THE GAME
Harry Johnston lost the toss again, but it made little difference today.
Chelsea defended the south goal, but neither this goal or the other was imperilled for a minute or two until H centre was crossed from Blackpool’s right wing and Danny Winter made a stratospheric clearance which nearly came down as they say with snow on it.
For a time this ball was not cleared. Eventually, in fact, the raid was never repulsed until Medhurst had held a, centre flying high from Blackpool’s other wing and McIntosh had missed by inches one of those hazardous back passes which, apparently, are not exclusive to Blackpool.
DIRECT FOOTBALL
Blackpool’s pressure continued, built on the open, direct football with which this team invariably opens a game One raid, opened by Davidson’s headed pass,ended in Medhurst scraping the ball away anywhere when an astute lobbed pass had given the assertive Mortensen an unexpected but definite chance.
All this time the Chelsea forwards had scarcely been in the game until a raid ended in Roy Bentley taking a pass out on the right wing and half-hitting it inside to a waiting Blackpool man.
Another minute and Mortensen nearly had a goal again, heading- down fast a centre from the aggressive, confident Hobson which skidded out by a post with Medhurst, apparently, falling late to it.
OUTWITTED THREE
Chelsea mads an infrequent raid, but not one of these breakaways had anything approaching a conclusive end, although once Campbell out through the centre, outwitted three men by Sheer pace and, in the end, was halted by Hayward.
Blackpool’s new left wing had not been a lot in the game, but built-one raid with the aid of Kelly which might have produced something if Hobson had not hesitated and, in the end, lost a ball seeking a shooting position for himself.
Johnston was tireless in his supply of passes to Blackpool's forwards, who were still almost commanding the game, but repeatedly delaying their shots until a tackle dispossessed them.
Yet once Mortensen shot before a man could approach him, and shot with such a punch that Medhurst was a second late in leaping at a ball which rose in front of him and missed the bar by inches.
THE LEAD
Mortensen gets goal in his old style
Two minutes later, in the 19th of the half, Blackpool went in front.
A free-kick prefaced the goal. On to it Blackpool’s new left wing darted. One of the two partners - it was Adams I think - glided it forward.
MORTENSEN went after it in the old Mortensen manner, outpaced Winter, lurched half off balance under the full-back’s tackle, raced on, beat the advancing Medhurst to the ball and shot into the far wall of the net as the goalkeeper fell in front of him.
The Chelsea goal was under furious pressure for minutes afterwards. There was nothing resembling a half-reserve forward line about Blackpool’s front division at this time.
OVER THE TOP
Twice Bentley shot over Blackpool’s bar, and once Farm fell in a heap on a loose ball with a pack of men challenging for possession of it.
Otherwise, in front of the Blackpool goal, there were few incidents.
The game was moving all the time on to a Chelsea defence which soon seemed to open under pressure and under the continuous fast one-man attacks of a Stanley Mortensen playing today like an England forward.
Yet at the end of half an hour Chelsea made it 1-1 with a gift goal.
It was a goal which George Farm will, I think, be glad to forget, the sort this accomplished goalkeeper seldom concedes.
Out on the right wing, where he had been playing as often as in the centre ROY BENTLEY went for a pass, escaped Suart and crossed a high, falling centre.
That was all he intended. It became a goal as Farm, misjudging its flight, leaped late at it, fell backwards as it escaped his clutching fingers and, in an incredulous silence, hit the far wall of the net
HOBSON SHINES
Within a minute Hobson had made a raid which even Stanley Matthews would not have disowned, crossed at the end of it a fast raking centre which Chelsea’s defence cleared in a mass without knowing anything about it.
After that gift goal the Chelsea attack was not the inactive force it had been, Len Goulden repeatedly crossing long passes to a fast right wing which Blackpool’s left flank of defence was not always holding.
SHIMWELL
He was in great form with his clearances
Shimwell was nearly playing the Chelsea left wing out of the game, clearing ball after ball at great length.
In the closing minutes of the half, in fact, both front lines were as nearly mastered as they had ever been and incidents were few.
Three minutes before half-time Adams appeared to hit the outside of the near post with a fast centre.
PENALTY CLAIM
Then Kelly crossed another ball from this wing after coming through at a great pace with the ball, and there was a clamour for a penalty as Mortensen fell under a tackle.
Mr. Williams refused it, and half a minute later refused Chelsea a corner when everybody else seemed to think that Shimwell had cleared over his own line.
Blackpool’s football had been as good as and, at times better, than could have been expected in the circumstances.
