THE GAME
The United defended the north goal in the glare of the sun when Blackpool won the toss.
Nothing conclusive came out of the early tempestuous football. Yet in the third minute a goal was near. Johnston’s long throw, almost into the packed zone in front of the Newcastle goal, won a comer off the unprepared Brennan who hurled himself late at the flying ball.
Matthews crossed over the corner. The ball was still falling as Mortensen darted in, hooked it fast, so fast that from the Press box it was impossible to decide whether it hit a post or hit the diving Fairbrother and cannoned out off him.
Away, after this escape, raced the United’s front line. There was a brief confusion in a Blackpool defence so suddenly swooped upon. In the end Kelly beat two men with almost impudent assurance before breaking up the attack.
Another minute, and the fifth of the half, the United were in front, presented with a goal.
The United’s first raid had not been completely repulsed. Back to the aid of his defence raced a Blackpool forward - I think it was McCall - rolled the ball slowly back, presumably intending a pass to his goalkeeper, gave it instead to HAIR who, with no man near him, ran on, took his time, and hit the roof of the net with Farm deserted and at the outside-left’s mercy.
NEARLY ANOTHER
There was a lot of Blackpool pressure afterwards, but for a time this one fatal error had obviously unsettled a Blackpool defence which nearly lost another goal in the 10th minute and should, I think, have lost one.
There was a wing-to-wing raid opened by the aggressive Mil- Durn. In the end, out on the left wing, a ball which was rolling over the line was retrieved by Taylor, crossed to the right, and headed back by Stobbart into a gaping centre where the fair-haired-Gibson shot over the bar when he might have shot under it.
The Newcastle forwards, if never permitted to command the game, were neat, precise, and direct in all their raids.
This Newcastle attack was for a time one of the best I have seen this season. Superbly led by a calm, calculating Milburn, it never delayed a pass and was fast into action in every position.
Yet, with 18 minutes gone, Blackpool worked a raid as convincing - a raid which ended in Rickett taking Wardle’s forward pass, and crossing a ball which a full-back appeared to beat down with his hand with half Blackpool demanding a penalty and play raging on until a scattered Newcastle defence had conceded a corner.
OVER THE BAR
From the corner Mortensen took the centre on his own and headed fast over the bar.
3ut for a time before this happened, and for a few minutes afterwards, it was the Newcastle front line who were playing the football which tears a defence apart.
There was nothing pretentious about it, but it continued to make progress at an incredible pace.
Yet, in fast swoops, with the ball moving from man to man as a plan began to evolve itself, Blackpool forced three corners in four minutes and from the third a goal was near, Matthews thundering in the sort of shot which so many people think he cannot make and knocking out Brennan for the full count as the centre-half stood a few yards outside his own line.
Immediately Mortensen was in the wars, coming out of a whirlwind tackle clutching his right knee and playing for a minute or two afterwards out on the right wing.
With nearly half an hour, gone Blackpool were attacking almost continuously, and yet in breakaways those Newcastle forwards still required a lot of watching.
Crosland was pursuing Milburn wherever England’s new centre- forward roamed. It was a duel between two of the fastest men in the game, and after half an hour it graded at about 50-50.
United’s first corner came in the 33rd minute. It led nowhere except to a 50-yard raid down the centre by Matthews which ended in a long crossfield pass finding Rickett offside.
GREAT PASS
Another minute, and Wardle raced away from Rickett’s great pass and crossed a ball which the sun-dazzled Fairbrother was probably glad to watch hit the side net.
The United, in raids which followed continuously for a time, were so excited about the refusal of a penalty for a Shimwell tackle, which put Taylor on the grass, that Mr. Clark halted play to give a lecture to one forward and a free kick to Blackpool.
Still the United raided. A second goal was near as a ball was crossed from the left.
Stobbart hit it at such a pace that Farm, as it was rising away from him, brought down the house when, in a great leap, he punched it away for the finest save of the half.
CHANCE MISSED
A minute from half-time Blackpool missed the chance of the half. Two forwards. Rickett and Mortensen, escaped into an unexpected open space. Rickett waited until his partner was in position, gave him a pass which Mortensen missed, but which an excitable full-back missed too.
That left Mortensen in possession again. Gave the inside-right a position from which he blazed over the bar when nine times out of ten he would never have rejected such a gift.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Newcastle United 1.
SECOND HALF
Drama came in the first minute of this half.
There was a Blackpool raid direct from the kick-off. A swarm of men battled for possession of a ball which Rickett crossed. Mortensen appeared to be dragged to earth as he leapt at it.
