BLACKPOOL END SEASON WITH SMASHING WIN
Forwards hit seven against North End
McINTOSH GETS 5
Preston North End 0, Blackpool 7
BLACKPOOL at Deepdale should be one of the matches of the season. This afternoon it was merely a game which completed the fixture list.
The absence of Blackpool's three England players, the aftermath of Wembley, and a dull, cold afternoon took all the glamour out of the game. A few of the Wembley rattles, with faded tangerine ribbons flying from them, were making a noise on the terraces, but otherwise everything was curiously unexcitable.
There were gaps on the terraces everywhere, and dozens of empty seats in the stands.
The attendance was estimated at 25,000 when the teams appeared. That was 10,000 fewer than is usual when these rivals meet.
PRESTON NORTH END: Hall; Walton, Scott, Horton, Waters, Dougall, Finney, McLaren, Jackson, Hannah, McClure.
BLACKPOOL: Robinson; Shimwell, Crosland, Buchan, Hayward, Kelly, Hobson, Munro, McIntosh, McCall, Rickett.
Referee; Mr. W. B. Nixon (Manchester).
THE GAME
Eric Hayward captained Blackpool, won the toss and defended the town goal. In the first minute Crosland sliced a clearance to Finney.
The England forward raced past the fullback and squared a pass which his partner, McLaren, hit wide.
A corner for North End followed on this right wing, Dougall thundering the ball over the bar as it came out loose to him.
DOG ON FIELD
A dog came trotting on the field as North End’s raids continued. A linesman took possession of him and lost him again.
For nearly a minute the game was at a standstill while one man after another chased this intruder and in the end hunted him off the field via the players’ entrance.
The game afterwards was almost completely in Preston’s possession. Robinson raced out constantly to field high centres. Hayward made clearance after clearance.
Buchan stopped a ball shot fast and low by McLaren with Blackpool still in retreat.
There was no end-of-the-season stuff about Preston’s early football.
BLACKPOOL’S RAIDS
The few Blackpool raids which interrupted this pressure ended before they reached the penalty area.
The first time Hall was in action was in the 10th minute when he held one of Shimwell’s long clearances. Yet two minutes later Scott nearly gave a goal away, trapping a forward pass, losing it, and getting it again as McIntosh swooped on him in a position where the goal was wide open.
Finney cut fast inside and shot a ball which Robinson punted out. McLaren hooked it back again, but Robinson managed to hold it.
That set North End’s forwards off all over again, Buchan making a desperate clearance with his own goalkeeper sprawling at his feet.
A couple of corners were surrendered by Blackpool’s defence in the next two minutes.
THE LEAD
Blackpool score in a breakaway
Then in a breakaway Blackpool took the lead with one of the most remarkable goals I have seen this season.
Hobson took a throw-in not far from the centre line. Buchan took possession, lobbed the ball high towards Preston’s goal.
McINTOSH chased it. Out to it came Hall, leaped at it as it bounced in front of his goal, lost it, fell backwards as the Blackpool centre-forward put it into the net.
CHANCE LOST
Blackpool should have had another goal five minutes later. This time McIntosh took a loose ball out on the right, crossed it inside where Rickett all by himself, and with sufficient time to decide the part of the net to hit, shot it wide.
Blackpool’s forwards were now finding a new pace every minute, were constantly eluding a Preston defence vulnerable to shock raids.
So it went on - Preston attacking repeatedly and yet every time the Blackpool forwards crossed the halfway line there were signs bordering on panic in Preston’s full-back and half-back lines.
FORWARDS MISS CENTRE
A raid built on Preston’s left wing nearly ended in Blackpool’s lead being lost with seven minutes of the half left.
Hannah swooped on Shimwell’s half-hit clearance and put his partner in possession. McClure hooked his centre so fast across the face of a nearly open goal that three Preston forwards, hurling themselves at it, missed the ball.
With two minutes of the half left Blackpool’s goal had a great escape. Finney raced nearly half the length of the field, leaving two men in his wake. There was chaos in a Blackpool defence as his centre was crossed. Robinson lost the ball, and McLaren hooked it back high towards an empty goal.
