THE GAME
There was the inevitable turbulent reception for both teams. Blackpool were in white. Barnsley in blue, the Cup Final colours.
Barnsley won the toss, but the wind seemed to be blowing from all directions, and there was not, I think, a lot in it.
The understudy centre half, Kitchen, made a flying clearance from Mortensen with the inside right chasing McCall’s long forward pass in the first 10 seconds.
Within the next 10 Johnston had crossed to an exposed left flank of Blackpool defence to halt a raid which was repeated in the next minute with Barnsley at it hammer and tongs, at a mile-a-minute in all the opening passages.
TWO ON GUARD
The fast Smith, on Barnsley’s assertive right wing, shot wide in one of those early raids, gave Robledo a pass to shoot into Farm’s arms in another, and yet another was competently shattered by Hayward.
It was soon revealed, once this early storm had been weathered, that two men had been posted to watch Stanley Matthews.
Little John Kelly chased him from the outside left position to within a few yards of the corner flag the first time the England wing forward was given a pass.
Suart put a long free kick way out over the line in front of his waiting forwards with five minutes gone and Blackpool no longer outplayed, but not yet repeating or being allowed to repeat the great football which cut the Villa’s defence to ribbons a week ago.
DIRECT RAIDS
Barnsley keep up the pressure
It was still Barnsley who were producing the direct, clear cut raids.
Shimwell repelled Barnsley’s left wing on his own with the pressure continuing, and Johnston put the brake on the man from Chile, George Robledo, in another. This, too, with a tackle which the Chilian considered unfair and in vain demanded a penalty.
Still the Barnsley pressure continued, Richardson shooting wide at the end of one of these continuing raging raids.
PENALTY CALL
In the 10th minute there was another demand for a penalty refused - and not such a fantastic demand either as Smith, cutting into the middle reached the penalty area line and was a couple of yards across it when he came to earth as Suart crossed his path and tumbled him into the mud which was already churning up.
There had been only one team in it in the first 12 minutes - and it had not been last season’s Cup finalists.
Yet in the 13th Blackpool were as near to the lead as the tearaway Barnsley had ever been,
Matthews serving out a perfect pass to Rickett, who lobbed over a high ball which Mortensen headed on to the roof of the net and in the process nearly tramped underfoot a photographer crouching on the line,
SHOT WIDE
In rapid succession afterwards Mortensen and Garrett shot wide with Barnsley for the first time in the match penned in their own half and not appearing too compact in defence.
GAME CHANGES
Mortensen, Garrett in action
There were signs at this time that Barnsley had made the big bid I had expected for an early goal. That gamble had not come off.
A greater composure was entering Blackpool’s football, which without yet packing the punch of- the Villa game was still sufficiently assertive to win couple of free kicks inside the shooting zone before Mortensen took a forward pass from Garrett and shot a ball which was skidding away from Pat Kelly as the Barnsley goalkeeper fell full length to his right to reach it.
Twice in a minute, too, Garrett had this Barnsley ’keeper in action shooting one pass from Mortensen slowly into his arms before leaping at another crossing ball and heading it wide, but not wide enough of the Scot’s clutching right hand.
Yet a couple of minutes after those two front-of-goal incidents Barnsley might have snatched the lead from a free-kick. Johnny Kelly wandering into the inside- right position to head the ball which Pallister crossed from near the halfway line a foot outside a post.
That could have been a goal in the 25th minute. I have seen them scored from such positions.
ON BOTH WINGS
Afterwards. too. Barnsley were for a time in possession of the game again, raiding fast on both wings, playing the long pass all the time and playing it nearly to perfection.
There was none of the difference there is supposed to be between first and second division teams. But so often there never is in Cup-ties.
There was still no great order in Blackpool’s football.
When a goal was near again it was a full-back who almost scored it and without intention, either, Suart clearing from his own half of the field a ball which bounced high in front of Pat Kelly eluding his fevered clutch at it, and missed a post by inches,
A minute later, too. Rickett crossed a centre which Barnsley’s goalkeeper appeared to punch - against a bar before clearing it.
INCREDIBLE!
Matthews' corner on roof of net
Half an hour gone, and Barnsley raiding nearly continuously again, but still not a goal in it although in the 30th minute Smith won the game’s first corner which came to nothing, and was immediately followed by one for Blackpool which Stanley Matthews actually put on the roof of the net.
When that happens nothing is incredible!
