ROUGH AT STOKE: POINT WON
City player is ordered off
GOAL FOR McKNIGHT
Stoke City 1, Blackpool 1
By “Clifford Greenwood”
STILL SEARCHING FOR A FORWARD LINE WITH GOALS IN IT, BLACKPOOL SHUFFLED THE DIVISION AGAIN AT STOKE THIS AFTERNOON.
Stanley Mortensen could not play, and after a test early today did not come with the rest of the team to the Potteries.
Leading the line was the young Scot, Jackie Mudie. On his right the Irishman, George McKnight, was fielded, and on his left a wing which had the South African, Bill Perry, inside and the ex-Grimsby Town forward, Billy Wardle, outside.
Ewan Fenton had his second game of the season in the First Division at right-half in a defence which included Eddie Shimwell, after the fullback had passed a test at his Chesterfield training quarters yesterday.
The City were at full strength or something bordering on it in spite of the late inclusion of that old warrior, Bill Mould, as one of the full-backs.
Half an hour before the kickoff there were fewer people on the ground than I have seen at a First Division match this season, and when the teams took the field the attendance had scarcely reached 20,000.
It was one of those days when, with little at stake for the teams except the £2 bonus, there was no place like home beside the fire and a wireless set broadcasting the Cup Final.
MUD AND WATER
Rain had fallen for hours and was still falling. Men were pitch-forking the ground until shortly before kick-off time, and everywhere there was thick mud and in patches standing water.
And it was cold and bleak, as in this Black Country it can be.
Stanley Matthews reached the ground with England’s centre-half Neil Franklin a few minutes after hearing that his horse Parbleu had won its first race in his colours.
Teams:
STOKE CITY: Wilkinson; Mould, McCue; Mountford (F), Franklin, Sellars; Malkin, Bowyer, Mountford (G), Johnston, Oscroft.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Wright; Fenton, Crosland, Kelly; Matthews, McKnight, Mudie, Perry, Wardle.
Referee: Mr. H. Holt (Rochdale).
THE GAME
First half
Blackpool had a new captain for the second successive match. This time it was Eddie Shimwell, who celebrated by winning the toss to an unexpected clamour by a squad of rattles and fluttering tangerine and white ribbons.
Matthews was nose-dived into the slime in the first half-minute, crawled up out of it resembling a nigger minstrel.
Blackpool’s early football was played exclusively on his wing, but nothing materialised except an offside decision against Mudie as the little leader raced after a headed pass.
For a minute or two no man could stand in the thick gluepot.
CITY RAIDS
Twice the City’s forward raided, twice took passes in positions which appeared suspiciously offside. even if Mr. Holt apparently did not think so.
Crosland ended one of those advances with one of his familiar back passes to the waiting Farm, and the other faded out.
Then within a minute another offside offence passed unnoticed, and this time Oscroft should have scored.
Racing on to his partner’s pass, he waited perceptibly for a whistle which did not blow, and in the end cut in fast and shot wide of the far post, with Farm alone in front of him.
STOKE AHEAD
Goal in two direct moves
That was in the sixth minute. In the seventh the City took the lead.
There was nothing whatever wrong with the raid which built the goal. It was a goal in two direct moves - a pass from a wing half who had taken the ball from a Blackpool man in the mud, and a pass forward by George Mountford.
JOHNSTON, chasing it, reached it on his own with the Blackpool defence wide open, ran half a dozen yards, and almost casually steered it away from Farm, with the goal keeper crouching in front of him.
Within a minute, with the City raiding nonstop and as furiously as if this were Wembley, Farm had to fall almost head over heels to reach and hold a ball shot fast at him from 30 yards by Bowyer.
WARDLE LIMPS
Within another minute Wardle in one of Blackpool’s infrequent raids, had fallen in a tackle and after attention had returned to his wing limping and almost at a standstill.
Immediately Fenton had to pursue Johnston for nearly 30 yards, and had to give a corner to halt him. This corner was followed by another.