From the other wing Shimwell raced, hurled himself at the flying ball, and was still in mid-air as it cannoned off his head and hit. the underside of the bar and rebounded out again.
North End’s forwards had been attacking two-thirds of this half and yet Blackpool were still leading at the interval.
Half-time: Preston North End 0, Blackpool 1.
Second half
Munro shot low into Hall’s arms, but the chief threat to Preston’s goal in the opening minutes of the half was on the Preston right wing where Crosland was actually finishing 50-50 with such a great forward as Tom Finney.
With five minutes of the half gone sensations and goals came thick and fast.
Blackpool made it 2-0 with a perfect goal in three passes. Buchan opened the raid. Munro took his pass in a big space which North End’s unprepared defence had loft wide open.
into another similar space Munro glided forward a copybook pass. McINTOSH was on it in the next split second, ran on half a dozen yards, calmly sidestepped the ball past Hall as the goalkeeper came galloping out to meet him.
PENALTY CLAIM
Within a minute there was a demand for a penalty, as, chasing another of those long cross- field passes which were being introduced everywhere into Blackpool’s game, Rickett Was tumbled to earth by Waters after the outside-left had raced away from the centre-half.
It made no difference. It was 2-0 with only 11 minutes of the half gone.
This was a gift goal. There was a raid down the centre. RICKETT took a pass a dozen yards inside his own half, swerved one man, corkscrewed past another, and decided to shoot from 30 yards.
Everything that happened afterwards was in slow motion. Hall took two deliberate paces to his right, crouched to meet the low bouncing ball, fell on one knee and allowed the ball to crawl beneath him into the net.
McINTOSH’S THIRD
Four minutes later Blackpool were four goals in front. This fourth goal was nearly a carbon copy of the second except that this time the left wing built it.
Rickett outwitted Walton, put a pass inside. McCall was in position for it, waited until McINTOSH was in position, gave him a pass which the leader shot past a goalkeeper deserted by his full - backs again.
This was a triumph for the open game.
GONE TO BITS
There were uncharitable and ironical cheers every time Hall fielded a ball afterwards. North End’s football had gone to bits.
With 27 minutes of the half gone Walton, after limping at outside-right, decided to limp into the dressing room.
Another minute and McLaren hobbled to the line for attention and disappeared from view as the fullback returned.
A minute later Blackpool’s lead was increased. This time MUNRO, who had not scored a goal in the First Division all the season, decided to celebrate with a goal in the last match of the year, took a pass 30 yards out and from this range shot a rising ball which sailed high into the wall of the net.
In a last desperate gamble Finney went to centre-forward for a bewildered North End with Jackson at outside-right.
It made no difference. Blackpool's forwards were moving at this time like clockwork, taking passes from their halfbacks, racing forward with them, finding the gaps every time.
Ten minutes were left and a sixth goal came. This time a full-back, with all the time in the world to clear, hesitated, lost the ball to McINTOSH, who whipped it past Hall’s left hand before the goalkeeper could move an inch.
Another four minutes and it was 7-0. Again McINTOSH was the marksman on this ground where he once played in one of North End’s white jerseys.
This time the centre-forward took a throw-in by Buchan and hooked the ball over his own head from 20 yards out into the far wall of the net, with Hall utterly unprepared for such an unconventional shot.
The match ended with 25,000 people chanting “One-two-three-four” and on up to “seven.” Never have I seen such an amazing end to a season.
In the last minute McIntosh headed against the bar.
Result:
PRESTON 0
BLACKPOOL 7 (McIntosh 25, 50, 60, 80 and 84 mins, Rickett 56 mins, Munro 70 mins)
On another page I talk about a Blackpool goal famine. There was no sign of one in the last hour of his game.
Never this season have Blackpool forward-line played as his one did.
They scattered and riddled North Ends defence in the second half.
Rickett-McCall wing was master-piece, but the other two. Munro and Mclntosh were also outstanding.
