BLACKPOOL’S FINE START TO THE NEW YEAR
Four forwards shoot five goals
OPEN GAME PAYS
Aston Villa 2, Blackpool 5
BLACKPOOL HAD A HAPPY NEW YEARS'S DAY AT VILLA PARK. THE STORMING FOOTBALL THE FORWARDS PLAYED ON A MUD-COATED PITCH WAS A REVELATION.
This front line could even afford to remodel its left wing, with Alec Munro on the flank and the aggressive little Rickett inside, all through the second half, and still win in a canter.
It was not the reappearance of Stanley Mortensen, hurt in the first half-hour again and afterwards a shade subdued, nor the fielding of a new centre-forward, which gave the line five goals in a game after it had not scored one in a month.
The entire line worked to the long pass, shot as it has not shot for weeks and had a field day.
Neither defence had an enviable afternoon, but Blackpool was definitely less vulnerable to shock raids, was grim and resolute in holding on to all that the forwards won.
Shimwell was magnificent, but this at last was a day when bouquets for every man of the eleven were in order. They have had sufficient brickbats lately.
Rain drenches crowd
Birmingham escaped the snow two days ago, but there were 10 hours of rain on Thursday, and this afternoon, after morning sunshine, sleet and rain fell in sheets for an hour before the match.
The playing pitch was swamped. Thousands, huddled on the high terraces, were drenched in the torrential downpour which left pools of water from one goal to the other down the field’s centre.
Walking gingerly to the edge of this quagmire, Manager Joe Smith said immediately, “We’ll play Alec Munro at inside-left.” So Andy McCall became 12th man and watched the game.
A few minutes later, in this crazy climate, the sun was shining again. The Villa ground staff went out with pitchforks and sawdust to mark out the obliterated lines, in a vain bid to drain the midfield lakes.
The Villa played the men who routed the Wolves 5-1 on Monday.
Teams:
ASTON VILLA: Rutherford: Parkes, Cummings, Powell, Martin (C.), Lowe (E.), Edwards, Howarth, Ford, Dixon, Coffin.
BLACKPOOL: Farm: Shimwell, Suart, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, Mortensen, Garrett, Munro, Rickett.
Referee: Mr. W R Nixon (Manchester)
THE GAME
The hour’s pre-match tempest cut the attendance by thousands. Instead of 60,000, I estimated that fewer than 40.000 were inside the gates when the teams appeared.
Harry Johnston was decreed to have won the toss after the coin had been unearthed from the slime and submitted to a close inspection by both captains and the referee.
How the Blackpool goal was preserved from downfall in the first 10 seconds I shall never know, nor will anybody else.
To halt the first fast spurt Farm had to labour out of the mud, which was inches deep about his ankles, veer to the right, and half slice the ball anywhere away from Trevor Ford.
Into the centre, gaping wide open, the ball was crossed by Edwards. On to it all alone, two Villa forwards darted, missed it in front of a goal which had no man on its line. In the end Hayward booted anywhere.
DEFENCES TRAPPED
Within another half minute, with both defences trapped and almost immobile in the slime, Blackpool were almost as near to the leal as Rickett went after a loose ball. As it skidded away from him he was summarily felled to earth by Parkes, who gave the game’s first comer without any sort of hesitation.
Both goals were in peril every time the forwards advanced.
Hayward hooked Ford’s centre away for a second corner in the third minute and from it Rickett, darting to the ball as it came out of the scrum, moved to clear it and instead sliced it fast and low into his own goalkeeper's arms from 20 yards out.
MUNRO SCORES
Blackpool’s first goal in five matches
It was crazy stuff with everything staked high against the slow motion defences - defences who could not turn, were, at times almost at a standstill.
The Villa were the more aggressive, but in the seventh minute Rickett took a perfect long crossfield pass from Mortensen and crossed fast inside a ball which Munro shot inches wide as he fell sideways.
Four minutes later Blackpool were in front, scored at last the first goal in five matches.