Summarily, Mr. Clark pointed to the spot, was immediately encircled by a swarm of protesting Newcastle men, one of whom nearly invited dismissal from the field, so vehement were his protests.
MORTENSEN was named to take the kick, in spite of a clamour for Wardle from the terraces. He converted with a fast low shot wide of the falling Fairbrother’s right arm.
GAME AFLAME
That set the game aflame. Three Blackpool raids were hammered back before, twice in succession, Farm had to race Out to snatch away the ball from a pursuing Newcastle forward, the second time going to earth clutching his head after a collision with Taylor.
Tempers were becoming a little thin at the edges. Free-kicks were being forfeited everywhere One cost Blackpool a corner which eventually cannoned out off so many men that the referee, I suspect, gave the defence the benefit of the doubt and a goal- kick.
TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT
Newcastle were raiding for a time persistently, and yet a lot of the earlier order had gone out of their forwards’ game. Excitement was tearing the football to ribbons.
Batty gave a corner for no reason whatever, unless panic could explain it, when the Blackpool right wing tore in on him.
Before, in nearly the first advance of the half, Milburn, in a scoring position, headed barely wide of a post from Stobbart’s centre.
Two minutes later the raid was nearly repeated by Blackpool, Wardle taking Mortensen’s pass on an open wing before crossing a ball which Rickett headed out wide of a post.
Another minute and Hair, challenged by Shimwell, hooked the ball into the alert Farm's hands
Incidents were coming thick and fast.
A free-kick against Suart, which everybody except the Newcastle thousands considered should have been given the other way, ended in Harvey shooting in a ball which Farm reached and held magnificently as he fell.
UNITED IN FRONT
Two minutes later, in the 22nd minute of the half, the United went in front again.
The raid was out on the left wing when it began. Over came a centre which was falling near the far post.
STOBBART raced in and. almost on his knees, headed over the line as he leapt over the prostrate goalkeeper into the net.
There were Blackpool raids afterwards but none of the high- powered intensity of Newcastle’s fast, direct advances.
Another of these direct attacks produced a third goal eight minutes after the second.
Again STOBBART was in it and, presumably, will be given the goal in the records.
But from the Press box I had the impression that the fast ball he centred hit Crosland, as the centre-half was falling, and off him cannoned into the net.
Still, whoever scored it, it was a goal, and a goal won by a forward line which was bringing both its wings into the game and making every pass count.
The Newcastle goal had its escapes afterwards as soon as Matthews was belatedly given a few passes.
NARROW ESCAPE
One shot by Mortensen, from his partner’s perfect cross, hit Fairbrother. bounced out, and was snatched away by the goalkeeper as it was rolling to the feet of McCall, who darted in fast to snap it up.
Another minute, and from another Matthews’ centre. Johnston appeared to lose a bouncing ball in a goalmouth which for a time was swarming with men in this sudden Blackpool storm.
It was a storm which continued to rage. In it. in one passage of arms. Fairbrother was laid low.
For nearly a minute he was under attention.
This was a last desperate bid by Blackpool, but always one had the impression that it was coming too late.
The game ended with Fairbrother complaining that he had been pelted in the south goal and the referee walking half the length of the field to investigate the complaint.
Three or four police constables also marched majestically towards the scene.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 46 mins)
NEWCASTLE 3 (Hair 5, Stobbart 65, 73 mins)
Newcastle’s remarkable away record continues. How do they do it?
The answer is simple. It is done by a defence which knows and shows no compromise and a forward line - it is chiefly the forward line that makes this team - which never delays a pass and after those passes goes full-tilt.
Classic football it may not be, but it is mighty effective. It won this game, and in spite of one goal being a gift, and another appearing to be an in-off a Blackpool man, it deserved to win it.
The Blackpool forward line, with Matthews still given so few passes that for minutes on end he was merely a spectator, was never such an aggressive force.
The experiment of playing Rickett as a centre-forward had at last to be abandoned. But even with Mortensen drifting into and out of the position, the line had no punch comparable with Newcastle’s.
In the pace of this game both wing half-backs were guilty of an unusual number of false passes before the interval, even if both came storming into the game, into that late but vain bid to retrieve the defeat.
Crosland was no failure against a centre-forward who was his equal in speed, and Suart had a fine game at full-back. The moral of this game was that direct action pays. There was not' enough of it in Blackpool’s football.
NEXT WEEK: It’ll be different at Portsmouth this time
FAR AWAY to Portsmouth go Blackpool next week on the longest - distance match in the club’s calendar - 600 miles for 90 minutes’ football.
Invariably in the past - by one of those coincidences common in football - Blackpool have met at Fratton Park a team concerned to the exclusion of everything else with retaining a First Division status. It’s different this time.
