THE GAME
The fog was falling again as the teams appeared, Blackpool in white jerseys.
Nearly 40,000 were waiting for them and hundreds of others were still pouring in. So early in the afternoon the terraces opposite the main stand were almost hidden behind a curtain of mist thickening every minute.
Charlton’s boy mascot showed nice impartiality by racing on the field and shaking hands with both captains.
EARLY THRILL
Blackpool won the toss. Inside 10 seconds Charlton were near the lead in a fast opening, Hurst- taking a pass, eluding Fenton as the bouncing ball escaped the young wing-half, outpacing Suart. and shooting a ball which nearly took the whitewash off the bar as Farm leapt at it.
That was the one direct raid by either front line for a time. The Blackpool forwards twice had the Charlton defence passing back to its goalkeeper before Phipps raced across the field to dispossess McCall as the inside-left went after a forward pass.
One had the impression in the early passages that an insufficiently close guard was being posted on Hurst, who took a pass from one free-kick in an open space before crossing a centre which had Blackpool’s goal gravely imperilled again before Johnston cleared with a pack of men surging near him.
FOG THICKENS
The far side of the field was so soon nearly invisible. Duffy once raced out of this grey curtain before being halted by the offside whistle.
With Blackpool going back all the time, Hayward took the ball off Vaughan, with the centre-forward waiting in another open space, and made a half clearance which Fenton completed.
Still, Blackpool were not outplayed, McCall shooting one ball to which Bartram fell full length near the foot of the post.
Johnston took Mortensen’s square pass almost in the centre-forward position and shot another which cannoned off a Charlton half-back for the first corner of the game in the seventh minute.
Immediately, O’Linn won a similar corner off Hayward which the centre-half cleared after it had been half repelled and the ball had been crossed again into a packed Blackpool goalmouth.
It was in the eleventh minute that Matthews was given a pass worth calling a pass. He opened a raid with a long cross-field transfer to the unmarked Wardle, but nothing came out of it.
TOO CLOSE
That was true of several Blackpool raids - all of them too close - which followed, even if once Campbell had to cross to the left flank to halt Mortensen as the inside-right went full pelt after a perfect forward pass from Wardle.
In the 13th minute Mortensen was in the wars again. After a loose ball he tore, fell in a heap as O’Linn tackled, rolled on the turf, one leg lifted, writhing in pain.
Trainer Johnny Lynas had to assist as Mortensen hobbled over to the line.
For three minutes he limped up and down behind the goal, ultimately walked slowly back into the game, played for another minute on the wing, but afterwards went back to inside-right.
Strangely, in his absence, Blackpool had nearly all the game. While he was still off McCall, at the end of a raid opened by Matthews, shot a low ball which Bartram seemed to lose and retrieve again on his line as he fell to it.
THEIR BEST RAID
And a minute after he had returned, Blackpool produced the best raid of the half in which the half-speed Mortensen, Johnston and Matthews had the ball gliding from one man to the next as if it were an exhibition match.
Matthews crossed the last pass to McIntosh who sliced it very wide.
Twice afterwards, inside a minute, Mortensen’s palpably reduced speed lost him chances inside the Charlton penalty area, the first of them direct from a perfect forward pass from Fenton.
Matthews was in the game every minute at this time, building raid after raid for a Blackpool team raiding almost without interruption.
Yet in the 25th minute Charlton were an unlucky team not to take the lead in a breakaway as O’Linn, escaping into another of those open spaces on the Athletic’s right wing, crossed a ball which Duffy, the man who shot the goal which beat Burnley in the 1947 Cup Final, headed against the underside of the bar with Farm, I think, beaten.
Two minutes later and this aggressive Duffy unexpectedly appeared as, an outside-right, raced down this unfamiliar wing, and shot a ball which Farm punched out for the Athletic’s third corner of the half.
CHARLTON PRESS
These two raids released storming Charlton pressure which continued for minutes afterwards.
It was a strange game in which first one team and then the other took almost complete command.