And it was the understudy, the last minute selection who scored. This was a day when the wise forward shot hard and often.
ALEC MUNRO was wise in this 11th minute, took a ball which was passing in front of him 35 yards out, hit it, watched it rise away from the unprepared Rutherford, soar over the goalkeeper’s hand hit the underside of the bar, and bounce down over the line.
IN RETREAT
Afterwards, except when Ford hit a similar rocketing shot which sailed high over the Blackpool bar, and again when Shimwell made a magnificent clearance, the Villa were in retreat.
Twice, Stanley Matthews sold a shop window full of dummies to George Cummings. The first time Rutherford held his curling centre under the bar in a great leap. The second time a massed Villa defence repelled the centre without apparently knowing a great deal about it.
Then, in the 16th minute, it was 2-0 for Blackpool. Two goals in 16 minutes from a forward line which had not scored for six hours That is football.
And what a goal this was. ft was STANLEY MORTENSEN’S. and it had his name all over it in capital letters.
On to another loose forward pass the inside-right darted, took it away from the Villa centre-half, zig-zagged past two other men, raced on. sliding and skidding in the mud, shot a ball from 15 yards which was past Rutherford’s right arm before the goalkeeper could move.
REPLICA
It was a replica of his famous Cup semi-final goal on this ground last March, except that this time it was shot into the other goal.
And still the defences were being outpaced and out manoeuvred, as was inevitable on this swamp.
A third goal came in the 21st minute, this time the Villa scored.
Shimwell halted one raid. Out the ball cannoned before it could be cleared to the right. Backwards and forward it bounced, skidded in the end to EDWARDS, who shot it into the roof of the net at a great pace.
That released storming Villa pressure for a few minutes.
When, in the 25th minute, a full-back sliced a clearance to Matthews, which is often one way of committing football suicide, the Villa goal nearly fell again, Mortensen racing at all his own speed to hook the centre inches outside a post as he fell in a heap on top of Rutherford.
I had not seen a lot of Garrett in this first half-hour, but always had the impression that the Blackpool front line was moving to a less complex plan with the ball on the move all the time.
By this time hail and sleet were driving down the field again in sheets, and, for a time, Blackpool were pinned in their own half of the field with men swarming-in bunches, hacking at a ball which was nearly immovable in the glue-pot in the field’s centre.
Rickett roamed everywhere, chased one neat forward pass from Garrett to the line, stampeded Cummings into a desperate clearance which left the Villa’s evergreen full-back sliding into a pool, and raising a wake like that of a motorboat as he cascaded through it.
Then, in the 35th minute, came the accident which seems inseparable from Blackpool's football when Mortensen is playing.
Rickett and Garrett made position for the inside-right. He took the last pass, was moving to shoot as a tackle laid him low half a dozen yards outside the area. It was obvious in the next Seconds that Mortensen was hurt.
Immediately the referee called for trainer Johnny Lynas who, after a half minute’s examination, summoned two players to assist him in escorting the crippled player off the field.
MORTENSEN RETURNS
The free kick by Shimwell hit a phalanx of players lined up to repel it. Half a minute later, and to a cheer, Mortensen hobbled back into the game.
He was still limping, but not as I at first feared, out for the count again.
Four minutes later Ford chased a loose pass, watched it crawl to the inside of a post, hooked it over the line and appeared not at all surprised when the referee who had blown the offside whistle seconds earlier, refused a goal.
Another minute and it was 3-1 for Blackpool. Again it was the sort of shooting which I have not seen from a Blackpool forward line for weeks which scored it.
There was a corner on the right surrendered by Lowe as Mortensen chased the centre- half.
Over came the ball from the flag. Out it bounced from a mass of players. KELLY was waiting for it, shot it as it fell in front of him, hit the roof of the net before the unsighted Rutherford could move an inch.