RELENTLESS
I still had the impression that Barnsley were fading a little, relentless as their defence’s tackling continued to be, fast and direct as was a forward line often trapped by Blackpool’s offside game.
Blackpool won a corner in the 37th minute. That made it 2-1 in corners for Blackpool, who still pressing made it 3-1 a couple of minutes later as Mortensen from McCall’s pass hit a thunderbolt of a shot which nearly stunned the man it hit before cannoning over for the corner.
OPEN GOAL
That last corner, too, nearly produced a goal, for this time Pat Kelly lost the ball as it was crossed from the flag, and there were a couple of seconds when the ball was bouncing about in front of an open goal with no Blackpool forward able to reach
MASSED DEFENCE
But Barnsley were still raiding as often as the first division team.
Shimwell surrendered a free-kick perilously near the penalty area with a charge on Johnny Kelly which was in the heavy brigade class.
That free-kick was cleared by a massed defence which even Matthews raced back to reinforce, but other raids followed it.
It was only a brief interlude in them when Matthews superbly made position for Rickett which the little outside left lost as Kitchen hurled himself at him.
Barnsley had not been outclassed in this half, had commanded a lot of it, might have been in front.
Halftime: Barnsley 0, Blackpool 0.
SECOND HALF
In theory Blackpool were out of the thickest part of the wood at halftime. But I was not yet persuaded that this game had been won.
In the first minute, after Farm had advanced nearly to the edge of the penalty area to repel Barnsley’s first raid, Rickett took a pass from a Matthews free-kick, cut inside after his first centre had come back to him and hooked inside a ball which Pat Kelly scooped off his line.
FOLLOWED
The two - man guard on Matthews pursued him relentlessly, but after they had halted him once he crossed a centre in the next minute which Garrett headed slowly into Kelly’s arms.
Blackpool advancing all the time in the early minutes of the half, had apparently been given orders to shoot, for McCall shot from 20 yards out and Mortensen from comparable range before McCall forced Normanton to the concession of a corner which produced nothing.
Blackpool’s football was too close. That stood out a mile at this time with Barnsley retreating but always being given the chance to marshal their forces before a Blackpool forward could reach a shooting position.
Free-kick after free-kick was given against this Barnsley defence for its treatment of the elusive Matthews.
From one of them Hugh Kelly nearly forced a pass through a pack of men defending a Barnsley goal still under fire, but only long distance fire.
MASTER SAVE
There was a bit of a hullaballoo when one of the Kellys, John, was laid low by Shimwell and became the first man in the match to require the trainer’s attention.
The free-kick which followed nearly put Barnsley in front, too. and would have done if Farm had not made the clearance of the match, leaping and falling backwards as he beat over the bar a ball which Smith had rocketed fast at him.
Every man in Blackpool’s defence complimented the goalkeeper on that master save. I count it is the highlight of the first hour. There had not been many others
That was in the 15th minute of the half.
In the 17th in a breakaway Blackpool went in front. It was a goal by the two Ms.
Stanley Matthews took a random sort of pass, appeared deceptively to dally with it, enticed two men to him, watched his partner race into position calling for a pass and glide it to him.
It was all over a second later. MORTENSEN taking the pass, racing on with it with the centre-half and a full-back vainly chasing him, shooting fast and low of Pat Kelly right hand as the goalkeeper fell full length.
In another minute Barnsley might' have made it 1-1.
Smith tore into the centre, headed wide of Farm’s right hand a ball which the goalkeeper reached as he lurched to his right.
LONG PASS
No, it was not all over yet, but the odds were piling against Barnsley with Blackpool’s right wing cutting the defence to tatters, introducing the long direct pass - the sort of pass which had made the vital goal.
Stanley Mortensen’s goal, by the way, created a record. He has now scored in every one of eight successive Cupties from the game at Sheffield two years ago until today.
Blackpool defence went into a bit of panic on its left flank for an excitable minute or two, and no sort of order had been restored, either, before Hayward pounced on Richardson and dispossessed him perilously close to the Blackpool goalkeeper, who half a minute later held John Kelly’s free-kick superbly close to the ground with half a dozen men challenging him for it.
SHIMWELL HURT
Garrett goes back and Rickett centre
In a Blackpool raid Rickett shot over the bar as Shimwell began to limp and had to have a trainer out to him.
Fifteen minutes Blackpool still in Barnsley pressing to make it one-all.