Half - time: Blackpool 1, Chelsea 1
SECOND HALF
In the first minute of the half Johnston and Mortensen, in a neat exchange of passes, created position for Adams to shoot into the side net with two forwards waiting for a centre inside.
Another couple of minutes and Davidson put his partner past every man again in a raid which ended in the wing man losing the ball as he delayed his shot a split second too long.
Both those chances might have produced goals. Instead, it was Chelsea who nearly snatched the lead immediately after the second of these raids, Shimwell ultimately coming to the rescue of a scattering defence with a pile driver clearance from the foot of a Chelsea forward preparing to make his scoring shot
WIDE AGAIN
Chelsea attacked persistently for a time, introducing the crossfield pass repeatedly, but could neither find nor make another shooting position.
A goal was in fact nearer at the other end after Mortensen, with an amazing spurt, put Adams in a position from which the reserve sliced a shot wide again.
Kelly made a great headed clearance from one of the game's few corners with Chelsea still pressing, but again it was a Blackpool breakaway which had “Goal” written all over it.
And it would have been a goal if one man had been in position after McIntosh had eluded a Chelsea half-back and full-back before crossing his centre into a gaping goal area.
ANOTHER ESCAPE
In another Blackpool raid, too, the Chelsea goal was as near downfall, Adams ' crossing a centre which was half parried by Medhurst, who was still on his knees as McIntosh fired it back again and Harris headed it out at such close range that he rocked on his feet as the ball hit him.
Blackpool went at it as if it were a Cuptie for a time afterwards, Mortensen winning a free-kick after another of his old spurts which Shimwell shot into a Chelsea defence massed to repel it.
In the 20th minute of the half Blackpool won a corner which produced nothing material, for the Blackpool forwards were still delaying those shots, still taking a half second too long before making them.
ALMOST NONSTOP
Yet Blackpool’s pressure continued, and at this time was almost incessant.
Another corner came four minutes after the first and there were minutes afterwards when the ball was seldom out of Chelsea’s penalty area, which was being defended by a defence a lot faster into the tackle and a lot more closely packed than it had been in the first half.
BIG SHUFFLE
Hayward’s injury led to changes
With 20 minutes left Hayward, who had been once or twice under the trainer’s attention, went to outside-left with Adams at inside-left, Davidson at left-half, Kelly at left-back and Suart at centre-half.
This big-scale shuffle made no material difference for a time to the game’s course, for Blackpool wore still attacking with the game entering on its last quarter of an hour, although, by that time, prospects of goals were becoming more remote than ever.
Then. with 12 minutes remaining, the good temper of the game was disturbed as Harris blatantly planted himself in Mortensen’s path as the inside-right went after Adams’ pass.
Outcome of the free-kick was a corner as Mortensen’s fast rising shot was deflected out and away over the line by Chelsea’s packed defence, but at least it released another burst of Blackpool pressure which, with the minutes ticking away, had a shade of desperation in it.
In a storming finish Medhurst, with only three minutes left, made an amazing dive to reach and clear Adams’ fast low scoring shot.
In the next two minutes Blackpool won two corners and in the last minute won the match.
It was a two-man goal. Mortensen hooked a low pass out into a big open space where nobody was watching Hobson.
Into the space the young reserve raced, reached the line, crossed a perfect low centre. At it MORTENSEN, the new alert Mortensen, hurled himself, shot fast into the net feet outside the reach of the desperate falling Medhurst.
It was a grandstand finish.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 2 (Mortensen 19, 89 mins)
CHELSEA 1 (Bentley 30 mins)
It was not until the last minute that Blackpool won at home for only the second time this year.
Yet it was not a bad show by a team with three reserves in its front line and nobody could dispute Blackpool’s title to the points.
A team shuffled almost out of recognition in the last 15 minutes hammered Chelsea nearly to a standstill.
Stanley Mortensen, resembling again at last the forward of a year ago, shot his first league goals for nearly two months to win this match, and all the time was the forward of the game, aggressive and as fast as ever.
The left wing found the First Division pace that shade faster that makes all the difference, but out on the other wing young Albert Hobson was Blackpool’s No. 2 forward all the time on a day when, in the centre. McIntosh was curiously subdued.
There was not a lot wrong with the defence, except that in the first half Campbell too often outpaced Suart.
The half-backs were as good as ever - any forward line should be able to play in front of Kelly and Johnston - and Shimwell was the game’s best full-back.
NEXT WEEK: Frankly, Blackpool have been slow
to solve the Swift riddle
SIX TEAMS have drawn and another two have won on visits to Manchester City at Maine-road this season.