RICKETT SCORES
And in another two minutes in this amazing half it was 4-1 And again it was a sharpshooter’s goal. This time it was RICKETT who scored it, the wandering wing forward taking another astute pass in an open space ana shaking the back of the net with it from one of those positions where for weeks Blackpool forwards have not been shooting at all.
I give it up. No goals for six hours - and now four in 43 minutes. It was a triumph for a forward line adapting itself perfectly to a ground demanding the fast open football. These forwards were playing that game all the time.
Half-time: Aston Villa 1, Blackpool 4.
SECOND HALF
It was good to notice Mortensen moving as fast as ever in the opening minutes of the second half, so fast that Lowe had to take summary measures against him in Blackpool’s first raid and nearly had a penalty against him.
That was the first raid of the half. In the next, which was in the second minute, the goal total for the match reached six.
This was a goal for the Villa and a goal out of the blue.
There was a raid on the right wing. Nobody dared chance a pass back to the goalkeeper. In the end out on the left two men lost the ball, and a third, GOFFIN, raced in on it, hit it so fast and low from the penalty area’s edge that it eluded Farm’s desperate dive at it as it shot a foot inside the near post.
I suspect this ball was diverted in its flight, but it was a goal and a good opportunist goal.
And again the Villa, the arrears reduced to a couple went at it like mad for a few minutes.
Yet Blackpool’s football still possessed the greater class, as it had possessed it all afternoon Kelly and Munro in one raid as neat as if it had been made on a billiards table surface, created position for Rickett to cross a centre which Parkes headed out for the half’s first corner.
In the next minute, with the game still surging backwards and forwards at a pace amazing on this mud patch, Suart took a similar line of lease resistance to give the Villa a corner.
When it was cleared another Blackpool attack opened, and in this raid Garrett, taking Matthews’ pass, shot fast and low at Rutherford as the offside whistle went.
The full-back centre-forward was in the game a lot at this time.
A lot of Villa pressure followed. One raid was brilliantly repulsed by Kelly, and indirectly this clearance gave birth to the game's seventh goal.
And this was another goal to remember. The Villa set an offside trap and paid the price for it. MATTHEWS, that cunning tactician, waited onside in the centre - forward position and actually inside the centre circle, raced after the ball, reached it, found himself with half the field open in front of him and both full-backs marooned behind him.
LURED GOALKEEPER
All that happened afterwards was remarkable. For England’s right wing forward almost deliberately, but at a pace which neither of his pursuers could equal, went away on his own, the ball never further than a yard from his feet, reached the penalty area lured Rutherford out of his goal and almost impudently lobbed it over the deserted goalkeeper’s head into the gaping goal.
It was a master goal in the 50th minute.
PENALTY CLAIM
There was one clamour for a penalty against Shimwell in a raid which ended in Farm making a daring clearance at the edge of his own penalty area, but with the minutes passing it seemed indisputably Blackpool’s game.
George Farm and the entire Blackpool defence were resolute in repulsing the Villa’s last desperate raids
These Villa forwards compelled admiration for never calling it a day, but this game had been lost half an hour from the end. All that happened afterwards was merely a case of playing out time.
Result:
VILLA 2 (Edwards 21, Goffin 47 mins)
BLACKPOOL 5 (Munro 11, Mortensen 16, Kelly 40, Rickett 43, Matthews 60 mins)
NEXT WEEK: Barnsley fear no foe
THE FA CUP, now held by Manchester United, who beat Blackpool in the Final last season.
Next Saturday the “big guns” come into the third round of this season's competition.
At Oakwell, where Blackpool meet Barnsley, there will be rosettes. rattles, trumpets and all the great noise which have characterised Cup- ties through the years.
How will Blackpool go on this, time? Our Barnsley football correspondent, writing of the Yorkshire team's prospects, says:-
DESPITE their First Division status, Blackpool must not underestimate the magnitude of the task which will confront them when they tackle Barnsley at Oakwell in the FA Cup-tie.