This was first time Blackpool had won away from home since September 27, the first time the team had scored seven goals in a First Division match since way back in the early 30's. And it was done without the two Stanleys and Harry Johnston.
NORTH END GIVEN A FOOTBALL LESSON
NOTHING resembling this match have I seen on a First Division field for years, writes "Spectator.”
From the 25th minute, when a young reserve Preston goalkeeper stood as if bewitched as a bouncing ball rose high in front of him and allowed Jim McIntosh to head the first of his five goals, it was a one-horse race.
Afterwards the North End defence faded and faded until it was almost invisible.
It was all done with the direct pass, the long pass, the luring of a man out of position before releasing the ball - a lesson in football reduced to its simplest terms.
With Albert Hobson limping with a pulled muscle for three-quarters of the afternoon, the other four men in the line had North End’s half-backs and fullbacks chasing about in circles.
GLITTERING WING
The audaciously impudent Rickett and the tireless zig-zagging McCall made a glittering wing. They began the rout. The opportunism of the remarkably assured McIntosh completed, it.
The defence nearly had an afternoon off once the North End front line had been mastered in the first 20 minutes.
McIntosh was the first player to score five goals a match against Preston North End in their 60 years’ Football League history.
He is now also bracketed with the late Jimmy Hampson as the highest individual scorer for Blackpool in a League match. Hampson had five against Reading on November 10, 1928.
Blackpool have twice previously been concerned in freak results at Preston. They were beaten there by 6-4 in 1925, and four years later Blackpool exactly reversed this result.
Team building?
MANAGER JOE SMITH of Blackpool, was not present at Deepdale this afternoon to watch his team play Preston North End. Nor, for the first time this season, was Trainer Johnny Lynas on the line.
Where were they?
No information was issued, but it was a reasonable assumption that team building for 1948-49 is already beginning.
Reports I heard were that a famous player, his position unspecified, was being watched, writes “Spectator.”
NO SITTING BACK AT BLACKPOOL
Close-season signings may end goal famine
By “Spectator”
WHEN the teams walk off the field at Deepdale this afternoon it will be the end of Blackpool’s greatest season. It can be called that without exaggeration.
Last season’s record total of 50 First Division points has not been equalled, but the club have never been close to the relegation zone, have spent placid and yet at times exciting months in the League, and, reaching Wembley for the first time, have put Blackpool football on the map as it has never been before in half a century.
That all this should have been achieved by a club whose financial resources are strictly limited indicates that Manager Joe Smith and his directorate have discovered the secret of producing first-class fooball without a too flagrant resort to the cheque book.
The Blackpool public should be appreciative of that fact. So should a football world which needs to learn that all that glitters is not necessarily gold.
Football's sense of money values has gone haywire. Blackpool, at least, have done something to correct it
An error if -
YET it would be a grave error - an error which I do not think will be committed - if the Blackpool board sit back during the close season content with a team whose football has at times climbed to unsuspected heights and yet a team which in one or two positions is still not as strong as it could be.
There is no intention, either in this column or in 31ackpool’s boardroom, to begin throwing into discard a few men whose service to the club in this and past seasons has entitled them to at least a decent consideration.
All the men who have contributed to Blackpool’s triumphs this season - and it was a major triumph even to reach Wembley - have been put on the club's retained list and will be offered terms which not only practical politics but sentiment should dictate.
Money in the till
YET Blackpool have the money in the till today - the money from the Cup, which is not, I estimate, higher than £8,000 or £9,000, and the credit balance on the last two seasons’ transfer deals, which is a figure considerably higher - to sign, if they can be found, the men who in one or two positions could make Blackpool one of the star teams of 1948-49.
Fancy fees may be asked. Blackpool, I know, purely as a matter of policy, are disinclined to pay them.
Yet during the summer expediency alone may compel them to be paid. If that should happen the new season in August would open with rich promise.
What of the season which ends today? What are the credits and debits?
Among the credits I list:
The fielding at last by Blackpool of a defence which on the figures in the League table and in its disposition in action, too, has ranked among the best half-dozen in the First Division.