All the time during this uninterrupted pressure, and after it, there seemed to be unfamiliar open spaces everywhere in the Blackpool defence, with both the City’s wing forwards cutting in repeatedly on unguarded flanks.
After the first three minutes the Blackpool forward line had scarcely been in the game, and there were ominous signs that the defence might be stormed out of it.
BLACKPOOL RAIDS
Perry and Mudie make progress
Afterwards the red light went up against this one-way traffic.
In Blackpool forays, Perry and Mudie often made progress with the crisp direct pass, one of these raids ending in Franklin stabbing a pass across an open goal, with no Blackpool forward in position to walk it over the line.
For the rest, it was the City’s forwards who were setting the pace by football as swift in movement as it was direct in plan.
It is a long time since the Blackpool defence took such a hammering but there were signs with the first half-hour ending that it was steadying itself, even if it had to concede two more corners.
TOOK THE COUNT
Fenton took the count when he found himself in the path of a thunderbolt free-kick, and within a minute hooked the ball wide of a post of his own goal for another corner.
Immediately, too, Malkin catapulted on to the cinder track under Crosland’s desperate tackle, and had to leave the field with a gashed arm.
Even with 10 men the City’s pressure continued, and, in fact, should have increased the lead to 2-0 in the 35th minute as George Mountford took Johnston’s forward pass, half lost it in the slime, and in the end sliced it wide of a post, with both Blackpool full-back’s passed Blackpool seemed obsessed with the short pass, which the mud always halted The City were moving all the time on the long pass and playing it, too, with remarkable precision.
THE DIFFERENCE
That was the big difference between the teams, and was probably sufficient in itself to account for the command which the City still retained everywhere, particularly when Malkin came back after five minutes’ absence.
Wardle was still virtually a cripple on a Blackpool left wing which Perry was playing almost on his own. The right wing was scarcely in the match at all.
It was just one Stoke raid after another. Bowyer shot wide in one fast and low as he can shoot. Oscroft hurled himself at a flying centre in another, and finished in a heap almost on the goal line.
FARM ALERT
Goalkeeper holds shot from Johnston
The alert Farm held a Johnston shot in another raid.
That the City deserved to be in front was indisputable. It was remarkable in all the circumstances that the lead was only 1-0.
In the end, one saw the inevitable and familiar spectacle of Matthews wandering over on to the left wing for the ball, beating three men with it, and ultimately putting across a square pass which was lost.
Another comer came for the City - the eighth of the half - and still these City forwards raided on and on.
When at last Blackpool made a sortie, McKnight delayed his pass so long that when at last he released it Mudie was trapped in an offside position.
One of Wilkinson’s few tests in the half came on the halftime whistle as Shimwell hit a free-kick from his own side of the halfway line which bounced so high in the mud that the goalkeeper had to leap to reach it almost on the face of the bar.
The first half had been about 80 per cent, the City.
Half-time: Stoke City 1, Blackpool 0.
Second half
Blackpool opened the second half with only nine men, Kelly and the limping Wardle waiting nearly a minute on the line before the referee gave them permission to enter the fray.
Within a couple of minutes the 20,000 saw at last the familiar Stanley Matthews they once idolised.
On to a loose ball he swooped. Three men packed him in close to the line.
All three were outwitted as they waited, reluctant to go into the tackle.
In the end, Johnston upset him as he reached the line, and had to listen to a long lecture by Mr. Holt before the free-kick was taken.
JUST WIDE
When at last Matthews himself crossed the ball, Mudie leaped at it, beat half a dozen men to it, and headed it barely wide of a post.
That was as near as Blackpool had been to a goal all the afternoon.
It so infuriated the City that they raided en masse for a couple of minutes afterwards, and forced another comer
Yet almost directly from the clearing of it the Stoke goal nearly fell again as Perry went racing half the length of the field, outpaced Franklin, and was beaten only by inches in a race for the ball by the City’s deserted goalkeeper.
Another minute, in the seventh of the half, Blackpool made it 1-1.
