ARSENAL, 2-1, RETAIN UNBEATEN RECORD
Blackpool faced a stonewall defence
MATTHEWS HURT
Arsenal 2, Blackpool 1
By “Spectator”
NEARLY 40,000 people were swarming and milling outside the gates of Highbury an hour and a half before the kick-off in this match of the day. Every street was lined with two rows of parked cars within a quarter of a mile radius of the ground.
So great were the crowds near the famous stadium that when the Blackpool coach was 200 yards from the main entrance, with thousands stampeding up and down the streets as one turnstile after another closed, a loudspeaker van and mounted police had to clear a path for the coach.
All the gates were locked half an hour before the teams took the field with nearly 20,000 still outside and mounted police guarding them.
An official estimate of the attendance was 65,000 and there were expectations that receipts would total nearly £7,000 for a match which was fated to be a sell-out two months ago, when the last of the reserved stand tickets went to a London public that is again Arsenal mad.
The black market price for 7s. 6d. tickets soared to £1 and 30s. early in the week. But not for any price could any be bought this afternoon.
It was the weather for such a match - as mild as a summer's day with all the fog gone and the sun shining.
Teams:
ARSENAL: Swindin; Scott, Barnes, MacAulay, Compton, Mercer, Roper, Lodie, Lewis, Rooke, McPherson.
BLACKPOOL: Wallace: Shimwell, Suart, Lewis, Hayward, Johnston, Matthews, Mortensen, McIntosh, McCall, Munro.
Referee: Mr. J. M. Wiltshire (Sherbourne)
THE GAME
Blackpool played in white. When Harry Johnston lost the toss the famous Arsenal defence unexpectedly chose to place itself in the goal across which the sun glared.
There was little incident in the opening moves, which contained nothing conclusive except a couple of free-kicks against Arsenal halfbacks moving fast to the ball and each time tackling the man too.
Twice Suart halted Don Roper, the forward from Southampton, in whom Blackpool were interested for months last season. When at last this wing forward was given the ball in an open space and crossed it high, Hayward cleared the centre in a big leap.
COMPOSURE
Leslie Compton's perfect composure as Arsenal’s third, back soon revealed itself.
Munro took a made-to-measure pass from Johnston, cut inside, and crossed a ball which Swindin snatched away from Mortensen as the inside-right catapulted over him into the net.
In the next minute Wallace fielded a fast low shot from Lewis with the Arsenal raiding almost continuously.
In the 11th minute a definite chance offered itself to Lewis who raced inside to a shooting position, shot, and hit Suart as the full back raced fast across his track.
Except when Mortensen shot low into Swindin’s arms, the Blackpool forwards were not often in the game as a line.
When the line reached shooting position, which was seldom, it was inevitably the go-after- everything-Mortensen who raced for the forward passes and twice shot at Swindin.
Shimwell and Hayward were resolute in a Blackpool defence not outplayed but often in retreat.
FOUR FORWARDS
In the 14th minute Matthews left the field, in that time about a couple of passes had been given to him.
Two minutes later he returned. In his absence the Blackpool line of four forwards had advanced non-stop on the Arsenal goal without ever reaching it until the McCall-Munro-Johnston triangle created a position from which the wing forward lobbed a high ball into the open space where the right wing should have been.
Twenty minutes had gone before the Arsenal won the first corner of the half and it led nowhere.
PENALTY
Hayward punches ball from Lewis
Then in the 23rd minute came the first flash of drama in the game. Reg Lewis raced after a long forward pass. Hayward crossed to meet him a couple of yards inside the penalty area. Up bounced the ball unexpectedly.
Hayward leaped at it, punched it away from the centre-forward as the leader was swerving past him to take it in a scoring position.
Mr. Wiltshire had no alternative but to give a penalty.
ROOKE took it, shot fast and low wide of Wallace to give Arsenal a lead which was deserved, and which might have been increased two minutes later as Roper shot a ball which Wallace held, but whose force nearly took him over the line.
