7 February 1948 Blackpool 5 Colchester United 0

BLACKPOOL’S OWN 'M’ PLAN BEATS FENTON’S

Five for Munro, "Morty" and McIntosh

Colchester Panic

Blackpool 5, Colchester United 0

By “Spectator”

COLCHESTER UNITED had a final conference behind the locked doors of their dressing room half an hour before the teams took the field at Bloomfield-road this afternoon in a Cup-tie which has sent two towns football crazy.

Ted Fenton addressed the team, outlined his famous “M” plan yet again, and announced at the end that the two wing half-backs would transfer positions.

Blackpool played the men who defeated Leeds and Chester in the earlier rounds.

At 2-15 the gates were locked with nearly 30,000 people packed inside and thousands of others still out in the streets.

Every announcement on the loud speaker was engulfed in the nonstop turmoil of rattles, bells and hunting horns.

BLACKPOOL: Robinson; Shimwell, Suart, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, Mortensen, McIntosh, Dick and Munro.

COLCHESTER UNITED: Wright; Kettle, Allen, Brown, Fenton, Bearryman, Hillman, Curry, Turner, Cutting. L. Cater.

Referee : Mr. H. W. Moore (York).

The reception for both teams bordered on the hysterical with mascots scattered at random among the players, a battery of Press and newsreel cameras at the players’ entrance, and the cheers threatening to split the skies.

Colchester won the toss, set Blackpool to face wind and rain in protection of the north goal.

It was, as I expected, all pace and little else for a couple of minutes.

Then, in the third minute, amid indescribable scenes, with hats as thick in the air as leaves in autumn, Blackpool took the lead.

Stanley Matthews was the principal in it. The first time he took a pass from Johnston,

Brown excitably sliced his centre out for a corner.

Matthews took it, was ordered to retake it. Colchester’s massed defence repelled it. Mortensen was waiting for the loose ball, glided it back again to his partner.

MUNRO SCORES

Back flew the centre of the England wing forward. MUNRO in the inside-right position, leaped at it and headed it high.

Down it fell and too late Wright took a dive at it, appeared to punch it backwards into his own net.

That was Munro’s first goal of the season. A minute later Mortensen crashed to earth in a lone raid.

Three minutes later, Colchester never yet within shooting distance of Blackpool’s goal, Wright atoned for his blunder with a great clearance as McIntosh headed the ball wide from him.

NEAR THING

Curry, who has never missed a goal in a Cup-tie this season, half-hit a shot to which Robinson fell a shade too late, clutching at the spinning ball as he lay in the mud, and snatching it away from the advancing Turner.

A corner for the United followed and from it Hayward headed out Curry’s fast, rising shot.

Another half minute, and from Turner’s perfect Curry blazed wide when might have scored.

These Colchester men were not out of the game yet. For minutes afterwards, Blackpool were reduced to desperate defence.

WATCHDOGS

Mortensen is given little scope

Minute after minute, the Colchester front line raided, made shooting position for itself and shot every time when it reached one.

For nearly 10 minutes the First Division team was seldom over its halfway line, became as an attacking force, a one-man line, that one man was Stanley Mortensen, and he was invariably repelled by a couple of watchdogs who seldom left him.

RAIDS CONTINUE 

Three corners came to the United as the pressure continued, a pressure which nearly won a goal as Suart half-hit a clearance and retrieved it with the United’s two inside forwards darting to it.

In the 25th minute, these Colchester forwards still raiding, and playing in the process uncommonly good football, again nearly snatched a goal.

Hillman hit a free kick which Robinson appeared to punch up against the face of his own bar before falling in a heap with two Colchester forwards on top of him.

Yet in spite of all this raiding the United lost another goal after half-an-hour.

BREAKAWAY GOAL

The goal came in a breakaway. A Colchester defence was left wide open. Shots in rapid succession by Munro, Dick and Mortensen were repelled.

Then out came a loose ball to McINTOSH who hit it fast and low into the near corner of the net from a dozen yards.

The United should never have been losing by two goals in the first, fast half-hour.