After treatment Shimwell hobbled out to the left wing of Blackpool’s attack with Garrett in his old position as a full-back again and Rickett at centre-forward. Unexpectedly Blackpool were not for a time outplayed with this shuffled formation in which Rickett and Mortensen constantly interchanged positions.
Yet with 10 minutes left Barnsley were near a goal again as the full back. Swallow, shot from 40 yards out a rising free kick which Farm beat brilliantly over the bar. Another minute and across his goal a high centre flew again.
Out to it Farm leaped, fell in a heap as half a dozen men hurled themselves at him, was out of action for half a minute.
If Barnsley were going out they were going out with a punch, and in the end, but very gallantly, Barnsley went out.
The Blackpool mascots carried Farm shoulder high off the field.
Result:
BARNSLEY 0,
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 62 mins)
NEXT WEEK: Yes, it’s time SUNDERLAND were beaten
A TEAM that Blackpool have never defeated since the war, Sunderland - come to town next weekend - if there has been no draw at Barnsley this afternoon, writes “Spectator.”
Blackpool were nearer to winning for the first time at Roker Park in September. Only a wonder goal- and it was all that - by £20,000 Len Shackleton made a 2-2 draw of it at a time when Blackpool seemed certain to take the points after Jim McIntosh had scored twice for the visitors.
Last season it was 1-0 for Sunderland in both games. In 1946-47 Blackpool could not win a point from the two matches, were beaten 3-2 at Roker and, in an amazing game, 5-0 at Blackpool, with Jackie Robinson, the forward from Sheffield Wednesday, scoring four goals almost as fast as you could say “Jackie Robinson.”
It will be exactly the second anniversary of this midwinter massacre when the teams meet again next week.
There was a time when the unpredictable Sunder land won all their away games and lost repeatedly at home. Now it’s all different this season.
Last week’s defeat by Liverpool was the first home match lost at Roker Park this season, but elsewhere, after beginning the season as if intent on the championship, only two out of 12 matches have been won and only 10 goals scored by a forward line which is obviously not giving value for the money spent on it.
Blackpool should win a Sunderland game at last on these figures. But, then, Sunderland are not the only unpredictable team in the Football League.
Extra Cup-tie “special” at last minute
A THIRD train had to be put on at the last minute at Blackpool Central Station today to carry surplus football supporters from two special trains going to Barnsley for the cuptie.
By 9-45 the two trains were-packed with more than 1,000 laughing, shouting football fans.
At 10 o’clock, when the first train pulled out, people were crammed in the corridors of the second - and crowds were still pouring on to the platform.
Three minutes before the second train started porters called out that a third train would leave in a few minutes and those standing got out.
The excursion platforms had a carnival appearance as the supporters arrived with their tangerine and white scarves and rosettes. Spirits were high.
ASHES TO ASHES
Among those on the station could be seen:
A tangerine and white top-hatted supporter carrying a board with this verse,
“Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust.
The Barnsley reds
Have gone to rust”
An ex-sailor, in white with a tangerine jersey and carrying board with a goal post and pictures of Blackpool players;
A party of seven schoolboys in tangerine and white socks:
A girl with tangerine and white streamers flying from her furry boots;
A party in paper hats of Blackpool colours carrying two-yard wide rosettes.
One party had a pile of tangerines on the carriage table and one supporter stood on guard over a big bottle of champagne labelled “To toast Blackpool when they’ve won.”
POOLED PETROL
Hundreds of spectators went, by motor coach. Private parties hired coaches from the various local operators, and the Ribble Motor Services put on three extra vehicles to follow the ordinary 9-10 a.m. bus from the Coliseum.
Many motorists “pooled" their petrol to get there.
The Barnsley-Blackpool match, however, was not the only magnet.
One coach left for Burnley for the Charlton cup-tie and another went to Birmingham to take the local admirers of Bolton Wanderers in their clash against Aston Villa.
LET’S TALK CUP
Ties which crowd memory’s stage
By “Spectator”
This is cup day. For 32 of the 64 teams in today’s lists there will not be another this year.
So forget the League for a week. From mid-August to early May it monopolises the calendar. That in any case, is a lot too long.
There would be plenty to write about - as always there seems to be - on the subject of Blackpool and the First Division team.
Nearly everybody is asking, “Is Tom Garrett a centre-forward?” I cannot tell yet.