For the team that Mr. Jimmy Stewart, the former Blackpool trainer, serves are thinking in terms of championships, and actually led the First Division until a fortnight ago, when an undefeated record was lost at - Wolverhampton.
Whether this unfamiliar glory will now begin to fade only the future can decide, but it is at least significant that a week after the Wolverhampton game Bolton Wanderers won a point at Fratton Park - the first visiting team to win anything there this season - in a goalless draw which confirms the general impression that about 75 per cent, of Portsmouth’s strength is still in a big, strong defence.
Blackpool have not lost at Portsmouth since the war, won by the only goal two years ago - a George Eastham goal - and made a 1-1 draw there last season - a Stanley Mortensen goal - a week before the Cup semifinal.
Three goals has been the aggregate in those two games. I expect another low-scoring match next week. They seldom win the sweep at Fratton Park.
THERE MUST BE MORE IN IT FOR THE PLAYER
- Fees soar - men sore
By “Spectator”
I HAVE been writing in this column for a season or two that one of these days the lid will blow off the transfer racket.
Wilf Mannion’s one-man strike and his ultimatum that £12,000 is the maximum fee which he will permit a club to pay for him may blow it off,
The football authorities, who have been pardonably reluctant to intervene in these exchanges and content for too long merely to utter pious platitudes about the general iniquities of the system, may at last be compelled to take action.
What is the solution?
Prices have soared until there is neither sense nor reason in them. Simple economics would reveal that the crazy inflation can have no end except the game’s ultimate ruin and bankruptcy. It has the taint of degradation on it already.
All this time, too, the players for whom the prices are being offered and paid, are muttering mutinously, and asking, “What’s in it for us?”
The men who play
OF course they are asking it.
They would be plaster saints if they were not asking it.
What is there in it for them? Assuming that a limit were put on transfer fees, the maximum could scarcely be less than £10,000, and even then there would still be in it nothing proportionate to such a figure for the men who make the game.
It is my opinion that there ought to be.
People who advocate - and I have heard it seriously advocated - that the big price men should be paid a higher wage every week than the lesser mortals who play with them propound an impossible theory.
Football is a team game. It’s not one or two men and the rest, but 11 men, all equal on the field and all more or less equal in the pay packet.
Too little in it
IT has to be that way. The Matthews and the Mannions, the Lawtons and the Mortensens would be the first to denounce any sort of alternative. I have talked with them, and I know their views.
Yet there is too little in football for these big-time stars who are never in the big-time money. That as a principle has to be admitted. The problem is how to put it into practice.
It is nearly insoluble. I spoke this week to a man who has been watching football - and watching it not as a partisan but with a critical detachment - for 40 years, and this is what he said:
“I’m sick to death of all these articles I read, chiefly in the Sunday papers, about football going to the dogs.
Skill and speed
“SOME of the old craft may no longer be in it, but it demands today a degree of skill and fitness and alertness of mind and body such as it never demanded in the past. The Merediths and the Rutherfords and tire Vivian Woodwards couldn’t live in it nowadays.
“It would be too fast for them. The critics say it’s excessively fast, that everything has been subordinated to speed. Yet it produces drama and excitement such as it never produced 20 and 30 years ago It’s a greater spectacle in every way.
“For that reason alone the modem player deserves more for playing this game than ever before, for the qualifications required of him are so much higher than they have ever been before.”
From the fees
WHERE is the extra renumeration to come from?
“It should transfer fees, of the game.
“There should be a fixed percentage of every fee for the player transferred, and to ensure that this would not encourage an annual migration from one club to another every contract should contain a clause that a player, except for reasons which an independent tribunal could examine, must remain with one club for a stipulated period - two, three or even four seasons.
“Then, when at last he moved, he would take out of the game something of all that he has put into it instead of the mere pittance which is paid him today out of fees in tens of thousands of pounds."
Box-office value
I KNOW a few folk who will shoot holes in all this, will differ about this assessment of the quality of present-day football compared with the game as it was played in those years which will always be to them the Golden Age.
They will protest, too, that no player in the proposed new circumstances would ever serve a club for longer than the maximum period in his contract, that such a system would lend itself to all sorts of abuses.
Yet, at least, it would give a player an income from the game commensurate with his box-office value, and nobody could pretend that the present system is so free of all abuses that it requires no reformation.
Packing them in
BUT the fielding of this team which packs in the populace wherever it plays is making a lot for other people.
Glance at these official attendances: 46,000 at Bramall-lane, 51,187 at Maine-road for the Manchester United match, 47,750 at Sunderland, 32,082 - nearly a ground record at Derby, with nearly another 40,000 at Bolton and Preston.