O’Linn headed barely wide from Ben Fenton’s long crossed pass with Charlton still attacking almost continuously at the end of the first half hour.
Yet in the 31st minute the Charlton goal had an amazing escape. There was an advance in a swift exchange of passes on Blackpool’s left wing. The last pass Wardle glided to McCall.
On to it the inside-left darted, shot a ball which Bartram parried but could not hold.
Out came the ball. McCall shot it again, shot it far out of the reach of the sprawling goalkeeper, who, in the next split second, watched it hit the inside of the far post, and, as it cannoned out, watched it hit a full-back who had leaped into the empty goal as Mortensen shot it back again.
That was an incredible passage at arms. Another followed it. but in the jaws of the Blackpool goal where, after Farm had dived vainly at Vaughan’s foot and the ball had rolled out loose, Mortensen, appearing from nowhere in particular, galloped on the scene and hooked the ball out as it was rolling over the line.
JOHNSTON’S SHOTS
Twice, in subsequent Blackpool raids, Johnston, who was shooting a lot today shot again, the first time a foot or two off the target, the second time into Bartram’s arms.
Yet this Charlton goalkeeper was once nearly taken off his guard as Matthews, for the second time in a minute, raced almost casually away from his full-back, cut inside, and, instead of an expected centre, shot the ball so low and fast that Bartram was glad to punch it out anywhere.
First one goal and then the other was in peril. That neither had fallen in this half, which had become more tempestuous the longer it had lasted, was remarkable.
In the last minute of the half Bartram made a grandstand clearance, fading to his knees to beat out a ball which McCall hooked fast at him from half a dozen yards out direct from a Matthews free kick.
Half-time: Charlton Athletic 0, Blackpool 0.
SECOND HALF
It was only after a midfield consultation with the captains, with the fog still thickening, that the referee permitted an interval.
As soon as it was over Blackpool went off as if glad of the rest, Matthews starred in a couple of elusive wing forays before crossing the ball at the end of the second and watching it miss every man for whom it was intended.
In the next minute, too, this England wing forward suddenly revealed himself as a centre- forward, went after a long forward pass at a great speed and lost the ball only inside shooting range as Phipps tumbled him head over heels.
It continued to be nearly all Blackpool, and for a time, too, nearly all Matthews, although once Lock stopped his little gallop with a tackle which everybody cheered as if the full-back had scored a goal.
An overhead clearance by Hayward, another headed out by Suart from a free kick, and yet another by Farm leaping to and holding a high lobbed pass ended the sequence of Charlton’s attacks which inevitably followed this Blackpool pressure in this topsy turvy match.
Neither team could take a grip on it for long. There was a lot of Charlton pressure at this time, but none of it brought Farm into action again.
GREAT CLEARANCE
The fog was falling lower and lower, but with 10 minutes of the half gone there was no reason to fear a standstill order.
Shimwell made one great, almost ruthless clearance, to shatter a raid on Charlton’s left wing.
But between these advances Blackpool were still often attacking, chiefly on the right wing, where once the progressive Johnston again shot wide when the defence had opened wide to watch “the two Stanleys."
Twice, the amazing Matthews now being given plenty of the bail, crossed centres which neither a massed Charlton defence nor three lone Blackpool forwards could reach.
Each time this will o’ the wisp hazard left his full-back on one leg wondering where he had gone to.
With 24 minutes left Blackpool nearly snatched the elusive goal. Johnson released a pass into an open space. McIntosh was waiting for it, accepted it, raced on with the referee refusing Charlton’s demand for offside, veered to his right, shot high over the bar as the open defence closed in desperately on him.
Inside a minute McCall shot from 20 yards into Bartram’s hands.
Inside another, Hurst raced out of the murk on the far side of the field, shot a ball which seemed to hit the outer edge of a post before cannoning out.
Inside another Farm had come lurching out of a swarm of men and the fog screen which hid his goal, holding a ball shot at him by Ben Fenton and eluding the half dozen men who hurled themselves at him for its possession.