The Yorkshiremen are traditional Cup fighters, and their motto has always been, “We fear no foe at Oakwell.”
They make this claim with justification, for their record over the past 40 years is studded with triumphs over more famous and fashionable opponents in this great knock-out tournament.
Barnsley always seem to rise to the occasion. This has been very apparent this season, for while home points have been dropped to lowly placed clubs, class teams like West Bromwich Albion (2-1), Southampton (3-0) and Sheffield Wednesday (4-0) have not only been beaten, but thoroughly, outclassed by a smooth-running machine which, inexplicably has broken down on what have appeared easy tasks.
The question the critics are asking is whether Barnsley’s defence, especially the left flank, can cope with the wiles of Matthews and the lightning bursts of Mortensen.
Indeed, the Barnsley defence has been giving the directors serious concern. Repeated changes have been made at wing-half, and efforts to strengthen the rearguard division have not been completely successful.
In goal, Pat Kelly can rise to great heights, yet he has given away vital goals through his habit of dashing out when his backs least expect it.
At the moment. Swallow, the former Doncaster player, has displaced Lindsay (signed on by Barnsley from Luton Town at a fee of £8,090) at right back, and the return of Pallister, left back and captain, who missed six matches through injury, should have a steadying effect.
Right half Normanton is a strong 90-minute player who has a good shot, and Whyte is a very dependable and cool centre-half.
Glover, the left half, is a product of local football, and though not a stylist is not likely to be overawed by the occasion. He will try to see that Matthews does not have much time to juggle with the ball, for his speciality is quick tackling.
Smith, a consistent scorer last season, has not yet found his form, but his inside partner, Robledo, whom Barnsley have nursed since he joined them at 17 years of age, is a crack shot.
In the centre is Richardson, a strong leader secured from Hartlepools United recently at a fee of £5,000. He is a potential match winner.
Baxter, the diminutive inside-left, is an artist with the ball and has a good shot. He makes an excellent partner for Scotland’s outside-left, John Kelly, who will probably give the Blackpool defence many anxious moments.
If Blackpool can stop Kelly, they will have half won the battle.
BLACKPOOL’S GREAT GOAL FAMINE
Priority No. 1 is centre-forward
By “Spectator”
I SHOULD THINK THAT THE BEST NEW YEAR RESOLUTION THAT A BLACKPOOL FORWARD COULD CHOOSE FOR HIMSELF AT THIS DAWN OF 1949 WOULD BE:
"Come what may, I’ll score today.”
Whether the five who have taken the field for Blackpool at Villa Park this afternoon have put the precept into practice the front page will inform you. It is about time that one of them did something about it.
This is the first time since the war that a Blackpool forward line has played six hours without scoring a goal. Wherever I go in the town various theories are advanced for this fade-out.
I am told in all seriousness by the few of the faithful remaining in the fold that it is merely a case of a fickle fortune deserting the line. Frankly, I cannot accept that.
THESE forwards, admittedly have not had a vestige of luck in the last few weeks, but the absence of luck alone cannot account for the team’s failure to score in match after match.
Nor can I accept the cold com fort which consoles those others who say “They’re playing good football, but...” The end and purpose of a forward line’s football is goals and if a forward line is not scoring goals it cannot be playing good football.
So what is the reason for it all? It may end, I know, as abruptly as it began, for that has happened in the ups-and-downs of football and will happen again. But the truth is that nearly all the season the Blackpool front line has been scoring fewer than the average number of goals at a time when fewer were never scored anywhere.
That fatal inclination to make the one pass too many has been a contributory cause and, manifestly, Blackpool have not been fielding the sort of smash-and- grab centre-forward who is fashionable these days.
Given a chance
TOM GARRETT, who may still be destined to make his name as a full-back and as nothing else, was given the problem position almost in desperation at Huddersfield after scoring a couple of goals in the Central League match at Leeds-road two days earlier.