To this defence the half-back line has been again a veritable buttress. How they can always find half-backs at Blackpool! This year’s discovery - the man I select as the one whose football has made the greatest advance this season - is Hugh Kelly.
That is Credit No. 1. Among others are:
The great promise of the 20-year-old full-back, Tom Garrett, the ex-Fleet Air Arm pilot, Johnny Crosland, and the pocket-edition Scot, Andy McCall.
Loyal staff
THE elegance of Stanley Matthews’ football which age - and he is still not as old as all that - cannot wither nor custom stale; the efficient loyal captaincy of Harry Johnston, and, while on, the subject of loyalty, the sincere devotion to the club’s interests of every man on a staff who in character and temperament have had no equal in all the years I have been reporting Blackpool football.
Not all the players are as good as others on the field, but all are as good as the expert, conscientious training of Johnny Lynas and Jack Duckworth can, make them and a natural talent will permit.
-And “Morty’
'T'HERE is, too, “That Man Again” - Stanley Mortensen, who has not only scored a higher average of goals than one man should have to score in a First Division forward line, but has become only the fifth player in all football history to score in every round of the Cup, and in six representative matches has been out of the scoring list only once - the Ireland match at Goodison Park.
This mighty atom’s goals are:
Six in five matches for England and one in his only game for the League, 10 in six Cupties, and 21 in the First Division - a grand - which is exactly the word for it - total of 38 at a time when for months there has been a goal famine at Blackpool.
Too few goals
IT is this goal famine which is Debit No. 1 and the one debit calculated to cause concern in the future.
Too many men have been scoring too few goals.
Stan Mortensen in particular has been scoring a disproportionate number of the few that have been scored.
That is the one major problem for Blackpool, a problem which is not peculiar to this one club. Solve that, and Blackpool will be on the way to the presentation of the greatest team in the club’s history and the present team is not such a bad one at that.
Marksmen
THE club’s marksmen this season are:-
First Division: S. Mortensen 21, J. McIntosh 8. W. Buchan 4 (1 p.) (now with Hull City), G. McKnight and M. McCormack 3 each G. Farrow 3 (2 p.) (now with Sheffield United). G. Dick 2, S. Matthews. H. Johnston A. McCall, W. Rickett 1 each.
F.A. Cup: S. Mortensen 10. J. McIntosh 5. E. Shimwell 2 (1 p.), G. Dick. H. Johnston, A. Munro 1 each.
Central League: G Dick 9. J McIntosh 8. G. McKnight and R. Gilmian 7 each. A. McCall 5. W. Buchan
5 (3 p.). W. Ormond 4, A. Munro 3, R Finan (now with Crewe). S. Nelson (now with Luton). M. McCormack. W. Jones 2 each. P. Sowden. J. Rogers. I. Fenton. H Doherty, A. Hobson. and J. Mudie 1 each.
That “Lost Weekend”
FINAL reflections
THEY ARE CALLING IT "THE LOST WEEKEND” BECAUSE DURING IT BLACKPOOL LOST THE CUP. YET IT WAS A WEEKEND TO ENTER IN THE SCRAPBOOK OF MEMORY.
RANDOM FLASHBACKS FROM IT:
Still “Gerry"
GERALDO appearing unexpectedly at Blackpool’s hotel at Ascot, after taking a car from London, arriving shortly after breakfast, telling the players,
I’m ‘Geraldo’ in London, and I suppose the name is famous, but I’m still 'Gerry Bright’ to Blackpool and St. Annes folk.”
Walking into the hotel's small ballroom, sitting himself down at the piano, playing for them, posing afterwards with them for the Press photographers. Saying, when I talked to him, “The less they think of the match tomorrow the better, I suppose. This has passed an hour for them, it’s probably served its purpose.”
"It has,” I said to him. And it had, too.
***
Johnny’s regret
JOHNNY CROSLAND, walking back off the first fairway at Wentworth, talking to Ronnie Suart, the man whose position he had been given in the Final team, saying, “I’m sorry about this Ronnie,” and so obviously meaning it.