OFFSIDE TRAP
For the seventh time during the match the Charlton forwards were brought to a halt in Blackpool’s offside trap in the Athletic’s next raid.
Charlton’s raids continued, but Blackpool survived to repulse one of them.
Fifteen minutes were left and Blackpool lost a big chance of the lead as Matthews doubled back in his tracks before crossing a ball over which McCall seemed to kick excitedly almost in the jaws of Charlton’s goal.
Another minute and McIntosh shot high over from Wardle’s headed pass after the wing forward had been given position.
GOAL HIDDEN
As news reached the Press box that five London matches had been abandoned, the fog became yet thicker. It was still possible, however, to see 50 yards if not 60 or 70 as the curtain lifted and fell, although once, after a free kick the Blackpool goal was completely obscured and anything could have happened there.
From the tumult something nearly did. That the game would end now seemed certain. How it would end was still speculative with 10 minutes left.
The closing minutes were a farce. Nobody knew what was happening with the players almost invisible, and now and again lost to view entirely.
Result:
CHARLTON ATHLETIC 0
BLACKPOOL 0
The two stars of this match were Stanley Matthews and Johnston.
It was a game which established all the greatness there is in the incomparable Matthews when he has a halfbacks serving him with passes as they came to him today.
Farm had another blameless and often glamorous game.
Draw was a fair result yet Blackpool with one good marksman could have won it.
NEXT WEEK: Stoke Steele-armed for victory “hat trick” bid
A TEAM that has won its two postwar games at Blackpool comes to town next weekend intent on completing a “hat-trick.” Stoke City won 2-0 at Blackpool in 1946-47, even without Nett Franklin, but with the England centre half’s understudy, the coloured Roy Brown, playing such a game that after the match somebody gave him the title of “The Brown Bomber."
The victory was repeated last Christmas Day. That match ended 2-1 for the City, both of whose goals were scored by Freddie Steele immediately after this evergreen centre-forward had come back to the game after breaking an ankle bone and been told that at his age it probably meant the end of his career.
And while all this went on Blackpool were beaten 4-1 at Stoke two years ago - this was the game in which Stanley Matthews scored a wonder goal in the mud, but for the City, not for Blackpool - and played a 1-1 draw there last season.
This City side has been one of the teams of the year this time, had played seven games without a defeat before losing to Bolton Wanderers last weekend, and possesses in
Frank Bowyer, a promoted reserve, an inside forward who a week ago led the First Division marksmen with 12 goals in 12 games.
It will be a big test for Blackpool, who have lost eight points at home this season and cannot afford to make a habit of losing many more.
PATIENCE, PLEASE, FOR MORTY
Football’s greatest opportunist will come again
By “Spectator”
A FEW months before his tragic death in 1938. I was talking to Jimmy Hampson in his home in Blackpool. He was never a man addicted to self-pity.
“But,” he said - and I have never forgotten his words, “the public soon forget, don’t they? You’re up at the top one day in this game, and next day you can hear people saying, ‘He’s finished.’ Just because you play a bad match or two - that’s all."
The centre-forward who was Blackpool's idol in 1930, the man whose name 20,000 people chanted - “We want Jimmy! . . We want Jimmy!” was the chorus - when the team came back with the Second Division championship from Nottingham, was relegated during the autumn of his career to the second team for a few months, and for those few months was only, a shadow of the footballer he had been.
He was back nearly as good as ever but as an inside-right, his first position, before the day in January, 1938, when he went out for a day’s fishing at Fleetwood and never returned. But there had still been those months out in the wilderness for him.
The public have forgotten that Jimmy Hampson was not always secure in their affections, that for a time they forsook him, and, as I know, disillusioned him.
Happening again
THIS is no sob-sister story.
I am writing it because the people who watch football have to be reminded now and again that they are too inclined to spurn their idols once those idols lose a little of their magic.
It is happening to Stanley Mortensen in Blackpool today.