Some people say he was a failure. Others - and Manager Joe Smith is among them - say that there was sufficient promise in his game to warrant another trial, and that in any case on a ground frozen and offering no foothold it was impossible to reach a considered judgment on him.
It is conceivable that he may solve the problem - for a time. Too many of these men converted into centre-forwards rise and shine and fade out again. One has only to quote the case of Malcolm Barrass at Bolton this season. There are dozens of others. Garrett may be the exception. It is time he was in First Division football somewhere.
Yet, whatever their future, these men serve a purpose, and such a purpose Garrett may yet serve at Blackpool. But if that happens it can only be a compromise. The Blackpool attack’s recent failures will not be remedied by one man, whether his name is Tom Garrett or Stanley Mortensen.
Lesson learned
BUT it should not be sufficient to upset the applecart of a First Division team which by that time should have Stanley Mortensen in its attack again and which should never again be guilty of the sort of football in a Cup-tie which invited defeat at Sheffield two years ago.
Blackpool learned a lesson at Hillsborough in 1947 which has not yet been forgotten.
Yet, whatever happens on the field, there will be little £ s d in it for Blackpool.
Bath the Sheffield clubs and Rotherham United will be at home on January 8. They will take thousands off the gate.
And, in any case, Oakwell is no Maine-road or Goodison Park, its present record which was maximum pre-war capacity, being 40,255 people who watched a Cup- tie with Stoke City in 1936. It is questionable whether that figure will be reached, even in these boom days, next month.
An inside forward?
A CORRESPONDENT - one of a dozen or two - writing from an address in Palatine-road, and enclosing his name and address - the only sort of correspondent whose views are given publicity by this department - has revealed, I think, an intelligent approach to the present stalemate.
He thinks that, in his own phrase, “nearly everybody is barking up the wrong tree,” when attention is concentrated exclusively on a quest for a centre-forward.
He continues:
“What Blackpool want is a good inside-forward. When I tell people that they answer ‘We’ve one in Stanley Mortensen.’
“Now how can you or anyone else truthfully say that ‘Morty’ plays as an inside-forward? Every time I have seen him he has played as a centre-forward and nothing else, whatever his position may have been on the programme.
“So why not field him as a centre-forward? Then with an inside-forward of the style of a Steel or a Hagan, a man who can create openings for ‘Morty’ to race into, I am sure goals would be plentiful.”
Only a palliative
THIS correspondent shares my opinion that the drafting into the line of full-backs and half-backs, merely to give the line the greater height and weight it obviously needs, is at its best only a palliative and seldom a cure.
He also, shares my opinion - and also, I would tell him, the opinions of Blackpool’s right-wing partners - that he would “prefer less publicity for ‘The Two Stanleys’ and more for the other lads. A team comprises 11 players not two.”
That is merely incidental, but his main theme warrants consideration for, after watching Jimmy Hagan playing for Sheffield United and Peter Doherty for Huddersfield within the last fortnight, the Blackpool public has learned to appreciate all that such a forward can mean to a front line.
This is not to play down such a game little forward as Andy McCall. He is still in the springtime of his days as a footballer and can yet become, as so often he promises, an inside man in this great tradition.
But in the meantime the fact stands out as high as Blackpool Tower that until this Blackpool attack contains a man who can direct the line’s plan of action without compelling such a great wing forward as Stanley Matthews to roam about under- studying for him, the greatest centre-forward in the kingdom might find himself hammering against a big stone wall and arriving nowhere in particular.
The main thing
PRIORITY No. 1 at Blackpool has been, by common consent. a centre-forward since this season opened. Yet, as I see it. a greater priority is an entire remodelling of the front line’s style of football, or, alternatively, an inside-forward who can put his passes into the open spaces.
One or the other would probably mean that the early days of 1949 would be a lot. gayer than the last days of 1948 have been. And, all in all. it would almost certainly be a snappier New Year.
THE BBC gave Stanley Matthews a guinea book token for Christmas, asked him to broadcast about the book he selected.