It was no empty idle courtesy. “Why,” recalls Suart, “early this week, when we were in the dressing room, Johnny said, 'Well, if you can’t play and I have to, it’ll be a shame. See that you’re fit, Ronnie.’”
Talking later in the day, in the coach en route to the Wembley preview, to Jim McIntosh, the other man out of the team. “Do you know,” said McIntosh, that after I’d been told that I shouldn’t be playing I went home for lunch, and I’d just finished it, when there was a knock on the door and in came Stanley Matthews to say, ‘It’s all in the game, Jim. Don’t let it worry you.’ That’s the sort of nice guy Stan Matthews is.”
I didn’t need telling that.
Precious turf
HARRY JOHNSTON being given his instructions at Wembley on the afternoon before the Final.
Everything is planned to the last second. There is a strict routine for both teams according to whether they win or lose.
If you win,” the Blackpool captain was told, “you can be chaired off the field by your own men, but the public mustn’t come over the top. So, if that happens, work it all out in advance and leave the field with the Cup as rapidly as possible.”
They guard the Wembley turf now as if it were a rich carpet. Every time a man makes a tackle which scars the precious sward the ground staff shudder.
“End of a dream"
EPILOGUE to this scene 24 hours later.
The Manchester men are lifting Johnny Carey to their shoulders. It all looks so spontaneous, and yet, as I know, it has all been rehearsed. Past the group, one by one, glancing as they pass at their medals, the Blackpool men filed in a ragged broken line.
The band begins to play “The King.” All movement is arrested. The Manchester team stand like an unfinished tableau, the Blackpool men as still as statues scattered all the way from the Royal box to the players’ tunnel.
You could have carved it in stone and called it “End of a Dream"
Gallant losers
YET there is no immediate reaction or depression.
First man I meet afterwards is Stanley Mortensen and he says, “Well, somebody has to win - and somebody has to lose,” and asks a commissionaire to direct him to the Manchester dressing room, where he strolls in with a Congratulations, lads.”
Harry Johnston and Stanley Matthews have been there before him.
I began to realise then just how gallantly Blackpool were losing this match - not only in its last 20 minutes but afterwards.
Cockney cheers
BACK to the West End - without the Cup - only a few yards behind the rear number plate of the Manchester coach out of whose open roof John Carey had climbed, the Cup held on high for the people in the streets.
They cheered him, but they cheered the Blackpool vanquished, too, as soon as they saw the notice in the front window Blackpool Players’ Coach.”
“Up the Pool” - “Come Again next Year” - you could hear these Cockneys calling as they ran out of the shops and the houses.
All the time I had the impression that although the United were favourites in the betting Blackpool were favourites in public esteem.
I don’t know why - but there it was. You saw a dozen tangerine rosettes to every red one - outside and inside the Stadium.
***
Calm, efficient
SAM JONES, calm and imperturbable, and Stanley Rowland, no less calm and always imperturbable, acting so efficiently as escorts for the players’ wives and families at a West End hotel.
Everything organised to the nth degree, and everybody so appreciative of their services.
***
THERE are only five men in Blackpool’s first and second teams who have not yet missed a match this season. Not one of them is a forward - and only one is a half-back.
The never - absents in the First Division are Jock Wallace, his two full-backs, Eddie Shimwell and Ronnie Suart, and the centre-half, Eric Hayward.
Full -back, Gordon Kennedy, is the Reserve’s one ever-present.
The moral of all this may be that you take less punishment in a defence than in an attack. It might be, but I think it’s merely a matter of chance.
Well trained
TALKING to Mr. Johnny Lynas, the Blackpool trainer, at the Mayfair Hotel celebration, telling him,
“Well, it’s only two years since you came back from a Jap prison camp.
In the first season the team win 50 First Division points, which is a record. The second season and they’re in the Cup Final for the first time.” This is one Johnny who has not got a zero.