Climax was last weekend’s 77,000 at Stamford Bridge, which is the biggest attendance at a League match in England since the war.
In seven away games this season Blackpool have played in front of nearly 335,000 people.
The pools offer
IT is my opinion that long ago the offer from the pools syndicates of a quota of their revenue should have been accepted, however offensive this might have been to the Simon Pures.
Out of this grant, once it were accepted, a fund, built up over the years, could be established which would guarantee a decent security for all players when they leave the game and even a little jam on their bread for the select minority who have put the glamour in it.
That something will have to be done - and something drastic is admitted by all people concerned with the welfare of the game and of the men who are playing it today - men who deserve more out of it, whatever their status, than they are being given.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 6 November 1948
THERE was a time when Middlesbrough fans saw only one team - and that was Middlesbrough. Those days have gone.
The reception which 45,000 people gave to Blackpool at Ayresome Park last weekend was a tribute to the sportsmanship of the Tees-side public.
I am glad to make acknowledgment of it. These northeastern folk are nice people with nice manners - and most of them,
I am glad to say, have more money than they used to have.
Everywhere, in shops, on buses, in cafes and restaurants, everybody seems to be so polite.
They have not only learned good manners at football, but at everything else - and when good manners have gone out of fashion in so many other parts of the universe the fact ought, I think, to go on the record.
WHEN Douglas Davidson came to Blackpool from East Fife he broke up a trinity which had become almost traditional in Scottish football.
"The Three Musketeers” they called Douglas, his brother, Jack, and centre - forward, Henry Morris. The three of them were the spearhead of the Dundee junior club, Lochee Central, when they were
boys, played in an undisturbed partnership for Dundee Violet, were soon in action again at East Fife, after the centre-forward had spent a few months with Dundee United, and last season were still together in the East Fife team that won the Scottish League Cup and promotion.
Douglas Davidson played 90 games for the Fife club, scored 26 goals, and is now one of a big contingent of Dundee players on Blackpool’s books. Others are Gordon Kennedy, Alec Smith,
Ewan Fenton and Jackie Mudie.
I HEAR that Jim McIntosh, the Blackpool centre-forward, and his wife and three children will soon be moving into a new home.
He asked for a transfer less than three weeks ago because he complained that his home was too small for a growing family.
The club refused the transfer, but immediately began seeking a new house for a player who has been in the club’s service, except for a few seasons at Preston, since he was a boy of 17.
The search ended in a few days. Now the furniture vans will soon be in commission.
IN Blackpool last week when Liverpool played here in the Lancashire Cup were:
Full-back Cadden, a 6ft. foot bailer, who ranks with tobacco and other luxuries as a dollar import, except that no dollars had to be paid for him. Liverpool persuaded him to cross the Atlantic after he had played one or two games against them in the Anfield club’s summer tour of the States.
Jimmy Seddon, the old centre- half who was in the Bolton Wanderers Cup Final teams captained by Mr. Joe Smith. Jimmy was on the field two or three times, but no longer in a jersey. He is on Liverpool’s training staff.
THAT’S a good goalkeeper Middlesbrough are fielding these days. Rolando Ugolini is an Italian by birth, but has lived in England nearly all his days and is soon to be naturalised.
There was, I am told, a certain Continental excitability about him when first he went to Ayresome Park, something a little too theatrical. Nowadays he has cut out all the gallery business, holds a high crossing ball as I have seen few men hold it.
It was a joy to watch Rolando last week, and to watch George Farm, the Scot in Blackpool’s goal, too
***
“LET the people sing’' is the new order at Blackpool, where community singing before a match was reintroduced a fortnight ago.
Few of the people seemed inclined to sing at the first time of asking. I trust that this strange reluctance will not often show itself. For the song leader, Mr. Joe Morris, has accepted the post as one of the Great Unpaid, and he deserves all the encouragement which can be given him.
The band, too, is entitled to a “Thank you” for this and all other services - and in particular the little girl who marches with all these men and seems not at all disconcerted to be a sort of Ivy Benson among all the Henry Halls.
IT is common knowledge now that when he appeared at Ayresome Park for Blackpool a week ago Stanley Matthews played his first game at Middlesbrough since 1938. Few people know that outside R.A.F. football it was the first time he had ever faced his ex-England captain George Hardwick.
“I often played against him in the Services.” he recalls, “but never before in a league match or a Cuptie.”
Matthews’ game last week was actually his first League engagement at Middlesbrough tor longer even than 10 years, for in 1938 he played not for Stoke City there but for England against Wales - and, by the way, had a game which his former manager, Mr. Tom Mather, was praising one day this week when I met him.