But on this ground where Blackpool call next weekend to end the sequence of all-Lancashire matches the City defence had lost only 16 goals in exactly 16 games.
It’s never easy to shoot a goal past big Frank Swift in his own territory.
Blackpool have played only one game against the City at Maine-road since the war, and it produced for them neither a point nor a goal, the City winning -as often is still the City’s habit - by the only goal in one of those matches played between the Cupties last season by a Blackpool team which at the time was often thinking less of the League than of the Cup.
Add a couple of 1-1 draws at Blackpool since the City’s 1947 promotion to the First Division - and it is revealed that these Maine-road men are one of those teams who have found Blackpool matches profitable.
The City are still winning 1-0, had won three games in succession by this result, Andy Black scoring each time, before this afternoon’s fixtures.
That shows how strong and resolute the City defence remains, ageing as a few of the men in it may be.
The Blackpool defence should be able to hold the City’s forwards next week, but the question will remain: “Can the Blackpool front line outwit the City’s half-backs and full-backs?”
And even if that is accomplished there still remains England’s Frank Swift in the path to goal. Two goals in three postwar games show that Blackpool have not solved this little riddle yet.
But one of these days they may - and it could happen next week.
Inside-left is a problem - and Blackpool need another goalkeeper, too
MORRIS OFFER WAS CLUB RECORD
By “Spectator”
DEADLINE day for transfers is next Wednesday. I am told that there is little prospect of movements either into or out of Blackpool before this zero hour strikes.
Nobody at Blackpool is pretending that new men are not required. A reserve goalkeeper on full time is, a necessity.
It is almost as important for an inside forward to be drafted into the attack to build scoring chances for two such opportunists as Willie McIntosh and Stanley Mortensen.
They recognise these facts at Blackpool.
The acquisition of a goalkeeper should not be a major problem, even if, as Manager Joe Smith said when I was discussing the subject with him the other day, “The good men are disinclined to sign a contract when they know that they will be required only for a second team - and the not-so-good men, well, who wants them, anyway?”
The answer?
THE inside forward, riddle is, A however, apparently no nearer solution than it was six months ago.
It may be that Douglas Davidson, who has been given his chance today, may be the answer.
If he should be it would be one of football’s little ironies, for when he was signed from East Fife, and in spite of his impressive reputation in one of the best of Scotland’s postwar teams, the club announced to the public and told the player himself that his chief purpose would be to give experience to a young reserve team.
Circumstances pitchforked Davidson into the first Division within 24 hours of his crossing the Border, when he was manifestly unprepared and unequipped for the pace of the game in England.
Goal-scorer
WHEN a few days later he was fielded in the second team and has ever since remained in it, he was, therefore, merely fulfilling the modest destiny designed for him by the club.
But in recent times he has been scoring goals - seven in his last six games - until today he is the Central League team’s leading marksman, and as a result public demand alone has given him the position in the First Division on which Blackpool have been and still are, I am told, prepared to spend a lot of money.
"Duggie” Davidson may be the man for the position. He has the height which so many of the other men in the line have been denied by nature - and the few extra pounds, too.
And, according to his record, he can shoot, which so many Blackpool forwards this season have seemed either unable or dis-inclined to do.
Johnny Morris
YES, he might be the man - and he was signed as a reserve.
Which, I repeat, would be little ironical when it can be reported today that Blackpool made an offer less than a week ago for Johnny Morris which would have created a record for the club.
It was not the £25,000 which Liverpool bid, for simply economics alone would never permit Blackpool, unless the club were in a dire crisis, to contemplate the spending of such a fee on one man.
Blackpool’s net gate receipts last season - and the club had to reach Wembley to total the figure - were £66,000. A club with such a revenue could scarcely afford to pay over a third of it for one player, whatever his attainments.
Two factors
A LOT can be said for this move, too, if - (a) Wardle had not expressed a disinclination to play at inside-left, although obviously he would play there if he were asked to, and (b) Blackpool had not on their staff a certain little Scot called Andy McCall, who has almost completely justified his elevation to the First Division this season.
I shall not forget for a long time the game that the adaptable and zealous Rickett played in the Cup Final. Nor the grand service he has given Blackpool during the year he has been with the club.
He would always be in my team, but only as a wing forward. Who would have to be left out in that case it is not half so easy to decide. It’s the old problem of six men for five positions.
Within reason—
THE truth is that Blackpool A simply cannot live with threequarters of the clubs in the present-day First Division in bidding match for a star.