Recording was on the air on Sunday, writes “Spectator” when the England forward confessed that he had chosen not one book but a couple - and overspent his allowance by 13s. 6d. For after he had taken Ellery Queen's latest mystery, “Ten Days Wonder” off the shelves he saw Henry Cotton's autobiography and decided that he must have that, too.
“I always 'go' for Ellery Queen” he told his radio audience, “not merely because I'm fond of a good mystery, but because I'm interested in America, and one of these days I want to cross over there”
From all I hear it may not be long before he is on the North American Continent for a month or two. There are whispers of a close-season contract being offered him.
Blackpool FC’s ’phone bid for Donaldson
BLACKPOOL FC do not expect to hear until early next week whether the telephone bid they made to Newcastle United, yesterday, for centre - forward Andy Donaldson has been successful.
News that Blackpool were in the market for the Tynesiders’ reserve centre forward - with Bill Wardle, their £12,000 left winger from Grimsby Town offered in part exchange - was announced in later editions of last night’s “Evening Gazette.” “Several clubs are anxious to Sign Donaldson, and we have merely put in a bid with the rest of them,” a Blackpool official said today.
“Newcastle are considering all the offers and, have asked for time to think over our proposals. It is unlikely there will be any developments before next week.” he added.
LED ATTACK
Donaldson, a well-built, speedy footballer and one of the craftiest dribblers in the game has been unable to gain a regular place in United’s first team owing to the brilliance of international Jackie Milburn. He asked for a transfer several weeks ago.
He led Newcastle United Reserve attack in a Central League game against Blackpool Reserve, at Bloomfield - road, on November 27, but was kept out of the picture by centre-half Johnny Crosland.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 1 January 1949
BLACKPOOL RESERVE - or Mr. Sam Jones’s team, as they call it - is climbing at last. It has won only 19 points this season and is still in the lower half of the Central League table, but 10 of those 19 have been taken in the last eight games. That is a positive gallop after the early-season crawl.
IT must not be forgotten, either, that this team is still being shuffled about a lot.
Thirty - two players have appeared in it since the beginning of the season, and, except for Johnny Crosland, there is scarcely a man in it who could be called a fixture. Not one other man has played in as many as 10 successive games.
To mould out of this material a team which can win 10 out of 16 points is something to make Sam Jones proud to warrant the promotion of the managerial staff which has been given him this season.
I NOTICE that Jock Wallace’s team, Leith Athletic, are third in the “C” Division of the Scottish League and still have a chance of the title.
The ex-Blackpool goalkeeper has not missed a match this season, is reputed to be playing almost as confidently as he has ever played.
The Athletic have conceded only 22 goals in 16 games, which is the best defensive record in the division, and up at Leith they say that “Big Jock” has had a lot to do with it.
A FORWARD to watch - Rex Adams, the fast young wing forward from Oxford City, who scored in both Blackpool Reserve’s Christmas games, and now is the club’s leading marksman in the second team with six goals.
This raider, reputed to be one of the fastest men - if not the fastest - over 100 yards on the books, has scored them in 15 games, which is an average which at Blackpool only Jim McIntosh and Stanley Mortensen can approach.
No 2 on the Central League team’s list is a full-back, Tom Garrett. Two of his four goals have been scored as a centre- forward. But it’s still all wrong - a full-back ranking second in a list which should be monopolised by forwards.
THERE is a request from Spion Kop in the mail this week. The Kop customers are asking for a loud-speaker to be installed over the centre of the slopes which they inhabit. Complaint is that at the present time they hear few of the announcements broadcast over the relay system.
I think the Supporters Club, who paid for the installation and have recently had it serviced and renovated, will do something about it.
Always obliging the Supporters Club. The Press asked that the loud-speaker over their new box should be put out of commission during the match-play hours when it made telephoning nearly impossible.
They asked one week - it was silent the next.