There were times when even Ted Fenton was racing down among his own forwards in the all-out bid for a goal which Colchester had to score before halftime if the aid of the wind and the rain was not to be entirely forfeited.

Slowly, however, as the interval approached, the United’s grip on the game began to wane.

Half-time: Blackpool 2, Colchester United 0.

Second half

The brave little United went out of the Cup in the first two minutes of the second half with the loss of two goals in less than a minute.

No. 1 came 75 seconds after the half had opened. It was a great goal. Johnston made it with a long, forward pass into one of those ominous gaps which had been appearing all the afternoon in the United’s disunited defence.

MORTENSEN went after it in one of those one-man raids in which he specialises, reached it a split second before the full-back could close the gap.

Past this back the international went, swerved round the other and shot past the deserted Wright with no other man within half a dozen yards of him.

Direct from the kick-off, with the Colchester defence in a panic, split wide open and scattered. No. 4 came less than 30 seconds after No. 3.

MORTENSEN AGAIN

This time a fast long passing movement made the position. As the ball came over from one wing Dick, in a big leap, headed it back again, left the unguarded MORTENSEN to shoot a fast, rising ball into the net almost off the line.

Another three minutes and Colchester’s goal fell again.

All over the field by this time, Colchester’s defence was scattered and being riddled

This time, McINTOSH took another of Dick’s headed passes before shooting past Wright.

Seldom have I seen a team, revealing such promise as was in Colchester’s football before the interval, go into such a complete eclipse in so short a time.

After these hammer blows the United were for minutes retreating everywhere.

Wright made a great leap to pull down a ball headed away from him by Mortensen.

Curry shot low into Robinson’s arms in one of the breakaways to which the United forwards had been reduced.

With half an hour left Colchester’s defence were massed in front of a goal under nearly constant pressure.

NEARLY ALL BLACKPOOL 

In one Blackpool raid Matthews came to earth and the referee, gave a free kick on the penalty area line.

Johnston, moving to the ball, swerved away from it, allowing Mortensen to kick a rocketing shot which hit a pack of men and rose high off them over the bar.

It was nearly all Blackpool. Colchester had little left except all that pluck which has taken them into the last 16.

The teams left the field with every man shaking every other man’s hand and the crowd spilling over the lines until a path had to be cleared to the dressing- rooms by the police.

Result:

BLACKPOOL 5 (Munro  3 min, McIintosh 30, 49 mins, Mortensen 46, 47 mins)

COLCHESTER UNITED  0 

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COMMENTS ON THE GAME

Colchester were good to reach the last 16, were good in this match for half-an-hour, but after that class told.

While they had the wind and the rain to aid them, the United’s inside forwards played crisp, direct football, and often had Blackpool in retreat.

But whereas the Blackpool defence stood tolerably firm in face of this unexpected first half pressure, there were always gaps in a Colchester defence too intent on surging forward to reinforce its front line.

All those gaps were brilliantly exploited by Blackpool’s two wing half-backs, Kelly and Johnston.

There were no such open spaces in which the Colchester front line were ever permitted to move.

Stanley Matthews was - well, he was Stanley Matthews all the afternoon.

McIntosh, too, held the line with studious, discreet passes when, in the. first half, it was at times a bit of a patchwork.

Afterwards, it stormed into its own with Mortensen’s opportunism highlighting it, riddled, outpaced, and, in the end, outclassed a Colchester defence which, with all the goodwill in the world, was simply not equal to its task.

Yes, this was the “M” plan. All the goals were scored by “M’s”, although probably Ted Fenton did not mean it quite like that.

Still, salute a gallant little team whose defeat has put Blackpool in the last eight for the first time for 23 years.

TED FENTON’S PRAISE

TED FENTON, the Colchester player-manager, took the defeat like the good sportsman he is. 

He told “Spectator” in the dressing-room after the match: “No excuses - not one. Blackpool are a grand team.

 Today they are my new tip for Wembley.

“All I can say of my lads is that they put up a great show, but our forwards were too small for all this mud. If it had been only a little firmer - well, you never know what might have happened. As it is we were beaten and beaten by a team I admired before the game, but admire even more now.”