It was a fine goal. too. The industrious Perry made it out on Blackpool’s one man flank, chased another pass, reached it, and crossed it from the line.
Waiting for it close to the near post was McKNIGHT. Down to it he fell, and was almost on his knees as he glided it away off his head into the far wall of the net.
The game in those opening minutes of this half had tumbled a somersault. All the direct, aggressive football was being played by Blackpool.
GREAT TACKLE
Yet there were raids, still plenty of them, by the City, and in one of them Crosland made a great cackle on Bowyer as the inside-right ran into a shooting position, and in another Farm fielded an Oscroft shot with complete confidence.
There was a new purpose in Blackpool's football in this half - signs of a plan in the forward line.
Twice McKnight released forward passes which Mudie and Perry in succession lost to a massed but not too compact City defence.
There was one passage near a corner flag which ended in the referee taking Johnston’s name after Shimwell had sunk into the slime under a tackle.
JEERS, CHEERS
Strangely, when the full-back was fit again, there were hoots and jeers every time he approached the ball and cheers whenever Johnston approached it.
Peculiar at times is tile conduct of a football crowd.
It served on this remarkable afternoon so to inflame the tempers of both teams that in the succeeding minutes there were scenes which fortunately are uncommon even in these days.
For minutes there was a siege of the Blackpool goal, with the man often being taken instead of the ball.
Two corners were conceded, and with nearly all the 22 men battling for the possession of the ball Jackie Wright once cleared off his own goal line, with Farm on his knees near the other post.
MARCHING ORDERS
Leslie Johnston ordered off field
The climax to something which was beginning to resemble a dogfight came 15 minutes from the end. Fenton raced out on to the left wing to tackle, dispossess, and leave in a heap the City’s wing half, Sellars.
Both teams lined up for the free-kick bumping and boring everywhere in front of the Blackpool goal.
What exactly happened could not be detected from the Press box, but abruptly Mr, Holt marched into the swarm addressed a couple of words to Leslie Johnston, the City’s inside-left, and ordered him off the field.
The ground was in a pandemonium as he left, and continued to be for minutes afterwards.
Men for a time were falling about like skittles in an alley, with all pretence to football almost forgotten.
POLICE PARADE
With 10 minutes left police constables were beginning to parade all the lines.
In all this fury, which at last began to subside, the City raided persistently, even if there were breakaways by Blackpool which had plenty of menace in them.
Five minutes from time Malkin missed one of the chances of the match, shooting wide from an open position after two Blackpool men had been left hurt and sprawling in the mud in the wake of another of those all-out assaults in which the City’s 10 men were specialising.
The referee was still rebuking men almost every time he gave a decision.
Three minutes were left and Blackpool’s goal nearly fell as a Crosland back pass seemed to spin out of Farm’s hands and was retrieved with the ball bouncing perilously close to a gaping goal.
The teams left the field to a storm of booing, but there was no invasion of the pitch, and the police reinforcements merely stood and watched the 21 men disappear.
Result:
STOKE CITY 1 (Johnston 7)
BLACKPOOL 1 (McKnight 52)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
If ever a team snatched a point, out of a game which seemed
irretrievably lost it was Blackpool. City were leading 1-0 at half-time, but
had so completely dictated first half that it was lead which could have been multiplied
by two or three.
Afterwards Blackpool forward line, which had Wardle crippled on wing
nearly all afternoon, began to play to open plan.
Blackpool defence became stronger longer the game lasted.
Crosland and two full-backs had a magnificent second half. Forwards
were inevitably in an out, and never moved as line until after half-time.
NEXT WEEK: No picnic at St. James’s Park
THERE may or may not be big stakes on the table for Blackpool in the last match of the season at Newcastle next weekend.
But whether there is, or whether it is just one of those games which have to be played to complete the fixture list, it will be no picnic. It never is for teams visiting St. James’s Park and the excited multitudes which swarm into it every week.