THERE was a player in the Huddersfield Town team at Blackpool on Christmas Day who was repeatedly guilty of infringements. Free kicks were given against him nearly all the time.
What a contrast the football of Peter Doherty. He was played on all the time, not ruthlessly, but without any particular charity, and yet he never complained.
Twice, too, I noticed that when a few of his men objected to one of the referee’s decisions he silenced them, without being demonstrative about it, and sent them back to their positions.
That happened, too, at Highbury, a week earlier, when after the Arsenal had been given a disputed penalty - a penalty which even a few of the Arsenal men said afterwards should never have been given - it was this grand Irish sportsman who restored peace.
Professional footballers could do with a few Peter Dohertys.
***
IT’S not such good news about Blackpool’s schoolteacher goalkeeper, Bob Hesford, who learned to play Rugby at Blackpool Grammar School and became a professional goalkeeper with Huddersfield Town.
He has been out of the Town’s team for months, and, with a disabled ankle, may be out for another few months yet.
Twice between the wars Blackpool had a goal- keeper at Wembley - and both at the time were in the apprentice class.
The first was Frank Swift.
The second was Bob Hesford. It was past him that the famous penalty goal was shot in the last minute of extra time to give Preston the Cup in 1938, equalising the penalty which won the Town the Cup from North End 16 years earlier.
IN the Huddersfield Press box this week was Big Bill Bowes, the England and Yorkshire cricketer who these days is on the sports staff of a Leeds paper.
I suspect his attention must have wandered now and again as the wireless reports came in of the record first wicket stand by Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook in the second Test down in South Africa.
He has two loves has Bill Bowes - football and cricket, but the greater of the two is cricket. And when you sit shivering in a Press box at a football match with the temperature down in the 30’s, and hear a commentator talking about a heat wave in Jo’burg, it makes you think.
It made “Big Bill” think. “You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind if I were out there"
TWO ex-Blackpool forwards in the Christmas news:
George Dick scored his first goal for West Ham United at Leeds on Monday.
That goal has been a few weeks coming, but I am told that never since he came wandering into Blackpool seeking a trial 2 half years ago has this big Scot played such football as he has been playing since he left these parts to go to London.
Willie Buchan scored two of Hull City’s' three goals against Rotherham United in the promotion clash which created a Third Division record on Christmas Day.
A week or two ago this former Glasgow Celt, who cost Blackpool a £10,000 fee, was out of the City team. New he is back - and apparently back to stay.
AFTER watching the Christmas games, I think the League were wise when they decided that half a season should separate home-and-away games between the teams in the three Divisions instead of only a week as was the custom once upon a time.
Christmas and Easter - and the early-in-the-season fixtures - are the two exceptions. Grievances are not given time to fade when men are twice in conflict within 48 hours or even a week. Consider what happened at Huddersfield on Monday. One of Mr. George Sheard’s censuses reveals that the Town were given 14 free-kicks for fouls and Blackpool 13. That is a lot too many.
Climax, I am told, was a scene in the Huddersfield Town goal near the end, when there was nearly a free-for-all.
Fans, is up to you
NOW, Blackpool fans, start the New Year well.
Will old members please forward their subscriptions for renewal immediately to our secretary, Mr. C. A. Hay, of 10, Swanage-avenue, Blackpool.
New members are also invited to send theirs.
THE committee are going to make a great membership drive. Will you help by securing one new member this month? If you will, our membership can be doubled.
***
NEXT Saturday we start on the long trek to Wembley. After the fortunes of last season, when we were favoured with early home games, we have to travel to Barnsley.
I know the team will not lack support. Members of our club will be making the journey by road and rail.
Full details of travelling arrangements may be had from the Supporters’ hut.
***
TO all who assisted the club by sending fruit, toys or books in response to our Christmas appeal we extend our thanks.
Our efforts, and those of the players, were amply repaid by the joy they brought to those in hospital.
A HAPPY New Year to all our members, the directors, officials and players.
May the team be blessed with better fortune in 1949.
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