And because I am not disposed to express an opinion - or, to be exact, because I am not yet prepared to hail the full-back immediately as the answer to the centre-forward problem - I am informed by several correspondents that I have been unfair to a player for whom, not only as a player, but as a man, which is of infinitely greater importance, I have a sincere admiration.
And nearly everybody is asking, too, “How did they do it?” at Villa Park, as if a miracle had happened in the city of Birmingham a week ago when all that actually happened was that at last Blackpool played the long-passing open game which I have been advocating for weeks.
It was not done by mirrors. It was done by intelligent football- football which in its essence is so simple.
Unforgettable
BUT all that’s the League - and the League is out today. What about the Cup?
This match at Barnsley today is Blackpool’s 48th Cuptie since the end of the first world war. I have seen most of those matches.
They are all in the pages of the scrapbook of memory. Two are unforgettable. Both were played only a few months ago.
The classic was the Wembley Final. The greatest as a drama was the Stanley Mortensen “hat trick” semi-final at Villa Park.
So many others are nearly forgotten. Yet they were memorable matches.
There was the 1920 tie at Deepdale, when George Wilson was Blackpool’s centre-half and Peter Quinn the outside-left and Joe Lane the centre-forward - all three destined to be transferred a few weeks later in the first £10,000 exchange in football’s history.
Peter’s goal
IT WAS Peter Quinn who scored Blackpool’s goal to make it 1-1. And 1-1 it remained until 10 minutes from time when Tom Roberts headed the winning goal past Harry Mingay while a blizzard raged.
Always afterwards the goalkeeper said he was blinded by the hail and never saw the ball which passed him.
There was the famous midweek replay against Darlington the following year.
The flags were at halfmast. One of Blackpool’s full-backs, Horace Fairhurst, had died after an accident on the field at Barnsley a week or two before. The other, Bert Tulloch, who still has his home in the town, had been bereaved.
Blackpool fielded the strangest full-back line in history. On one flank was the big Irishman, Peter Gavin. On the other was the little half-back, Billy Rookes. It was a sort of Revnell and West act before its time, but it sufficed and Blackpool won 2-1.
Came 1925, the first year, until last season’s march to Wembley, that Blackpool reached the last eight, after being compelled to win replays in the first three rounds with Barrow, Bradford and West Ham United.
Ewood drama
BLACKBURN ROVERS won this match 1-0, chiefly, I always think, because at the last minute Blackpool decided to leave out a forward called Matthew Barrass - whose son these days plays for Bolton - and also because in the last five minutes Harry Bedford blazed a shot over the bar in front of a half-open goal.
There were the black years, 1926, 1927. 1928, when in three successive ties - and all at home -Blackpool were beaten in the first round, in 1927 by a Bolton team whose centre-forward, J. R. Smith, scored a “hat trick” in a 3-1 game, and whose inside-left and captain was another Smith called Joe.
Bill Tremelling scored Blackpool’s goal. Tommy Browell was the inside-left.
There was the 1931 fadeout at Southport, where a Third Division team stampeded out of the Cup a Blackpool team in the First Division whose men had prepared for the match for a week on the north-east coast.
Late equaliser
THERE was Jimmy Hampson’s A last-minute goal which in 1932 won a replay with Newcastle United at St. James’s Park - a replay which the United won 1-0 but which Was worth £3,018 at the turnstiles - and that was a lot of money in those days.
At Cheltenham in 1934 came a bit of comic opera, when a team of market gardeners, chauffeurs, motor mechanics and others led Blackpool by a goal at halftime in a match played on a Rugby Union field because the Town’s ground was too small, with the Press writing furiously on a kitchen table in the front row of a five-tier stand.
Blackpool won 3-1 after the Town’s amateurs had so nearly run themselves out in the first half that the referee had to play a serenade on his whistle before they could drag themselves back to the field for the second.
A young unknown Irishman, Peter Doherty, was Blackpool’s centre-forward in this match and scored the last goal.
And at Stoke
BLACKPOOL went to Stoke in the next round, lost 3-0 to a City team on whose right wing was a forward who a year later was to play his first game for England. His name was Stanley Matthews.
Those are just a few of the ties which parade memory’s stage.
Yet, the most exciting of the lot, always excepting last season’s semi-final, which was one of the epic matches of all time, was a game at Luton in 1937, when Blackpool were leading 3-1 against 10 men less than a quarter of an hour from time, and the Town hurled everything into attack, and scored twice in the last 10 minutes to make a 3-3 draw of it.
