Blackpool 1, Manchester United 0
A FEW minutes before half-time Stanley Mortensen, England and Blackpool forward, chased one of those chances which only half-a-dozen other men in the country would ever have chased.
Full-tilt he raced over the penalty area line. As I saw it - and the impression was confirmed by every Blackpool man I consulted afterwards - John Carey, the United captain, in pursuit of him, shook him off balance with a tackle not violent but sufficient to rock him sideways.
In the next split second the forward, hurtling through space under his own momentum, crashed into Manchester’s goalkeeper, Jack Crompton. Both men crumpled to earth. Slowly the ball rolled wide of them into the net.
DOCTORS CALLED
Doctors were called on the loudspeakers to the Manchester dressing room after both men had gone off, the Blackpool forward in his trainer’s arms, the goalkeeper, blood trickling from one ear, on a stretcher.
It was incredible to see the goalkeeper out again early in the second half, first as an outside-left and later in his green jersey.
Was it a goal? Or was it a free kick? Thirty thousand people packed inside the little Wembley of Bloomfield-road, considered it was one or the other.
Mr. F. Thurman, the Preston referee, astonished the crowd by giving a free kick for the United.
Interviewed after the match he said, “I gave it for a foul by Mortensen on Crompton.”
One might as reasonably accuse a doodle-bug - instead of the men who propelled it - of malicious intent.
The decision made no difference. Mortensen had scored his 21st First Division goal of the season to win the match in the 10th minute, swooping in a swallow dive to head a left wing centre low into the net from an almost impossible position.
BLOOD AND THUNDER
But after the accident a match, which earlier had approached the Wembley classic of last weekend, became a blood and thunder and little else.
Ten Blackpool men made a last ditch stand against a Manchester front line, moving smoothly in approach, even with a reserve right wing, but being remorselessly halted by a Blackpool defence whose keystone was the defiant Hayward.
Out of this defence Kelly led one grand foray after another - what a great half-back this Scot has become in so short a time - and in a four-man forward line Rickett and McCall had a very good game.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 10 min)
MANCHESTER UNITED 0
Photos: THE GOAL - AND THE CRASH. - These "Evening Gazette" pictures show the two most dramatic incidents in the Blackpool v. Manchester United football thriller at Bloom field-road.
Above. - Stanley Mortensen flings' himself forward to head the goal - from the line. Matthews is seen on the left and United players on the right are Crompton (goalkeeper) and Aston (left-back). The ball is seen going into the net.
Right. - The collision. This picture, taken a split second before Mortensen and the goalkeeper dropped unconscious to the ground shows how the Blackpool forward tried in vain to check his dash by digging his studs into the ground. The slashed turf in the foreground is where he went down in the other picture.
MORTENSEN INJURED - IN HOSPITAL
By “Henry Jones” The Daily Despatch
STAN MORTENSEN, England International and Blackpool inside forward, last night lay in hospital with concussion and a head injury. Together with Crompton, Manchester United’s goalkeeper, he was carried from the field within a minute of the interval in the clash between the Wembley sides at Bloomfield Road.
Dashing through at top speed with the ball at his toes, Mortensen appeared to stumble. Crompton had dashed out. With the ball in his hands the goalkeeper stood firm. Came a terrific collision. The ball rolled into the net as the players fell prostrate.
Crompton returned after 20 minuses to play outside right, right full-back and back in goal again in this amazing game.
Mortensen did not regain consciousness until an hour later - in hospital.
The tense atmosphere was not improved when the referee - ambulance men and helpers having left the pitch - awarded a free-kick against Mortensen.
Carey, Who had raced alongside Mortensen, was continuously booed, but the referee said he saw no foul on the Blackpool star.
This match generally bore no semblance of the Wembley pattern.
It was interspersed with but meagre flashes of brilliance.
Mitten Goalkeeper
We saw some grand saves by Mitten when he went in goal, watched Carey swing the ball over from outside right when United put in a late spurt in an effort to save the game.