When he scored his “hat trick" against the ’Spurs to put Blackpool in the Cup Final for the first time last March - and that is only about eight months ago - he was Jimmy Hampson the Second in these parts.
Up to the Final and afterwards he was, to hear some folk talk, the greatest forward football had produced in a half-century. It was all as near idolatry as makes no difference.
Now what’s happened?
They are saying-
BECAUSE he is as fallible the rest of us, because, common with the rest of us, he cannot always be at his peak, because he has not been this season the scoring machine of the last two or three years, shooting the goals in match after match, because, in brief, he is not a clockwork robot but subject to all the human frailties, the whispering gallery is beginning to murmur with his name.
People are saying that he is reserving all his best games for England - as if a man could decide in advance when he is going to play a good or an indifferent game.
They are saying that he is discontented at Blackpool and wants to leave the club which made his name for him and has treated him always, as he freely admits, with every consideration.
They are saying that he is punch - drunk burnt - up, all those phrases from the boxing ring which were said of Jimmy Hampson when he was no longer playing in the ’30’s the illustrious part in Blackpool football which Stanley Mortensen has played in the ’40’s - and will, I am convinced, play again.
Mortensen’s goals total of eight at the end of November - three of them penalties - is sufficient to confirm the self-evident fact that he is not taking his chances as once he was taking them. There are times, too, when he is just that half-yard slower off the mark.
But this is not to indicate that he is on the way out, that the time has come to sing his swan song; It is in my view one of those temporary phases which interrupt every career in football in a lesser or greater degree.
There is nothing remarkable in it. There is nothing sinister in it, either.
The switch
I AM not impressed by the people who think the decline has been aggravated or in any way affected by the decision a fortnight ago - a decision which has now been revoked - to play him as an inside-left.
A good tactical case could be made out for that experiment. With Stanley Matthews on Blackpool's right wing there is an inevitable tendency in every opposing defence to bunch on this flank.
The theory was that on the other wing there might be the open spaces into which a few months ago Mortensen was racing to score half his goals.
It has not worked out that way, chiefly, in my view, because this England inside-right is not a forward who can be chained to one position, that by temperament and inclination he is always roaming, always has, and always will.
Lost confidence
I ATTRIBUTE the present position which had to arise at some time or other, just as assuredly as one day soon it will be arrested, to two factors.
That ankle of Mortensen’s which has betrayed him in several matches this season is preying on his self-assurance all the time. It is, he has been assured, nothing serious, but he is so sensitive about it that it has perceptibly affected his game.
But, chiefly, and this, too, happens to be the view of Mr. Joe Smith, the Blackpool manager, who knows Mortensen as a footballer probably better than any other man, it is a clear case of lost confidence which has put him for a time among the “also- rans” in the First Division scoring race.
He has been missing chances which were once goals within seconds of pouncing on a ball.
I remember how in match after match earlier in the season he went after his 100th League goal and found it eluding him. He could not understand it. He said nothing about it, but it sapped that, faith in himself which only a few months ago was illimitable.
Up and down
"HE’LL come again,” says Mr. Smith, who knows, for once he was one himself, how these professional footballers are not automatons, that they are up and down like everybody else.
Stanley Mortensen still ranks as one of the great forwards of his generation. He will become again the greatest opportunist - his major quality - of them all.
All that is asked for is a little patience, and that, after all he has done for Blackpool football, is not asking such a lot. Neither for him nor for one or two other men in the present Blackpool team who a few months ago could do no wrong, and now, according to a few people, seem unable to do anything right.
Missed record
STANLEY MORTENSEN missed a chance of another record in Blackpool’s service last weekend. If he had converted the penalty against Manchester City he would have been the first Blackpool player ever to score three penalties in successive matches.
He can still create another sort of record. Already he has three penalties to his name this season.
Another three would give him a total of penalty goals achieved by no other Blackpool player.
The present record of five is held by Jim McClelland, who scored them in the 1932-33 season.
FRANK WAS SWIFT IN SIGNING
FRANK SWIFT, the England goalkeeper, was indiscreet last weekend. He wandered out of the Blackpool ground after the Manchester City match.