With two men on him and a third, a wing forward, retreating back to aid them, Matthews was seldom given a square inch of freedom. Yet in the 26th minute of the half he won Blackpool’s first corner.
Twice afterwards Mortensen challenged the entire Arsenal defence almost unaided.
It had been nearly a one-man Blackpool front line in the first half-hour.
In the 31st minute it was all odds on Arsenal making it 2-0. This time a gift chance was rejected as Lewis took the ball in a position which Blackpool to a man considered offside.
On went the centre- forward alone, eluded Wallace, but, swerving out to the right with the goal gaping open, so long delayed his centre that when it was crossed the gap was closed.
Afterwards, Blackpool raided continuously for a time. Johnston crossed a perfect centre to which McIntosh was racing as Leslie Compton stopped him in an unceremonious sort of tackle.
MAN TO MAN
Almost without interruption in the next five minutes Blackpool attacked, revealing at last football which was of authentic First Division quality with the ball moving fast from man to man and the Arsenal defence losing a Jot of its assurance under this pressure.
There were few shots, few shooting positions, but the Arsenal were no longer in even the tentative command which had earlier been assumed.
Three men were still on top of Matthews every time he moved.
One forward only, Mortensen, was yet packing the punch required to batter a hole in this Arsenal rear division.
You could scarcely call it a memorable half but the longer it lasted the more impressionable Blackpool’s football became.
Half-time: Arsenal 1, Blackpool 0.
Second Half
I learned during the interval that Matthews had pulled a groin muscle. It was not serious, was assured, but it probably accounted for his strangely quiet game in the first half.
Johnston rescued Blackpool in the Arsenal’s first big raid of the second half after Roper had punted the ball away from Suart and cut into the centre.
A minute later, too, Mortensen tore back to the aid of his defence to halt Lewis.
A minute later, Shimwell Crossed to the left flank to sweep the ball anywhere away from Rooke as the inside forward hesitated.
Matthew’s limp was more perceptible as the game continued. Repeatedly Johnston lobbed passes to forwards who were taking them, but every time they raced against Arsenal’s stonewall defence.
The Arsenals employment of the long pass - this time all across the field from Rooke to Roper - won the half’s first corner and it had not been cleared either before, with Lewis and Hayward each waiting for the other to clear, Logie darted between them and shot inches Over the bar.
Yet afterwards, at last, it was the Arsenal goal which was not only under pressure but under fire, Johnston and McIntosh in rapid succession shooting over the bar.
With these raids continuing, too, the Blackpool forward formation was entirely shuffled with McIntosh at outside-left, Mortensen back again at centre-forward and Munro at inside-right.
It soon paid, too, Matthews crossing a pass on the Arsenal pattern to the left wing where McIntosh, after neatly swerving his fullback, crossed a high centre which Swindin punched out over the heads of an Arsenal defence which was being given no rest at this time.
At last the Arsenal were being completely outplayed. A new purpose was revealing itself everywhere in Blackpool’s game, with Johnston still superb as a wing half, constantly supplying passes to this reawakened forward line.
With 25 minutes left there was still a chance that the penalty goal would not decide the match. There were times when Lewis stood alone in one half of the field, the other 10 men in the Arsenal s red and white massed in defence of an oppressed goal.
GRAND RAID
There was one grand raid by Blackpool which began with a pass out to McIntosh by Johnston, was continued with a centre from the left wing which Mortensen gave to McCall, who shot inches wide.
All the pressure nevertheless was in vain. When the Arsenal came storming into the game again, building one open raid after another, a goal was near repeatedly.
It nearly came as Lewis headed from a corner a flying ball which Wallace seemed to beat against the underside of the bar before punching it out. Then Blackpool won a corner which Mortensen headed outside in a flying dive.
Three minutes later, with 17 minutes left, the Blackpool front line reverted to its earlier formation.