Never have I seen 20,000 people so near to delirium on the borders of a football field, which they invaded in a cheering mass as the final whistle went.
Topsy-turvy
ON Wednesday of the following week this Third Division team visited Blackpool, who were at that time Second Division leaders and a few months later promoted, the Town winning 2-1.
And three days later Blackpool went to Newcastle in a League match and won 2-0.
Never was there such a topsy-turvy unpredictable fascinating game as this football. And when it’s played in the Cup it’s often crazier than ever. That is why everybody goes a little mad on this particular day of the year.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 8 January 1949
Latest theory in football: Always plan the time-table for an away match so that the team arrive in the town where they are playing only an hour or two before the match.
I heard it propounded at' length by a West Bromwich Albion director in a Birmingham hotel as 1949 dawned.
The Albion went to Derby the day before last weekend’s match at Bury, spent the night there, took a train on Saturday morning to Manchester, completed the journey to Bury by coach.
"It’s this waiting about in an hotel before a match which so often upsets a team,” I was told.
Something else must have upset the Albion, who, after all this, lost 4-0 at Gigg-lane.
***
THE BARNSLEY CUP-TIE has inevitably recalled one of the most famous goals ever scored between the wars by a Barnsley player.
The man to score was a halfback, Frank Bokas, who, during his years at Blackpool before he went to Oakwell, practised day after day at the long throw-in until he could hurl the ball half the width of a field.
A correspondent, Mr. E. Outwin, of Albert-road, was at the match at which all this practice had its reward - the match in which one of these long throws curled into the Manchester United goal and was deflected into the net by a surprised goalkeeper.
It was a Cup-tie at Oakwell. It gave Barnsley a draw and a replay at Old Trafford which the Yorkshire team lost 1-0.
“I am a Barnsley fan and have been for years,” writes Mr. Outwin, “and I shall be at Barnsley for this week’s match.” Then he adds, “Here’s wishing Blackpool all the best!"
Now who has Mr. Outwin been cheering for today?
JIM TODD has not left Port Vale yet.
The Staffordshire club granted his request for a transfer a few weeks ago, but he remains at Hanley - this Irish half-back who went from RAF inter - squadron football into his country’s team inside 12 months after Manager Joe Smith had given him a trial.
These days he is playing as an inside - forward, scored the two goals which gave his team a draw against Hyde United in the Cheshire League last weekend.
No, he did not shoot them past Alec Roxburgh. The ex-England and Blackpool goalkeeper was not playing for Hyde in this match.
THERE’S A LOT of talk, wherever I go, about Blackpool’s luck in the Cup.
It all began when the club were first out of the drum for three successive matches - Leeds United, Chester and Colchester last season. But it’s not always been like that.
I have been examining the records, and I find that since the end of the first world war Blackpool have been in the draw 39 times and come out first for a home tie on 16 occasions and second for an away tie on 23.
So not even the law of averages has been able to give Blackpool even a 50-50 quota of home and away matches.
“Lucky Blackpool!" - yes, last season, but not always.
THE aeration of turf means less to this writer than the Einstein theory, and when somebody threatens to come to town to ask in a lecture “Why is it necessary?” I suppose I couldn’t care less.
But it means a lot, presumably, to the National Association of Groundsmen, whose Blackpool branch, after their lecture on bowling green maintenance last night by Mr. E. Chantler, the Fleetwood Corporation Parks Superintendent, are to hear an expert discuss the topic on February 3.
Later another authority is to address them on manures and fertilisers.
All highly specialised subjects. I know - and yet this association is giving a service to all sports which it would be stupid and ungracious not to recognise.
The Blackpool branch, which has been formed only a few weeks, is to be commended on the enterprise it is showing.
We cannot do without these backroom boys.
***
JOCK DODDS has his critics in these parts. Yet the big Scot has a big heart.
As soon as he learned last week that one of his former Blackpool partners, George Eastham, had been given a free transfer from Rochdale, he contacted his own club, Lincoln City, and recommended the inside forward to them.
Within 24 hours - as I announced exclusively in “The Evening Gazette” - George was a City player and within another 24 was in the City’s triumph at Tottenham, where Jock Dodds scored his 400th goal in the Football League to put him in front of all of his contemporaries.
These two may yet be in a second-half-of-the-season reprieve from relegation for the little Lincoln club.
One has the punch, the other has the craft, if only he can adapt it to the tearaway pace of present-day football.