Immediately there was a minor riot. Every boy who seeks footballers’ autographs in Blackpool, which means about half the male population under 14 or 15 years of age, swooped on him until in the end Frank resembled Gulliver engulfed by all the Lilliputians.
How many autographs he signed in the next 15 minutes has not yet been computed, but it was probably a record.
I had not the chance of a word with him, but I know he was one of the first to congratulate Thurlow, his young understudy, on the great first-half game he played against the Blackpool forwards.
On the air
STANLEY MATTHEWS will be on the air on Monday evening, is to be featured in “Starlight Hour”
He is the first professional footballer ever to sign a BBC contract for a variety feature.
He will not return with the Blackpool team to Blackpool. Nor will Stanley Mortensen.
Both have to report on Monday at the England team's HQ for the match with Sweden, at Highbury, on Wednesday.
Mr. Smith talks to Bolton about - Nat Lofthouse
WHEN Mr. Joe Smith, the Blackpool manager, went out of town on Wednesday his destination was the Bolton Wanderers - Manchester United Lancashire Cup quarter-final.
He asked the inevitable question about Nat Lofthouse, the Wanderers’ centre-forward. He was told again by the Burnden Park people that if a decision were reached to transfer this forward, who has expressed an inclination to come to Blackpool, the news would be immediately communicated to Bloomfield-road.
Blackpool will be given the first option. That is a promise, and it will be redeemed.
While he was at Burnden Park, Mr. Smith met Mr. Matt Busby, the Manchester United manager. They talked about Burke, one of the Manchester forwards, coming to Blackpool. There may be developments, but at present the United have so few reserves that it would, I think, require a player-exchange for an agreement to be reached.
I know that Mr. Smith has been impressed by this fast, progressive forward whenever he has seen him.
He is the sort of direct player Blackpool require.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 27 November 1948
THERE have been half a dozen letters in the mail this week about the penalty incident at Blackpool in the Manchester City game. I expected them.
If Stanley Mortensen had converted the penalty there would not have r been one letter.
Because he missed it these correspondents declare “The ball was going in the net when the City’s centre-half punched it out. The referee should have given a goal."
But the referee cannot give goal until the ball has crossed the line. And if it is advocated - as one or two of these correspondents advocate - that the law should be amended to give the referee this authority, I know that there is not a referee in the land who would approve the amendment.
The referee has sufficient split-second decisions to make in every match without being expected to adjudicate on whether or not a ball would or would not have crossed a line often packed with players.
The truth is that in theory penalties should not be missed.
In practice...
SITTING in the trainers’ box with Frank Swift, the England goalkeeper, at Bloomfield- road last weekend was a man who played in the famous last - day - of - the - season match at Blackpool in 1931, when Albert Watson scored the goal which made a 2-2 draw with Manchester City and reprieved Blackpool from relegation.
Laurie Barnett, who left Blackpool for the City in the late 20’s, has held the trainer’s post at Maine-road for 10 or 15 years. But in the 1931 match he was still playing, was in the City’s full-back line, and, as I remember, allowed no sentimental attachment for Blackpool to affect his game.
Who played for Blackpool in this match? I am often asked this question. This is the answer:
Pearson; Grant, O’Donnell (J); Watson (A), Longden, Tufnell; Quinn, Oxberry, Hampson, McCelland, and Smalley.
It was when captain Jack O’Donnell, recalling that Watson had come to the club as a forward, moved the half-back into the front line in a last desperate bid for a point that the goal came which sent half Blackpool mad.
Up in Scotland
I notice that Ken Dawson, the outside-left who could never score during his few months at Blackpool in 1938, is still often among the goals.
I notice, too, that Jock Wallace retains his position in the Leith Athletic goal. Reports have it that he is working down the mines again, is only on half-time as a professional footballer.
I also notice that Blackpool scouts are reported by the Scottish newspapers to be at so many Scottish matches that if half the players they are supposed to be watching were signed they would have to run the Royal Scot in duplicate to bring them all across the Border.
