"Weak” - but too strong for Derby
Blackpool 1, Derby County 1
By “Spectator”
IF ever a team earned a £1 bonus it was the team fielded by Blackpool last night.
With four first team men watching from the paddocks, two young recruits in the defence, a full-back out of position, an outside-left and a centre half who v ere not fit to play, but still took the field, and an inside-right who was reduced to half speed before half-time, the undefeated Derby County were held to a draw and were near to losing.
In a storming second half the County were made to appear commonplace. The forward line almost faded out, and the defence was reduced to a hit or miss desperate retreat.
HAYWARD STARS
Star of the match, bestriding it like a giant, ordering his defence about him and now and again retrieving it from downfall, was Eric Hayward.
Yet in this defence the self- assurance of young Jack Wright, who was once a good wing-half and promises to be a better fullback, a terrier in the tackle and yet never content with a hap-hazard clearance, impressed everybody.
The other man under his baptism of fire, Ian Fenton, could never in the first half master the Steel-Broome wing, but afterwards surged into the attack with the rest of a battling, courageous team.
McCALL’S GAME
In the attack Andy McCall could be called the Steel of the line - and there can be few higher compliments than that - and as a line it nearly battered the County to a standstill in the last half hour - and that’s a bit of a compliment, too.
I liked the way Suart and Kelly protected their young partners.
Both goals came in the first 13 minutes. Both were superbly shot, McCall volleying the first after four minutes, when McIntosh and Rickett had given him a shooting position, and Billy Steel shaking the roof of the net from 30 yards with a rising ball which flew away from the goalkeeper in the last half-second.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 1 (McCall 4 mins)
DERBY COUNTY 1 (Steel 13 mins)
BLACKPOOL’S drawn game with unbeaten Derby at Bloomfield-road last night is the story of a team’s triumph over injuries.
Blackpool took the field with two juniors and left-winger Wardle, who was really unfit to play, but Blackpool had no one else to put there, with twelve injured men on their books.
Strangely enough, it was Derby and not Blackpool who were lucky to gain a point.
From the first whistle Blackpool went all out and were a goal up in four minutes through McCall from a first-time shot that went like a rocket into the top of the goal.
Blackpool for the most part continued to dominate the game, but in the 14th minute opportunist Billy Steel took a long shot at goal and Robinson was deceived by the flight of the ball.
Forceful
Blackpool were even more superior in the second half, with McIntosh a grand, forceful leader and McCall a scheming inside forward.
The hero of the game was 21-year- old Jack Wright, playing his first game in senior football at left back for Blackpool.
Calm, cool and completely unperturbed, he won the cheers of the 30,000 spectators by the way he held Derby’s right wing during the second half of the game.
Stamps and Steel were outstanding for Derby, but there was never the close co-operation in the Derby attack .as displayed by Blackpool.
SHIMWELL, JOHNSTON, MATTHEWS MAY BE FIT SATURDAY
By “Spectator”
OUT of the skeleton remnants of his staff, Mr. Joe Smith, the Blackpool manager, today selected this second team to visit Derby County in the Central League tomorrow:
Jump; Kennedy, Wright, Horne, Jones, Fenton, Adams, Wilkinson, Mudie, Rogers, Ormond.
News of the casualties is less forbidding today.
An X-ray examination day revealed no fracture of Shimwell’s shoulder, and it is expected that he, Johnston and Matthews will be fit for the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday.
No fewer than 14 men are hurt and under treatment.
Out for the next month are Munro and McKnight, Wardle, Garrett and Crosland are uncertain for the weekend. So is Hobson, the reserve outside-right, specialist, Heywood and Mortensen are nursing injuries after last night’s game, but neither is seriously hurt.
STILL OUT
T. Buchan will be unable to appear next weekend. Lewis, the full-back, who has not yet played this season, will shortly be back m training.
Several of the players went for brine baths today.
All morning a queue stood in the rain outside the ground for stand and centre paddock tickets for the Wolves match. Admission to the rest of the ground will be at the turnstiles.
ONE unexpected sequel to the 1948 Cup Final will be a wedding in Grimsby.
When, early in the match, a penalty was awarded Blackpool for a tackle on Stanley Mortensen - a tackle which the news films have since revealed was outside the forbidden area - a Grimsby visitor to the match 42-year-old Jack Osgar, a famous East coast swimmer, discovered himself talking excitedly to a stranger a widow from King’s Cross, Mrs. Dorothy Westell.
That began it all. Both were in agreement that it was a penalty. They have since established that they are in agreement about nearly everything else.
Jack proposed to Dorothy before the match was over, and today I hear they are to be married at St. Andrew’s Church. Grimsby on September 25.
I WAS writing last week about the sportsmanship of Matt Busby, the Manchester United manager, after the Blackpool match at Maine-road.
Now I am reminded that watching the game was another man who is an ornament to football, even if he would hate you to call him that.
I never meet Mr. Arthur Drewry chairman of the England selectors and Grimsby Town director, without thinking again of the Blackpool match at Grimsby last season. Blackpool won it.
It was a serious defeat for a team already menaced by relegation. Yet after the match Arthur Drewry left the boardroom to climb into the Blackpool coach and to tell the team “You deserved the points, boys. You were just too good for us.”
Wherever I go in First Division football I hear people regretting the descent of Grimsby into the Second Division. And not because of the cases of fish they present at Grimsby to every visiting team!
Leave a Comment