Talking, too, to Mr. V. F. McKenna, who manages Blackpool’s “A” team. He recalls that one day, when a player had been offered a trial by Blackpool, he asked that the trial should be deferred for a day. “I’ve an appointment in town,” he said.
The appointment was an investiture for gallantry. The player was the other Johnny - Johnny Crosland.
The homecoming
THAT amazing welcome home.
The players never expected it, were not so certain what to expect.
But when as the crowds became thicker and thicker the nearer they approached Blackpool and the reception culminated in that vast cheering multitude in Talbot-square, a few of them were obviously and unashamedly affected.
Said Harry Johnston, “Once the match was over out on the field at Wembley I said to myself ‘Well, that’s that - we’ve done our best and lost. Nobody can do more.’
"I was resigned to it and was still resigned to it on the way back. Then, when I saw all those people and realised that we hadn’t won the Cup and yet that they were still all there waiting for us - it was only then, I think, that I felt sadder than I’ve ever felt in my life.”
A lost weekend? Not at all. A glorious weekend, for there is a glory in defeat when a team loses as Blackpool lost this match.
I've no regrets that I was in it all.
Mortensen out of hospital
THE Blackpool and English international forward, Stanley Mortensen, today left Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where he had been detained since Wednesday night when he was injured in a collision with the Manchester United goalkeeper during a match at Bloomfield-road.
At his home at Marton, Mortensen told “The Green” that he was feeling almost fit again.
“The rest in hospital has done me a lot of good, but I am going to take things quietly for a day or two,” he added.
FA. Cup Final players to broadcast
SlX of the men who played in the Cup Final will be on the air from Blackpool next week.
A sports brains trust, which is to follow the annual meeting of Blackpool F.C. Supporters’ Club, in the Spanish Hall of the Winter Gardens, on Tuesday evening, will be recorded by the B.B.C. from 8-30 to 9-30.
On Thursday evening extracts will be broadcast in “Sportsmen’s Club” at 7-30 in the home service.
Johnny Crosland, the young Blackpool accountant, who made an unexpected appearance at Wembley, is one of the guests. Others are Stanley Matthews, Stanley Mortensen, Harry Johnston, Jack Carey and Jack Rowley.
Allen Clarke will be the host with experts from northern rugby and other sports.
Star presents gifts to cup team
BLACKPOOL F.C. Cup team each received an oak-cased barometer last night - gifts from Summerland Farm Dairies Sports and Social Club, Blackpool, at a social evening at Hills Cafe, Blackpool, when 300 guests were present.
The presentations were made by Miss Irene Manning who is starring at the Palace Theatre.
The president of the Sports and Social Club (Mr. C. W. Ardley) welcomed the Blackpool team, who, he said, while they had not been successful in bringing back the Cup, had brought something equally important, the respect and admiration of every Englishman for a brilliant display of football and sportsmanship.
Mr. E. G. Vanner (director) introducing Miss Manning, congratulated all members on the generous way they were showing appreciation to the most popular band of sportsmen in Blackpool.
Miss Manning, making the presentation, said she was proud to meet such a grand team.
A bouquet was presented to Miss Manning by little Joy Ardley, daughter of the president.
WELL done, Blackpool! Even if the Cup did not come to the seaside Blackpool won the hearts and admiration of a great number by their sportsmanlike play.
They can console themselves with the fact that they took part in one of the best finals of the century.
Annual meeting
ARRANGEMENTS are well in hand for the annual meeting of the club to be held next Tuesday at the Spanish Hall.
The meeting will start at 7-0 p.m. and will be followed by a sports quiz, which will be broadcast We shall not be on the air until 8-30 p.m., but we hope to begin the quiz 45 minutes before this.
For the quiz
ON the platform for the quiz we shall have Henry Rose, Alan Clarke (B.B.C.), Stanley Matthews, Stanley Mortensen, Harry Johnston and Johnny Crosland, of Blackpool F.C., and Johnny Carey and Jack Rowley, of Manchester United.
This, I know, will be a great evening, and we hope that the hall will be packed.
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