Within the last month two teams dreaming of championships - Liverpool and Manchester
United - have had an abrupt awakening in games at Newcastle, where the United ever since their promotion two years ago have shown singularly little respect to visitors humble or famous.
Three visiting teams have won at the Park and four played draws this season.
The rest have been as summarily put to the sword as was an under-strength Blackpool team last season, when after young Ewan Fenton, the reserve wing-half, had scored a great goal - the only goal he has ever scored in the First Division - Blackpool were swept out of the match.
The United’s three goals in a 3-1 game were scored by Jackie Milburn, the England forward, who had a couple, and George Robledo.
The teams played a 0-0 draw at Blackpool early in the season. That was a dull and dismal game. It is improbable that this return next week will be either, for they don’t know what that end-of- the-season feeling is up in the north-east.
CHRONIC GOAL SHORTAGE KILLS TITLE HOPE
Signings ahead?
By Clifford Greenwood
BLACKPOOL HAVE MISSED THE FIRST DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP BUS.
It was leaving the kerb, I think, during the Easter weekend. It receded into the distance at the Hawthorns on Wednesday evening, leaving Blackpool standing at the corner of the street.
There could he an inquest on this failure, and yet the evidence is so familiar that to repeat it would serve no particular purpose.
It is sufficient to report that:
(a) The forwards have failed to score in 18 matches, including Cupties, this season.
(b) The defence has not lost a goal in 22 matches.
(c) Not a forward, except Stanley Mortensen, has scored at all in Blackpool’s last nine games. -
Those three facts alone establish that a championship which could have been won by the best defence ever fielded by the club has been forfeited by the forwards who almost from the season’s first day have not been scoring the number of goals a championship team must score.
Eclipse complete
THE loss of eight points out of 12 since the beginning of the Easter weekend, and, to be fair, a casualty list above average proportions, completed an eclipse which had been threatening for a long time.
There are, I know, those people who are always wise after the event, even if a minority were wise before it in this particular case, who assert that months ago the club should have gone out into the market and signed either the constructive inside forward who could have played the Peter Doherty or Wilf Mannion act or a tall heavyweight who could have taken opposing defences by storm.
The board held a variety opinions on this subject.
The young school
THE majority preferred to remain faithful to the postwar policy - which, admittedly, has paid dividends - of developing the club’s own young school. And the success of the second team, whose achievements have been climaxed by the winning of the Central League championship, appeared at that time to justify them.
But the truth is that, whatever decision had been reached, if Manager Joe Smith had been sent out into the land, brandishing an open cheque, nobody would have been able to tell him where to find the wanted players.
For there are singularly few of the sort of forwards Blackpool require - and have required for a long time - and the few there are not for sale and never have been.
Scot watched
PLAYER-EXCHANGES probably will be discussed.
The Scottish forward who was watched in the East Fife forward line last weekend in the Scottish Cup Final will probably be the subject of one, if he has not been exchanged by the time these notes are printed.
But Blackpool will not have been concerned for the good and sufficient reason that Blackpool have not the footballer the Scottish club are asking for, and, if they had, Blackpool would probably not be prepared to part with him.
So it all seems to end in a deadlock. But deadlocks have a habit of being broken, and it is my expectation that during the summer Blackpool will find the men the present circumstances demand, whatever fees have to be paid for them.
Good season
THE fact is, I suppose, that if Blackpool had not hitched their wagon to such a glittering, star as the First Division championship there would not have been the disillusionment in the air which there is.
For the club in every other aspect has had a remarkably good season.
It has had. in fact, such a good one that I shall be surprised it. many familiar names are missing
from the retained list when it is published next week.
Chief speculation will not be about who is on it but about who will be added to it during the months before next August.
Early re-signing: Bill Slater
THE football future of W. J. Slater will remain in Blackpool, writes Clifford Greenwood.
The amateur international is to enter on a third-year course, equipping himself as a specialist in physical culture instruction, at Leeds Training College, but already he has resigned for the club for 1950-51 - the club which gave him his first big chance in the game and to which he has shown such loyalty that he forsook the Scotland match this season to play for Blackpool in the Anfield Cuptie.