It still attacked a lot but seldom could make a shooting chance.
Five minutes from time ROPER shot a second goal for Arsenal from nearly 30 yards out a shot in a thousand which deserved to settle any match.
Three minutes later McINTOSH made it 2-1 from a Mortensen pass. That goal was deserved too.
Result;
ARSENAL 2 (Rooke (pen) 23 min, Roper 85 min)
BLACKPOOL 1 (McIntosh 88 min)
This Arsenal defence has no false reputation. Once its forwards had taken the lead early in the match with a penalty goal it massed its forces, never left a gap, and was content for nearly all the second half to wait for Blackpool’s raids and repel them.
Blackpool’s forward line which took a long time to evolve a plan could make as little impression on it as the Arsenal’s front line after the first 15 minutes, could make on Blackpool’s- rear division.
It was a day dominated by the two defences. Yet Blackpool might at least have forced draw if the forwards had not played at times the short pass to excess, and if in the first half there had been another man in the line of Mortensen’s pace and enterprise.
The line, in any case, never reproduced its Liverpool form and, with Matthews limping on the wing, a lot of rhythm was inevitably lost.
Yet you had to admire the line for the persistence and courage of its second-half pressure. Just, too, as you had to admire a game by Johnston which I have not seen him equal for months, and the dauntless resolution of Hayward and Shimwell at close quarters to the Arsenal forwards.
In the end the Arsenal were content to play out time.
BLACKPOOL NEEDED THAT £10,000
Reason why Peter Doherty left the club
By “Spectator”
As I and 67,980 other people watched and admired Peter Doherty playing for Ireland against England at Goodison Park, and told each other, "He's still at 33 the greatest inside forward in the game," the question inevitably. presented itself, “Why on earth did Blackpool ever part with him?"
It has been asked ever since February 19, 1936, the day when, after four hours of persuasion behind locked doors, the Irishman with the heart of a lion consented to leave the club where he had always been content and go to Manchester City for a £10,000 fee.
Why did he go - go against his own inclinations? There is a simple answer.
Blackpool accepted Manchester City’s £10,000 cheque because in the economic crisis which was facing the club at the time it literally could not be refused. The wolf was not actually at the door, but it was prowling outside the garden gate.
What some say
CIR LINDSAY PARKINSON had died a few weeks earlier. The rumour-mongers said and still say that if only he had lived the transfer would never have been negotiated.
That was admirable loyalty to a man whose family had given and is still giving service to the Blackpool club, but it was not correct.
A few weeks before he died Sir Lindsay, realising that a club cannot always live by the reputation of its players alone, but is sometimes compelled to translate their fame into £ s. d., had consented to the acceptance of the highest offer.
Less than two years earlier Blackpool had lost £15,000 in one season. The 1934-35 balance - sheet contained another deficit of £1,800 and a bank overdraft of £21,000.
Nobody was to know in those days that a year or two later the board were to embark on a new adventurous policy which built a First Division team and sent the overdraft soaring to its 1939 peak of £33,700.
Crisis threatened
THAT Wednesday afternoon in February, 1936, it was a case of “Transfer Doherty - or else?” Only a few people knew that the alternative might have been a crisis so grave that the future of first-class football in the town would have been imperilled.
So Peter Doherty left, had to be wooed with sweet words before he would go, and even today confesses as he confessed when I met him less than a month ago - “You know I was never as happy as when I was playing for Blackpool.”
He nearly returned last Christmas. Blackpool made an offer of £10,000 to Derby County for him - the fee which had been taken for him nearly 11 years earlier - and he would have signed, and been glad to sign, if Huddersfield Town had not made an even higher bid and given with it a promise to the County- this was the determining factor - that if ever Vic Metcalfe, the Yorkshire club’s brilliant wing-forward, left the Town, the first option on his signature would be given to Derby.
Gone for ever
NOW, I suppose, he never will come back. Today his presence in Blackpool's forward-line would make it about the greatest in the land.