Yet, within reason, I do not think this club with the smallest average income in the Division will be afraid to spend a few of the several thousands - some people estimate it at nearly £50,000 - which the sale of players has put into Blackpool’s exchequer since the war.
A £25,000 fee is out of the question, but a five-figure cheque between £10,000 and £15,000 would probably be signed tomorrow if a second Peter Doherty or another Jimmy Hagan - the type of forward Blackpool obviously require today - were on offer.
Remote prospect
PROSPECTS, however, that such a player will be signed before next week’s transfer ban begins to operate are remote.
Blackpool’s position in the First Division today, while not exactly exalted, is still not insecure enough to warrant the club entering into one of those stampedes into the market which the affluent can afford.
Yet, whether an inside forward of class is signed or not, a goalkeeper will have to be. That, as I see it, in spite of the famine in goals among the forwards because of the absence of one man who could weld the line into a cohesive force, remains Priority No. 1.
Frank Jump
SEVERAL people have been asking this week, “What’s happened to Frank Jump?” recalling the remarkable acrobatics of this young amateur when he was given a trial in Blackpool’s second team early in the season.
I learn that Jump is still on Blackpool’s books as an amateur, but at present is playing for the Cheshire League club, Mossley.
There is every indication that he would be prepared to sign a professional contract for Blackpool, once the necessary preliminaries had been observed, but he, too, would only be able to sign part-time.
In common with all other Blackpool’s goalkeepers, apart from George Farm he has an occupation outside football and, in fact, by a coincidence is, like Walter Thorpe, a draughtsman.
On tightrope
HIS signing, therefore, could not supply the full-time man Blackpool require and without whom the club, as I see it, are walking a tightrope without a safety net, for if Farm were put out of action Blackpool could be in Queer-street.
Something will have to be done about this.
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 12 March 1949
They think a lot of Jim
NOBODY at Goodison Park will listen to a word of criticism of Jim McIntosh.
As a guest for Everton in wartime the Scot left such a good impression that there were a few recriminations behind the scenes when Blackpool stole in and re-signed him from Preston shortly after the war.
Well, now he has gone to Goodison at last, and if often he plays as he played in his first game a week ago the Everton public will continue to ask, as I was asked repeatedly last weekend, “Why ever did Blackpool let him go?”
The programme at Everton devoted a special paragraph to him, scored half the team mobbed him as if he had been playing with them for years.
***
IT was a coincidence that one of the first men to know that McIntosh was leaving Blackpool for Goodison Park was another centre-forward who took this trail two years ago.
Jock Dodds, George Eastham and Hugh O’Donnell were by chance in the Blackpool cafe where McIntosh had his last consultation with Mr. Cliff Britton, the Everton manager, before deciding to say “Yes.”
When I told them what was happening, “Well,” said Jock "no club’ll ever regret signing Jim. He’ll do them a lot of good at Everton.”
YET McIntosh was reluctant to leave Blackpool, was almost apologetic when he accepted an invitation- to return to town with the Blackpool team after last weekend’s match.
He must have been glad to have achieved such a triumph in his first game for his new club, but he would, I know, have preferred it not to have been achieved against his old club.
Jim McIntosh is like that
IT WAS COLD, MIGHTY COLD
NEVER a dull moment in Blackpool football.
One week there is a new version of “Duel in the Sun” in the Blackpool v. Preston North End match. The next week it is "Antics in the Arctic” at Goodison Park.
I can recall only one match - the famous Chelsea game at Blackpool, in October, 1932, Which ended with only six of the London team’s men on the field - comparable with the ordeal by blizzard which the Everton match became last weekend.
They had to dig in the snow to find the centre spot to begin the game. At that time not a line was visible, and the dancing snowflakes, tossed about in half a gale, made a nearly impenetrable screen, reducing visibility to such short range that across the field the stand opposite the players’ tunnel was only a grey shadow.
NOT a line could be written in the Press box - or, if it was written, it was obliterated in half a minute by the driving snow and sleet. Every word had to be telephoned direct - and two of the half-dozen telephones, dug out of snowdrifts, went out of action.
One Blackpool man saw the game only in snatches, could not endure the cold, walked about in one of the passages beneath the main stand, and popped up every now and again to ask “What was it?” Four times in the first half he was told it was goal for Everton. At half-time he went home.
Willie McIntosh and Stanley Matthews, Blackpool’s two casualties, watched the match, said “It must have been colder watching than playing today.”