It will not now be until July of next year that he will complete his course at the Leeds college, but present prospects are that except for the long-distance games he will be able to play for Blackpool next season whenever he should be required.
And whether it is the first or the second team they will never call in vain on Bill Slater, who, I expect, when his sprained ankle is cured, should soon be playing cricket for Blackpool.
THE WRIGHT IDEA
ONE of the Fylde’s best nurseries for young footballers is Highfield School.
It has given to the professional game David Frith, one of the best apprentice full-backs signed by Blackpool for a long time, ana the wing forward, Alf Eastwood.
Now it has produced another wing forward who is revealing infinite promise. J. W. (“Billy") Wright is the name, writes “C.G.” I saw him for the first time in Lancashire League match last week, and, until he was neglected in the second half, he was one of those Wrights who could apparently do no wrong, playing with a natural instinct which no coach can teach but can nurture and cultivate, as I know this talent will be at Blackpool.
Watch for this name in the Blackpool football of the future - Billy Wright, a famous name in football. It may make big news.
STRANGE sequel to the missing of a penalty by Stan Mortensen, the England forward, at Blackpool last weekend was a telephone call to his home the day after the match by a man who claimed that he had an infallible plan for the converting of penalties.
It was, he said, so simple, and if Mr. Mortensen would care to communicate with him he would impart the information without fee.
There has been no further communication between the parties.
Not that the good intention behind the offer was ever questioned. “But” as Stan Mortensen remarks, “I mean to say . . . "
A GOAL FOR JIM
JIMMY BLAIR scored the winning goal for Leyton Orient at Walsall the other day in the London team’s first away victory of the season.
It is not often that the Scot is in the scoring list these days.
But from all reports he still plays at times I the football in midfield which a year or two before the war won him rave notices from the critics when Blackpool first fielded him in top-class football as a boy wonder.
AS he nursed his knee on the way back from the recent Bolton game, Harry Johnston, the Blackpool captain, recalled that it was at Burnden Park that he became a casualty case in wartime football.
On that occasion he was playing not for Blackpool but as a guest for Liverpool. He was out of the game for a long time afterwards.
At Bolton he was hurt in an accidental collision. W. J Slater was similarly put out of action.
Nearly all the Blackpool men who have gone on the disabled list during the last few months have been crippled by mischance and not mown down - as a few prejudiced observers would have you think.
***
I HEAR good reports of young Stanley Hepton, the inside-forward signed by Blackpool from the Leeds team, Ashley-road, whose all-conquering progress was halted at Blackpool by one of the colts teams on Good Friday, writes “C.G.”
Mr. V. P. McKenna was greatly impressed by one of his recent games for Blackpool “A” - a game which confirmed the testimonial of his coach at Leeds, one of the men who groomed Len Shackleton for the big-time game and has already compared this Blackpool recruit with him.
Still only 17, Hepton may or may not fulfil his present promise, but if he does Blackpool have a fine constructive inside forward in the making.
***
Rex Adams asks for transfer
REX ADAMS, Blackpool’s 22- year-old wing forward from Oxford City, has asked for a transfer, writes Clifford Greenwood.
The directors will consider his request at their next meeting.
Coming to Blackpool two years ago to sign his first professional contract, Adams has played nearly 20 games in the First Division scored the winning goal against the League champions. Portsmouth, last season in one of those games, but has played nearly all his football this season in the club’s Central League championship team.
A few months ago Newcastle United were reported to be interested in him and watched him several times and if he is put on the list I should think that there will be immediate competition for his services.
“I don’t want to leave Blackpool, but m my own interests I think I should make a move", he told me today.
Stan Matthews’ first race success
PARBLEU, in the Symington Handicap at Lanark this afternoon, provided Stanley Matthews, the Blackpool and England footballer, with his first racing success.
Parbleu, ridden today by J. Brace and trained by W. Hammett, was a gift horse by an anonymous donor to Matthews.