But to continue to blame the men who transferred him in 1936, as I know they are still being blamed, for ever allowing him to leave Blackpool is both unfair and unwarranted. The facts I have told are the truth. It’s not before time for somebody to tell them.
Strange, unpredictable game this football. A week ago, I asked, “What’s gone wrong with the game?”
a question which in the general sense I was and still am entitled to ask.
The ink is not dry on the paper when the criticised Blackpool forward-line plays a game which, for a week at least, silences criticism. And four days later I go to Liverpool and watch' a match between England and Ireland which will always rank among the games to be so well remembered.
Yet I still agree with Col. W. Parkinson, J.P., the Blackpool chairman, who, when I met him this week, said, “Yes, that was a good game our lads played last weekend, but we’re under no illusions. We know there are at least two positions to be strengthened.”
Blackpool, I was assured, will sign those two men if they can find them. But, as I was also assured, it’s finding them which is the problem. It’s not primarily £ s. d. this time, but I repeat, confirming last week’s argument, a scarcity of talent.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 8 November 1947
Highbury-the last time
JUST to remind you. At Highbury last season Blackpool played a l-l draw, Stanley Mortensen - who else? - equalising a Rooke goal in the second half.
Blackpool's left wing in this match last March - there were two inches of snow on the ground - is no longer with us. Jimmy Blair has gone to Bournemouth, and George Eastham to Swansea Town.
Eric Sibley was at left back, Sammy Nelson at out- side-right.
Nine months - and all this has happened to the Blackpool team. Security of tenure is not one of footballs great virtues.
***
MR. BOB BROCKLEBANK, the former Burnley player and now manager of Chesterfield, travelled to Blackpool last night and met Eric Sibley, the Blackpool full-back, who is on the transfer list at his own request.
After a long talk, Mr. Brocklebank returned to Chesterfield for discussion With his directors.
Nothing definite has yet been fixed, but I believe that negotiations will be continued early next week.
THEY will be watching Stanley Mortensen with even greater interest than ever at Highbury this afternoon.
The Blackpool forward was often a guest for Arsenal in wartime football, played for the club in the famous rough-house match with the Russian Dynamos, and if, he had listened to the voice of the tempter might have been wearing the “Gunners’” red jersey today.
Even a year ago, and with an overdraft which resembled a slice of the American loan, the London club were prepared to pay nearly a world’s record fee to have him back again.
And so, if it comes to that, were Newcastle United, who missed him when he was a South Shields schoolboy almost at their own back door
ANOTHER forward may soon be leaving Accrington Stanley. I hear that Stanley Mercer has been interesting one or two clubs in recent weeks.
This 27-years-old centre-forward, who still lives in St. Annes, made his name with Leicester City before the war, and as one of the Stanley’s guests in wartime football once shot a “hat- trick” against Blackpool’s all- star cast.
He has hit the net eight times already this season in the Northern Section, and would not. I think, be averse to a transfer to a higher class of football.
I was asked to recommend him to Blackpool a month ago. I recommended him - but since that time Jim McIntosh has come back as a front-line leader
PEOPLE have such short memories. I heard half a dozen people making bets last weekend that m Alec Munro played against Liverpool his first game as an outside left for Blackpool.
The records reveal that in 1937-8 he played 14 successive games in the position m First Division football in a line which had a Dicky Watmough - Jimmy Hampson right wing, Bob Finan in the centre, and Tom Jones and Jim Blair alternately at inside left.
"THE best team Liverpool have met this season” That was the unsolicited testimonial of the Liverpool Pressmen at a recent game.
The team they were talking about? Blackpool. It's nice to know that somebody thinks they can on their day be good.
***
I WAS asking about Harry Eastham when Liverpool came to town last weekend. I have missed his name from the sports prints all season.
"What’s happened?” I asked the Liverpool Pressmen. The explanation is simple. He was hurt towards the end of last season - a groin injury - and for months there was no response to treatment.