THE FIRST ARRIVAL

FIRST spectator on the Blackpool ground today for the Cup-tie was Mr. Charlie Price, of Sycamore- avenue, handicapped and in the invalid motor tricycle in which he has gone hundreds of miles to watch Blackpool teams on tour.

He was installed in the south-west Corner where all the disabled men from the Services congregate, huddled from the wind and rain under a tangerine and white umbrella, at 9-15, 5 and a half hours before - the kick-off.

Hour after hour he played his concertina. At his side was a bag of tangerine and white rosettes, which later he sold on behalf of the Supporters’ Club.

Sixth round tickets 

BLACKPOOL FC announced after this afternoon's Cup defeat of Colchester that as soon as possible after the Sixth Round draw has been made on Monday a notice relating to tickets and prices for the next Cup-tie will be published in “The Evening Gazette"

Until this notice appears no applications for tickets will be considered.

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TO FORGIVE OR NOT TO FORGIVE?

There must be discipline

By “Spectator”

TO forgive or not to forgive? That is the question which they have been asking in Blackpool this week, when they have not been talking about the Cup-tie.

Should Blackpool have pardoned Jock Wallace?

I have had a dozen or two letters on the subject and three-quarters of them say “Yes.”

I have been asked for my opinion. As a more or less disinterested observer I should have been inclined to forget and forgive.

This 36-years-old Scot is no born rebel, and acted contrary to all I know of him when he did not come to Blackpool for the Leeds United Cup-tie last month.

His conduct was inexcusable, yet he is such a great guy, in every sense of the term, this Peter Pan of a goalkeeper who will never grow up, that I should have said, “Well, we’ll let bygones be bygones, and forget all about it.”

He would, in fairness to Robinson, have had to begin all over again with the second team. But another chance he would have been given.

That, I happen to know, represented the first inclinations of Manager Joe Smith. That, I suppose, will be news to all those prejudiced and misinformed people who are always telling me that the Blackpool manager is a harsh martinet, of whom all the players walk in fear and trembling.

Chaos if -

YET we should both have been wrong. I admit that.

Unless there is discipline - a discipline which has been allowed to wane - in professional football, a discipline exercised by the F.A. and the League over the clubs and by the clubs over their players, chaos will be inevitable.

If Blackpool had condoned Jock Wallace and taken him back it would, on the short-term view, have been applauded as a generous and chivalrous action.

But it would, too, have created a dangerous precedent.

It would also have been a betrayal of the interests of every club in the League.

Where would it end?

FOR if a player absents himself from training and refuses to play in a match - Cup-tie, League match or anything else - because he has a grievance, and is afterwards merely told, ‘Well, it mustn’t happen again,” nobody can tell where it is all going to end.

Blackpool could not in such circumstances forgive Jock Wallace, although their granting of £400 - the official figure - towards the second benefit he has now forfeited, and the fixing of a mere £500 as his transfer fee, is considerate treatment.

The truth is that this was the first one-man strike in big football. If it had been allowed to achieve its ends it might have become a little too fashionable.

Transfer auction

FOOTBALL has too many problems already, not the least of them the transfer system, to embarrass itself with any others.

What a game this transfer auction is. For an auction it has become, with the bids rising higher and higher until all sense and reason are outraged.

Blackpool sent a two-man delegation to Ireland last week to watch a goalkeeper.

When they boarded the boat the price was £3,000. By the time they disembarked the following morning, by which time the news of their mission had been disclosed - the bush telegraph in football even operates on the high seas! - it had risen to £5,000.

And after all that the goalkeeper played a game of no particular conviction.

Shackleton bid

THERE was a Blackpool bid on the table, too for Len Shackleton this week.

It was not the first Blackpool bid which has been made for this player. Every time in the past Newcastle have intimated that they would be prepared to exchange this £13,000 forward for Stan Mortensen, a proposal which Blackpool have always refused seriously to entertain.

This week’s offer was considerable, in pre-war days would have caused a sensation in the town if it had ever been revealed.

“But,” I was told by a member of the board 24 hours before the Newcastle directors met, “we shall be amongst the ‘also rans.! You can take that for granted. Once they begin talking about £20,000 we’re out.”