But the one blow struck after 10 minutes by Mortensen before he was carried unconscious from the field, sufficed to give his side some recompense for their Cup defeat, and struck a blow at United’s hopes of keeping the runners-up position.
Mortensen’s goal was a typical effort. A long swinging centre from the left caught United defence spreadeagled, and Mortensen dashed in to head into the net from a position near the upright, a brilliant goal from , an impossible angle.
Earlier the Blackpool star had forced Crompton to an amazing save with a lightning drive.
United, even before their enforced switch of positions, were not the United we know. They felt the absence of Morris and Delaney, for whom Hanlon and Buckle deputised as a new right wing.
For Blackpool, even Matthews could never equal the brilliance of Mortensen, who played an all too brief part in the terrific struggle.
Oil the whole, though the Blackpool crowd no doubt enjoyed the excitement, they only sampled the dregs from the Cup which was duly paraded during the interval.
The two teams of Wembley, Blackpool and Manchester United, forgot all about the hullabaloo earlier in the evening and had dinner as guests of the United directorate at the St. Annes Hotel last night.
The Cup was there, festooned in red and white ribbons. Mr. A. H. Hindley, Blackpool vice-chairman, deputising for his chairman, Mr. Harry Evans, who has been indisposed during the last week or two but said little about it, surveyed this Cup. said frankly and enviously, “I wish we'd won it,” but added, “ Yet we still congratulate Manchester United who deserved to win it.”
There was a chorus of applause and “Good old Stan!” from the Manchester players’ table when the announcement was made that Stanley Mortensen’s condition was no longer giving cause for concern.
Mr. George Whittaker, one of the Manchester directors, described last weekend’s Wembley as the best Final for over 20 years, said “ These two clubs have always been good friends,” and asked “What about meeting at Wembley again next year?”
This afternoon’s hospital report -
NOTHING SERIOUS
To remain in hospital until Saturday
STANLEY MORTENSEN, Blackpool’s England forward, is not seriously hurt. But he will remain in the Victoria Hospital for observation until Saturday, it was announced this afternoon.
I saw him earlier in the afternoon immediately after an X-ray examination had revealed that in his head-on collision with Jack Crompton, the Manchester United goalkeeper, in last night’s match at Blackpool, nothing had been fractured, writes Spectator.”
Paler than I have seen him, a little languid, too. he was still the same Stanley Mortensen who constantly had the ward chuckling as his photograph was taken after lunch.
MIND A BLANK
His wife, Jean, who was called from the main stand to the dressing room when it was feared that the forward was gravely disabled, said, when I gave her this afternoon’s news. “I felt as if everything had ended when I was told. ‘Come to the dressing-room.’ ”
I remember racing after the ball,” Mortensen told me. “Everything else is a blank. I must have gone out like a light.
They said that I’d collided with the goalkeeper. Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I know nothing about it.
“ALL WRONG’'
“And what’s all this about giving a free-kick against me?
“That,” he said, as if it concerned him more than anything else, “was all wrong, you know.”
Whether the accident will affect his inclusion in England’s Continental tour next month cannot be determined, but in view of his serious scalp wound during the war, when he was in a crashed training bomber, he has been ordered to rest quietly for several days.
***
THE CRIPPLES
JUST one more word about Wembley before the tumult and the shouting finally dies.
The plight of the cripples who were refused entrance has touched the imagination of the public almost as much as the match itself, and in the case of the non-football fans even more.
Those Blackpool men who battled their way in invalid chairs to the heights of the stadium deserved better treatment.
It is to be hoped that the Football Association and those who manage the Final with a miracle of efficiency will in the future turn a sympathetic ear to the crippled supporters of the teams taking part.
Obviously there must be a limit to the number of invalid chairs admitted. But there should be no limit to the gratitude the men in them have earned by their service and sacrifice in war for Britain.
Surely some arrangement could be made which would provide perfect safety for them, as well as giving them one of the keenest delights in lives not unduly blessed.
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