***
SINCE the war Blackpool have had a colder day only once. That was at Charlton just before Christmas in 1946, the day when Eddie Shimwell should have played his first game for the club but was marooned in a train, trapped in the snow, miles away from London at kick-off time.
That day even the warm water froze in the trainers’ buckets.
NOT such a jubilant celebration for Eric Hayward at Goodison Park a week ago - his 100th postwar game for Blackpool.
It was still, nevertheless, an event which demanded a celebration, for in not one of those 100 games has this centre- half from the Potteries given anything except everything that was in him every minute of a match. No man can do more than that.
It was Harry Johnston’s 112th game since the war and, without its ever being put on the record, Stanley Mortensen played his 100th against Bolton Wanderers a month ago.
Ronnie Suart will complete his century, the fates permitting, when Charlton come to Blackpool a fortnight today.
As if we didn't know
THE paragraph which takes the week's biscuit:
“First - class inside - forwards are worth their weight in gold. There is one who is too good a player to blush unseen in a reserve team.
"I understand he is quite happy, and has not approached the officials of his club concerning a move, yet I feel the club would not stand in his way of getting into First Division football.
“His close dribbling and clever style would suit clubs like Everton, Preston, Middlesbrough and BLACKPOOL"
Who's this all about? Jimmy Blair who left Blackpool for Bournemouth in 1947.
Sad tale from Everton
It was Blackpool's biggest defeat since Sunderland won 5-0 at Blackpool on January 18, 1947.
It was the first time Blackpool had lost five goals in an away match since the war.
Eddie Wainwright's four goals made him the first forward to score four against a Blackpool defence since Jackie Robinson had a similar total in the 1947 Sunderland match.
Everton had lost 10 goals to one in the three previous matches with Blackpool.
And - most amazing fact of all - there were 25,548 people at the match. Which shows what punishment Englishmen can take!
KING OF KEEPERS
WHAT a goalkeeper Ted Saga is.
In the Everton-Blackpool game last weekend he was holding a snow-caked ball which must have seemed to weigh about a hundredweight as if it were fresh from the factory. And out of inches of snow and sleet and slime he rose to this ball whenever it came in high as if he were jumping off a springboard.
Age cannot weary him, and custom never stales for this writer a complete admiration for a man who is still one of Britain’s greatest in the position.
It was his 402nd League match for Everton - this Blackpool game, and next Monday he will celebrate his 20th anniversary as an Everton player, which must be nearly a record for the game.
And, before Sagar went to Everton on March 14. 1929. Hull City gave him a trial, were not impressed, and would not sign him.
I WAS wrong - and so were half the other football writers in the country - when I reported that Ewan Fenton, the Blackpool reserve wing-half, came from Jeanfield Swifts, the Dundee junior club, writes “Spectator.”
It was from Dundee North End that he was signed, as was Alec Forbes, the Sheffield United and Arsenal half-back whom young Ewan succeeded in the North End team.
Yet the Swifts have supplied a few men to Blackpool, among them Hugh Kelly, Bob Gilfillan and Jimmy Sunter, the last of whom had only one season at Blackpool, returned across the Border and today is scoring goals for Forfar Athletic.
Reports that Blackpool were interested in another Swift, the wing forward from Poland, Joe Praski, are, I am assured, unfounded.
Joe is going to Notts County when the Swifts are out of the national junior trophy.
ACE OF FC SNOOKER
CONGRATULATIONS to Gordon Kennedy on becoming the Blackpool Football Club snooker champion for 1948-49 season.
Beating Ronnie Suart in a marathon game, he qualified to meet Stanley Matthews - who beat Rex Adams in the other semi-final - and won a keen and entertaining final.
Thanks are extended to all who made this effort so successful, and particularly Mr. Harold Holt for his help and his entertaining trick shots during the interval.
Big dance
NEXT Thursday, March 17, St. Patrick’s Night, at the Tower Ballroom, the Supporters’ Club are holding another of their big dances which it is hoped will be as successful as the previous ones.
There will be spot prizes and many novelties. Tickets are on sale now.
The entertainments committee have worked very hard to make this event successful.
***
Fine draw
THE Reserve are to be congratulated on a fine draw last Saturday after being 3-0 down. The stalwarts who turned up in the wretched weather were amply repaid by a grand game.
If members have not paid their 2s. 6d. membership fee for 1949 they should send off immediately to Mr. F. Cross, 1, Wyre-grove, Blackpool.
New members will be welcomed. Will you help us to reach our target of 5,000 before the end of the season? Remember, the more members we have the more we can do.
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