And on those terms I hope Blackpool always will be out.

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Jottings from all parts  

BY "SPECTATOR" 7 February 1948

KELLY'S THE NAME

WHOSE game in the present Blackpool team - has shown the greatest advance this season?

I can answer that one without hesitation. The man is Hugh Kelly, the Scottish wing - half, who since he has been played on the left wing of the line - his true position - has been authentic First Division.

I am glad that somebody has asked this question, and that I have been able to give this answer to it. For this week I have been accused of playing down this half-back.

That is not correct, as Kelly himself is the first to, acknowledge.

The accusation in any case I should have ignored if the man who made it had not had the good manners to sign his name to his complaint. Now he knows what I think of Hugh Kelly.

***

IT was not the first time last weekend that a Villa match at Blackpool had ended in a hullabaloo. But the last time - on March 19, 1932 - there were serious consequences.

Jack Oxberry was crippled late in a match which the Villa won 3-1. Hundreds of people massed outside the gates afterwards. The Villa had to leave by the back door. Afterwards the League ordered Blackpool to post warning notices.

A year later Blackpool turned the tables, beat the Villa 6-2 in an amazing game which opened with a “hat trick” by Phil Watson, a centre-half playing as a centre-forward, but soon, after that one blaze of glory, becoming a centre-half again.

***

T'HE last time before today that a Blackpool team played in the fifth round of the Cup was on February 18, 1933.

The game was at Sunderland on a day lashed by a gale and sleet. The pitch so closely resembled a quagmire that my companion in the Press box, Mr. J. T. Howcroft, the old referee, said frankly before the match, “If I were referee today I’d not allow them to play.”

Tom Gurney headed the only goal from a corner seven minutes from time. Which was a little ironical for Blackpool, who had lost a point in a midweek First Division game at Roker Park about a fortnight earlier by a goal headed from a corner exactly seven minutes from time.

***

NOW the critics are discovering that Port Vale have a potential England centre-half at Hanley.

They could have told them that at Blackpool a year or two ago when Basil Hayward, younger brother of Eric Hayward, the Blackpool centre-half, was on the books at Bloomfield-road.

They had to release him because as an amateur he preferred to remain near his home in the Potteries, but it was with reluctance that they parted.

“He’ll make a big name one day,” I remember Manager Joe Smith saying at the time. He’s making it now.

***

EVERYBODY has heard about Ted Fenton, the Colchester United ace - captain, centre-half, secretary, manager and inventor of the “F” Plan.

What about his first lieutenant? He keeps in the background. Yet Joe Birch has done a lot for this enterprising little club.

He began his professional career at Birmingham, and, when I met him yesterday, was recalling visits to Blackpool in the Central League.

Bill Tremelling; was in the Blackpool team in those days, and playing for Birmingham was Harry Hibbs, who at that time was reserve to Dan Tremelling, who was in England’s goal in 1928 and is Bill Tremelling’s elder brother.

Great names .... and not all of them forgotten.

***

COLCHESTER UNITED have one major ambition compared with which everything else is of less importance - even the Cup-ties. That is to be admitted to the Third Division.

Mr. A. Sexton, one of the directors who have built this club is convinced, whatever may have happened this afternoon, that in this year’s Cup-ties the United have made out an unanswerable case for election. I agree with him.

The United are in a population belt of 250,000, and that there is a zealous public for the club is established by the 9,000 membership - yes, 9,000 - of the United’s supporters’ club.

A closed shop this Third Division, I know, but both Colchester and Gillingham must be seriously considered next time they vote.

 ***

I NOTICE that there were two ex-Blackpool men playing against Blackpool Reserve at Chesterfield last weekend.

Everybody can recall one of them, for Fred Tapping left these parts only a few months ago. The other has been forgotten by the present generation - if they knew him.

Tom Lyon, the Scottish inside forward. was in one of Blackpool’s between-the-wars teams. They said he had finished with football. But Chesterfield recalled him this season and for a time he was in the Second Division team.

One of those players is Tom Lyon, who gives you 90 minutes of all he possesses in every game.

