawton strained a groin in the trial on Monday and has had to stand down for tomorrow’s game.

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WE are all looking forward to Blackpool F.C. having a successful season.

None are more enthusiastic than the Supporters' Club.

The committee have held frequent meetings during the summer. They have taken over the football programme and hope it meets with the approval of spectators.

Any criticism, comments or suggestions will be most welcome. Send them along to the Editor, c/o Football Ground. Bloomfield-road.

Broadcasting system

THE contract for the broadcasting system has been given, and the system will be completed in the course of a week or two.

It will operate both inside and outside the ground and will be a decided advantage both tc the club and to its supporters.

Ticket matches

FOR the ticket matches the committee hope to again take over a block of tickets for members of the club.

Provided there is sufficient support it is again intended to run trips to the away matches near at hand.

Join now

IF you have not joined the club, get a membership form immediately and send your 2s. 6d. to the treasurer, c/o ground.

Thee membership is still below expectations and to all supporters of the Blackpool club we say: “We rely on your support. Please help us to help yourself.”

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We expect great things from them

PLAYERS AND OFFICIALS OF BLACKPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB.

In front (left to right): A. Smith, R. Gilfillan, A. Herne, M. McCormack, M. Ferguson, H. Kelly.

Second row: S. Matthews, A. Munro, G. Kennedy, S. Mortensen, Mr. J. Smith (manager), A McCall H. Doherty, R. Finan.

Third row: Mr. J. Lynas (trainer), G. Farrow, E. Hayward, H, Johnston, W. Lewis, J. McIntosh, G. McKnight, E. Fenton, Mr. J. Duckworth (assistant trainer).

Back row: T. Buchan, G. Dick, J. Robinson, J. Wallace, W. Buchan, E. Sibley, R. Suart.

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