IT is a coincidence that the only two full-backs who have played Stanley Matthews with complete confidence in a match at Blackpool this season - so many others have treated him as if he were charged with high explosive and liable at any time to slow up! - should both be playing for Manchester clubs.
The first was Jack Aston of Manchester United. The second was Eric Westwood of Manchester City, last weekend. Both, too, were scrupulously fair. Both are entitled to compliments.
It is ironical that the only time the City full-back lost his composure and handled the ball unnecessarily Blackpool should have scored from the resulting free- kick. That is football all over,
EX-BLACKPOOL players in the news:
Jim Todd, the Irish international half-back, on Port Vale’s transfer list, and playing for the second team in the Cheshire County League.
Jim Blair still being called the best inside forward in the Southern Section because of his fine football for Bournemouth.
George Dick seeking his first goal but otherwise giving general satisfaction in a winning West Ham team.
Tom Lyon scoring goals for New Brighton - the one last weekend was his club’s first at home since September 2.
Bob Finan at outside-right, where he played his last prewar games for Blackpool, and Murdoch McCormack at outside- left in the Crewe team which held Hull City to a draw.
And Eddie Burbanks still playing for the City, but Willie Buchan no longer in the front line.
***
BOB JOHNSON, the ex-Blackpool centre-half and one of the tallest men in football, may be taken on to Burnley’s scouting staff when his days as a player end. He has already had one or two commissions for the Turf Moor club which he has now been serving for 14 years.
Yes, it’s as long as that since he left Blackpool and after a short time with Blackburn Rovers settled with Burnley. For a year or two he was first selection for the centre-half position. Then Allan Brown supplanted him.
When Brown went to Notts County back came the 6ft. 4in. Johnson again, but not for long. He has recently expressed the view that the Turf Moor crowd is fickle. But aren’t they all - all football crowds?
By the way, when Blackpool go to Burnley in a fortnight’s time, it will be a no-ticket match.
The Burnley club issue no stand tickets.
MR. W. H. E. EVANS, the League referee, lives in Liverpool but has almost a residential qualification for Blackpool. He was stationed in Blackpool during the war, when for a year or two he was at Squires Gate with the RAF.
He came to Blackpool on Thursday to talk to Fylde referees He was the man with the whistle at Blackpool in the Manchester City; match last weekend. And whenever he wants a holiday he comes to Blackpool.
It was not surprising that among the 100 telegrams awaiting him at Hampden Park at the Scotland-Ireland match, which he refereed last week, were a dozen from Blackpool.
Some people think Mr. Evans is the best referee in the game today. Others think he is a shade too theatrical both in dress and deportment.
I am one of the former school. While a referee is level with the play he will not make many mistakes. And Bill Evans is always that. He still trains three evenings a week.
SPORTSMAN of the week: Roy Clarke, the Manchester City left-wing forward, for his applause of George Farm after the Blackpool had made a great save from him.
If that shot scored it would have won the game for the City. When the goalkeeper reached it with an incredible leap almost backwards off the line the City forward was the first man to acknowledge the brilliance of the clearance.
These little gestures are often a bit of gallery play. This was not. Coming at such a time, late in the game, its sincerity could not be questioned.
ROAR OF THE KOP
MEMBERS of the Blackpool Football Supporters Club have a real chance to show the team what real supporters are
When the ball is not running too well for the team give them the vocal encouragement they need. Again for a short period in the second half in last week’s match with Manchester City we heard the roar of the Kop.
Blackpool fans, let us hear these cheers more frequently. They inspire the team.
Weekly whist
DON’T forget to support the ladies’ events. Every club needs the assistance of the ladies, particularly when holding social functions.
We have a very keen and enthusiastic ladies’ committee, with Mrs. T. Newton (wife of the treasurer) in the chair.
Every Tuesday they hold a whist drive at the Liberal club, and the attendance is increasing. I Will you give them your support, please?
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