 ***

STANLEY MATTHEWS is building an enviable winter clientele at his South Promenade hotel. Half a dozen teams make it their regular headquarters when they are in these parts.

Portsmouth are there for both the Blackpool and Preston games. Colchester have been in residence this week. Grimsby Town are booked for next week.

There are others who now would never go anywhere else.

 ***

I WAS glad to see that Hugh Doherty had scored one of Blackpool Reserve’s four goals in the match at Chesterfield, which was the first the team had won this year.

A grand lad, this Southern Irishman. Nearly everything has gone wrong for him since he came into English football and went on the Danish tour last close season.

Not all his early promise has been fulfilled, but it may be yet, and, as Doherty is the sort of footballer who adorns the profession, I hope that before long it will be.

 ***

RONNIE DIX, Blackpool’s war-time guest from the Spurs, went off on another of his explosive scoring sequences for Reading the other day against a Swansea Town team which seldom these days includes the ex-Blackpool forward, George Eastham, who has had no sort of luck since he went into Wales.

Three goals, including a penalty, Dix shot. Yes, he can still do it on his day.

He once had five at Bury for Blackpool in a game which ended 11-1 in 1942, and in another wartime game at Blackpool he hit three past a goalkeeper in less than six minutes.

 ***

THEY still haven’t forgotten that famous goal in the 1944 Cup Final at Villa Park. As soon as the Villa outside-right, Edwards, appeared at Blackpool last week-end they were calling out, “Here comes ‘Hand-ball’ Edwards.”

I did not see that 1944 match, but I am assured that this forward punched the first of the Villa’s four goals past the Blackpool goalkeeper. Everybody said it was no goal - except the referee, and his word alone counted.

 ***

INCLUDING his Central League and Cup-tie goals, Jim McIntosh, with his winner against the Villa equalled Stan Mortensen’s 16 in all games this season.

Six in the First Division, two in the Cup, eight in the Central League - that is his record.

 ***

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Friday 6 February 1948

CUP HIGHLIGHTS
Colchester, football's new glamour team

ELEVEN men whose names were unknown or forgotten in big football a month ago lapped the track bordering the pitch at Blackpool’s headquarters at noon today in front of the biggest battery of Press cameras which has assembled in Blackpool since Mr, Winston Churchill came to town.

COLCHESTER UNITED, THE 100-TO-ONE F.A. CUP OUTSIDERS, ARE ATTENDED WHEREVER THEY GO THESE DAYS BY A PRESS ESCORT WHICH A HOLLYWOOD FILM STAR WOULD ENVY, WRITES “SPECTATOR."

“It’s amazing,” said Ted Fenton, Colchester’s tall centre-half and “M” Plan tactician, forcing his way to the track past a swarm of Pressmen massed in the players’ entrance.

“It’s incredible," said Manager Joe Smith, of Blackpool, leaving his office for a couple of minutes to watch the men who Are to meet his First Division team tomorrow.

“I’ve been in football a long time, but this is something new.”

Out on the field, after a storm of hail and sleet which has drenched the pitch, the ground staff with pitchforks were releasing the standing pools on a field already soaked, and with an inch layer of mud on it. Up on the terraces and in the paddock's platforms for five film camera units were being built.

PLAN - AND OYSTERS

So it has been -the men of a dozen famous newspapers prowling for stories, the bulbs of the camera squad flashing - ever since the United arrived at Stanley Matthews’ hotel on South Promenade last evening with a sack of oysters, a Plan spelt with a capital "T” and so secret that they talk about it only in whispers, and a serene confidence.

The oysters are a gift from the Colchester Corporation to the Mayor of Blackpool and are to be served at the celebration dinner at the Palatine Hotel tomorrow evening.

The Plan is for Blackpool’s discomfiture in the afternoon.

Ted Fenton calls it the “M” Plan because It is chiefly designed to play the famous Matthews - Mortensen wing - the England wing - out of the game.

“What happens is in the lap of the gods,” said the Colchester manager. “But I think the gods are with us this year,”

Manager Joe Smith’s only comment is: “If we don't win this match we don’t deserve to be in the Cup.”