IT IS NOT OFTEN that Alee Munro scores a goal. But there’s always something about the goal when he scores it.
The one at Villa Park last weekend was Blackpool’s first for a month. His only other goal this season was Blackpool’s first of the season.
He had only two last year, but one began the rout of Colchester in the Cup-tie and the other was included in the 7-0 defeat of Preston at Deepdale which remains Blackpool’s record win in First Division football.
The little Scot had to go on the wing in the second half at the Villa, for this was no match for lightweights but only for heavyweights in the swamp which the pitch soon became.
He made a joke of it. “I did the damage,” he said, chuckled, and added, “Then I left the rest to the other lads.”
A MAN I admire - and I still meet plenty as I go about the football parish - Mr. F. H. Normansell, the Aston Villa chairman.
I met him after the Villa's defeat by Blackpool in a Villa boardroom almost deserted, was introduced to him by Mr. Joe Smith, the Blackpool manager.
If I admire Mr. Normansell it was obvious that Mr. Normansell admired Mr. Smith.
Why am I giving a paragraph to a man who probably hates publicity? Because in spite of his team’s defeat, and the knowledge, which he almost casually confirmed, that fit had sent the Villa to the foot of the table again, he had not one word of complaint to utter, took his defeat as gentlemen can take defeat.
WATCHING his team lose to Blackpool at Villa Park a week ago was Leslie Smith, the outside-left, who, when he was out of the team that beat the Wolves on Boxing Day, ended a sequence of 124 successive games for the Villa.
Few people know it, but Black pool towards the end of the war made a big bid for him while he was still at Brentford, offered Willie Buchan in exchange, were told “He’ll never leave us.”
But he did leave them - and not so long afterwards, either.
HARRY EASTHAM, brother of George, who, when he went to Liverpool, made a £1,000 fee for Blackpool - and in those days £1,000 to Blackpool was a lot of money - has scored only two goals in two years.
The second for Tranmere Rovers, the club he joined from Liverpool last summer, had a headline value, for it beat Rotherham United, the Third Division leaders in the North, and may at the final reckoning have cost the United promotion which season after season eludes them.
GLAD to meet Ivor Powell, the Welsh half-back, again last weekend.
The five-figure transfer fee which the Villa paid for him a week or two ago has given him no inflated sense of his own importance. This fighting wing-half - the sort of player who can yet avert relegation for the famous team in claret-and-blue - played for Blackpool’s war-time team and married one of Tommy Browell’s daughters.
He has already a new home in Birmingham, returned with the Blackpool team to the coast after the Villa match to take his wife back to it, and spent nearly all the time talking about India to Eric Hayward.
These two toured the East with, the famous team which the Blackpool centre-half captained during the latter days of the war.
It's good for Hugh
I WAS glad that Hugh Kelly shot his second goal of the season - the first was at Manchester against the United - in last weekend’s game at Birmingham.
It should do him a lot of good, even if half-backs are not fielded primarily for the scoring of goals.
Kelly’s game went into a decline for a month or two this season after I had called him - and he deserved the compliment - the Blackpool player whose football made the biggest advance in last season’s memorable days.
He soared from comparative obscurity to fame in a few months. There were people who said the rise was too meteoric, that he would come down as fast as he had gone up.
I began to think that might happen. But I think so no longer. And I am glad.
For this Scottish halfback is a player without an ounce of conceit in him, content to let others monopolise the headlines, but always first and last a grand team man.
Football has to have its Hugh Kellys - and is fortunate to have them.
WELCOME TO WILLIE
BY the time these notes appear the result of the Cuptie at Barnsley will be known. We know the Blackpool team will have done their best.
A hearty welcome is extended to the new centre-forward Willie McIntosh, from Preston, and we hope that he' will soon settle down happily among us.
The ladies’ committee are making another big effort for the club. They have arranged a whist drive and dance for January 17 - the whist will be in the Albert Hall and dancing in the Jubilee. Tickets are now on sale, and we trust that good support will be given.
More members, please
AGAIN we appeal for members. It is the beginning of a new season and all old members should renew their subscriptions and new members will be very welcome.
Surely out of an average 20,000 gate at Bloomfield-road we are not asking too much when we suggest a membership of 5,000,
Applications and 2s. 6d. should be sent to Mr. C. A. Hay, 10, Swanage-avenue, Blackpool. He will be pleased to give any information.
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