He played his first game - for the Reserve in the Central League - a week ago.
This younger brother of George Eastham has been converted into a wing forward at Anfield and whenever I have seen him play, such a good one that his name may soon be reappearing in Liverpool’s first team.
***
A TRINITY in Blackpool football worthy of note are Joe Robinson, Tom Garrett and Gordon Kennedy.
These three have been Blackpool’s defence in every Central League match this season. Now, I should think, only an earthquake - or a call to the first team - could separate them.
Strange coincidence that the goalkeeper and two full-backs in the Blackpool’s first and reserve teams should have played unchanged during the first two months of the season.
BLACKPOOL took the field at Highbury today with a defence whose record of ten goals only conceded in 15 games was surpassed only by Arsenal’s own rearguard of Leslie Compton and Co.
How different it was in the old days. I can recall Blackpool’s first visit to Highbury after the 1920 promotion.
The Blackpool defence had lost 22 goals in its previous three matches on tour - seven at one Sheffield ground (Hillsborough), five at the other (Bramall-lane), and ten at Huddersfield.
And another seven shot into the net at Highbury, making a grand total of 29 in four matches.
JIM McINTOSH joins the ranks of the elite by scoring two goals in a First Division game for Blackpool.
Since the war! it has been done only by Stanley Mortensen (five times), Willie Buchan (twice), George Eastham (once), and George Dick (three times).
The Division scoring record for Blackpool is Jock Dodds’ four m a match against Middlesbrough shortly before the War.
ANGLO-SCOTS
A NEW name for the Blackpool team that met Liverpool last weekend would be “The Anglo Scots.”
There was a Scot in goal. The full-back and half-back lines were all-English. There was an English right-wing in the forward line, a Scottish centre-forward, and a Scottish left wing.
That made a total of seven Englishmen and four Scots. And even with Murdoch McCormack out of the attack there was a forward-line of M’s.”
All of which contains no particular moral, but is at least interesting.
Everything stops for “The Green"
ANOTHER demonstration of the popularity of “The Green” was seen at the annual meeting of the Cleveleys Hotel Subscription Bowling Club at the Savoy Cafe, Cleveleys, on Saturday.
This year - as happened last year - the business of the meeting was suspended while a member was dispatched to secure copies of “The Green.”
He soon returned with a sheaf of “Greens,” which were rapidly distributed. For some minutes the fortunes of favourite clubs were noted with exclamations of surprise and disgust.
Only when the best - or worst - was known was the meeting resumed.
WINTER activities of the Blackpool F.C. Supporters’ Club are now in full swing. The dance at the Tower on Wednesday was a great success and enjoyed by all.
Next week at the Clifton Hotel, Blackpool, every afternoon (except Monday and Saturday) at 3-0 and each evening at 7-30 there is the snooker festival.
This event brings to Blackpool the biggest array of “stars of the cue” ever presented in the town, starring Fred Davis, finalist in the recent world snooker championship, Mrs. Mabel Knight, Joe Thompson, Blackpool's own Harold Morris, and many others.
Tickets 4s (including tax), or £2 2s. and £1 1s. for the week are on sale at the Clifton Hotel or from the committee.
Selected again
CONGRATULATIONS and good wishes are offered to Stanley Matthews and Stanley Mortensen upon being picked for the international team to meet Sweden.
The much-delayed quarterly meeting will take place at the Jubilee Hall, Coronation-street, Blackpool, on Tuesday, November 25. at 7-30.
The meeting will be followed by a sports quiz.
Whist and dancing
TWO further dates to book are Wednesday, November 26, when the ladies hold a whist drive, and November 28, when a dance has been organised. Both events are at the Jubilee Hall.
The committee are trying to obtain badges for members of the club.
The snooker championship for Blackpool F.C. players starts this week, and the semi-final and final, which will be open to the public, will be in December.
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