Somebody’s going to be wrong. Everything is reported O.K. from the dressing rooms.

BIG TREK NORTH
HIGHLIGHTS of the Blackpool - Colchester 
Cup-tie tomorrow:

Confusion IN Colchester over a motor coach ban which threatened to wreck a 30-coach excursion promoted by the supporters’ club. Only 11 of the coaches would have been allowed to leave Colchester tonight if a last- minute reprieve had not been granted. Now nearly all the coaches will come.

* * *

Colchester station was being besieged this afternoon for trains up north. It is still expected that between 2,500 and 3,000 will be in Blackpool tomorrow to cheer the biggest Cup Outsiders for nearly 40 years.

* * *

Six boys left Colchester by cycle at 7-00 a.m. today on the 280 miles to Blackpool.

* * *

Ted Fenton's two children, 11-years-old Alan and six-years-old Brenda, are with the team. They have come to town with two mascots - the famous champagne cork, without which their father will never play in a Cup-tie, and a rowing boat made out of white heather.

* * *

Blackpool has gone Cup-mad. One of the corporation's dust carts was out in the streets today with a broken tea urn the shape of the Cup, and beneath it the legend, “Dreaming of thee - Joe and Ted."

* * *

The two teams had the afternoon off. They will both go to the second house of the Palace varieties tonight.

* * *

It may never be screened

SOME of the newsreel cameramen think that Colchester may win at Blackpool tomorrow.

Mrs. “Ted” Fenton, the wife of the Colchester player- manager was invited to star at the Blackpool ground this afternoon in a little act which the news films will feature if the United win.

Across the field she ran to her husband, kissed him.

“Grand.” said the cameraman. “Cut!”

This will go on the screen as the first salute to victory - if Colchester win. Will it go on the screen?

* * *

THE PERFECT HOST

STANLEY MATTHEWS, Britain's No. 1 footballer, is also the perfect host.

That is the unanimous opinion of the Colchester United players. who are staying at Matthews' Blackpool hotel.

“Stanley is doing everything to look after our comfort" said Colchester Manager Ted Fenton today.

“He gave us a very good breakfast. No. there was no arsenic in the porridge"

* * *

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Saturday 7 February 1948

Today's Cup-tie at Bloomfield-road
WHAT CAPTAINS SAY

LAST orders which will be given to Colchester United before they take the field in the Fifth Round Cup-tie at Blackpool this afternoon will be:-

“Play the game whatever happens. There must be no rough house stuff.”

“My lads will fight to the last minute like demons,” I was told by Mr. Ted (“M” Plan) Fenton, the Colchester player - manager last night, “but they’ll play fair, every one of them. We’ll give no quarter, but there'll be nothing below the belt.”

NEWSREELS

Never has there been such a build-up for a Cup-tie in Blackpool.

Five film cameras will record the match for the newsreels from platforms built in the paddocks and on the terraces. One is perched at the top of Spion Kop. Nearly 50 reporters will be packed in the Press box.

As early as six o’clock this morning the first of the motor coaches from Colchester reached the town.

Between 3.000 and 4,000 Colchester people are expected at the match. Special trains are commissioned, and half-a-dozen planes have been chartered.

Sleet, hail and rain showers have so soaked the playing area that the ground staff yesterday afternoon were out with pitch-forks.

Last night both teams went to the second house of the Palace Varieties.

There I was told by:

Harry Johnston, the Blackpool captain: We’ll be playing in grim earnest from the moment the game starts, taking nothing for granted.

Bob Curry, the Colchester captain, who has scored in every Cup-tie he has played in this season: If we play good football I shall be satisfied. Only good football can beat Blackpool - and we can play it, even if we’re not among the famous teams.

The gates will be opened shortly after 1 p.m. for the 2-45 kick-off. A capacity attendance of 29,500 is almost certain.

The teams will be the guests of the Mayor of Blackpool at a dinner at the Palatine Hotel at 6-30.

The oysters on the menu are Colchester natives. The United came to town with them in a sack and presented them to the Mayor, a gift from his opposite number at Colchester.

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