‘One of the greatest games Stanley ever played,” I was told by Mr. Mather. No wonder they were so impatient at Middlesbrough to see him again.
***
THEY think such a lot of Micky Fenton, the Middlesbrough centre-forward and Blackpool wartime guest, in the Ayresome Park boardroom that I was told in all sincerity by one of the Middlesbrough directors last weekend that the board were concerned that it had been permissible to award him only one benefit since he went to the club.
It must be a record - a board seriously beset by such a problem and a player playing 15 years with a club for one only benefit. Explanation is that a few of those 15 years were spent by Fenton as a junior when he could not qualify for a gratuity and for six years he was in wartime football - one or two of them at Blackpool - which also were not eligible.
But a second benefit is impending, and when it comes it ought to be - and will be - the absolute maximum.
***
SO Malcolm Barrass is the latest centre-half fielded by Bolton Wanderers. History is repeating itself in this family.
Matthew Barrass, his father, came to Blackpool as a forward, finished his career as a half-back. What a great shooting forward Matt Barrass was, too. It’s not often you see an inside man these days who could hit a ball as he hit it.
His partnership with George Mee was for a long time Blackpool’s version of the Ted Vizard - Joe Smith wing at Bolton.
No, I know it was not as good, for few wings ever have been, but with Harry Bedford in the middle of the line and Bert White and Jack Meredith on the right wing it was part of a forward line which seems all glamour in retrospect.
Or is it merely a case of distance lending enchantment to the view? To be frank, I don’t think it is. That was a forward line.
***
JIM GORDON, the Middlesbrough wing half, whose winning goal against Blackpool a week ago was his first for two years, and the first by a Middlesbrough half-back for a season and a half, is the only survivor in First Division football of the last Newcastle United team to play at Blackpool.
He was right half for the United when Blackpool won 3-0 in the 1936 match. Nobody would think to watch him play that he had been so long in the game. Another of football’s Peter Pans.
***
BODYGUARD FOR STAN
THEY were so glad to see Stanley Matthews up in the north-east last weekend that they had to supply a police escort for him when he left Ayresome Park.
I have seen autograph hunters in greater numbers swarming outside a ground where Blackpool have been playing, but not for a long time have I seen them so persistent.
The police decided in advance that two constables would be required to protect the England forward.
So two officers were detailed to the assignment, waited patiently for half an hour outside the ground, and when at last Matthews appeared almost raced him between them to the shelter of the Blackpool coach.
***
Speed on the wing
WHO is the fastest player in football? Not necessarily with a football at his toes, but in a straight sprint?
Rex Adams, the Blackpool reserve forward from Oxford City, might finish in the first three, and Stanley Mortensen would be there or thereabouts over 100 yards, too. But at Middlesbrough they tell you that the nearest approach to a greyhound in the game is “Boy” Reagan, the new Middlesbrough outside-right from Hull City, who, admittedly, is the fastest man I have seen against Blackpool this season.
Reagan makes a practice, I hear, of winning professional sprints, won a £50 handicap the other day. He has a lot to learn yet as a footballer - he is young enough, and, I am assured, willing enough to learn - but in the speed class he can have few rivals.
WELCOME TO BLACKPOOL!
TO all the Newcastle fans we offer a hearty welcome. We trust that they have enjoyed the game and have had a pleasant outing.
Thanks are expressed to all who gave the prizes for the big dance at the Tower last night. We do appreciate their kindness, help and interest.
The chairman and secretary were the Blackpool Supporters’ Club representatives at the annual meeting of the National Federation of Supporters’ Clubs at Brighton last weekend.
A verbal apology was given that owing to a misunderstanding at headquarters the conference was not held in Blackpool. We hope very soon to have the conference here.
***
The injury list
IT is good news to all supporters to hear that the injury list which has been so very lengthy at Bloomfield-road this season is now much shorter. We hope that for the rest of the season things will be much brighter.
2,000 at Supporters Club dance
More than 2,000 people attended the Guy Fawkes dance organised by Blackpool Football Supporters Club at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, last night. There was a special cheer from the huge gathering for the Blackpool F.C. manager. Mr. Joe Smith (who presented the prizes).
Among the guests was Mr. Sam Jones, Blackpool’s second team manager, and scores of Newcastle supporters staying overnight for the Blackpool- Newcastle United duel also enjoyed the festivities.
***
Every Bloomfield-road fan should be a member of the Supporters’ Club. Send your subscription today to the secretary, Mr. Charles Hay, 10, Swanage-avenue, Blackpool.
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