The colours of Parbleu are a mixture of the colours of the two football clubs, Blackpool and Stoke City.
As Parbleu left the paddock he spread a plate, and as there was no time for the blacksmith to fix it the horse ran without.
***
THESE MAY BE BOOTS OF FUTURE
NINE months’ research went into the making of the special boots worn by Stanley Mortensen in the game against Chelsea at Blackpool last Saturday.
But Mortensen doesn’t blame the boots for that missed penalty. "It was the light ball and a hard ground,” he says.
The Rio boots are designed to stand up to the tropical conditions our players will meet when they play in the World Cup competition at Rio de Janeiro. They embody novel features that may bring about a drastic change in the design of the traditional English football boot that has remained unaltered for generations.
International players Aston, Franklin and Dickinson will also test the new boots.
Lighter
THE Rio boot is nearly four ounces lighter than the present boot. It is made in willow calf, and instead of the traditional butt toe-cap has a self-leather cap that reduces width and bulkiness at the toe.
The tongue is much wider - three inches at the centre - and has a neat padding underneath to protect the instep. This obviates the need for players to wrap their feet in cotton wadding.
Because very few players lace up the top two eyelets of their boots, the Rio boot has been made with a lower leg, though not as low as the Brazilian boot.
Search
THE Football Association began their search for an improved boot nine months ago when Mr. Walter Winterbottom, director of coaching, showed concern at the effect tight-fitting boots were having on players’ feet.
The FA put their problem to the Boot Trades Research Association.
As a result, the so-called Rio boot was produced, and if it is approved by the FA it will become the football boot of the future.
THE MORTENSEN STORY — No. 23
THOSE WEMBLEY CHANGES
ON this Cup Final day Stanley Mortensen, the England and Blackpool forward, recalls another Final - the match at Wembley two years ago, when Manchester United defeated Blackpool in a game which has been called one of the Stadium's classics.
Controversy still rages over the shuffle in the Blackpool forward line which prefaced the match. Was it justified?
The answer," writes Stan. Mortensen, “is that we scored two goals and became only the fourth team in football history to fail to win the Cup after scoring twice in the Final. That's how near we were to winning."
The drama of the match is recalled in this instalment of the Mortensen autobiography, “Football is my Game," which will be concluded in “The Football Gazette" next week.
Goals wanted - and they came
By Stanley Mortensen
THEN, a few days before the Final, our manager took the decision to change the forward line.
It must have cost him hours of worry, and as an old player himself with two Cup Final appearances he knew what store was set on a match at Wembley.
But goals were scarce at Blackpool as seaside rock in Birmingham, and he had a duty to the club. Moreover, the manager is just as anxious for his side to win the Cup as are the players.
The day following our try-out on the turf at Lytham the team was chosen - Jimmy McIntosh, who had been at centre-forward in all our ties, was left out.
I don’t think Jimmy was dropped entirely because of his own loss of goal-scoring power. The idea was to make a change of some sort to bring new life into the line, and someone had to be unlucky.
But Jimmy, who has known the ups and downs of a footballer’s life more than most, took it well. He must have been near heartbroken, but he stayed with the side until the match, and his one thought was to help the rest of us along.
Forward moves
IT WAS moved to centre-forward for the Final; George Dick was on one side of me; and that little bundle of nonstop energy, Alec Munro, was brought in to give the line that touch of what I call worrying power.
We knew that Alec would run himself to a standstill, that no United player would ever have the ball unchallenged if the wee Scot was within tackling distance, and that he would keep going as long as there was breath in his body.
Was the forward change justified? The answer lies here, I think. We scored two goals and became only the fourth side in football history to fail to win the Cup with two goals in the Final.
That's how near we were to winning the Cup.
Ankle test
WHEN we arrived South, one of the first things was a test of Ron Suart’s ankle. This took place on the Wentworth golf course, and Ron went out with a ball intending to do some running, turning and kicking.
Only the injured player knows how the injured limb feels, and only he knows whether, if there is any tenderness, it is only that or something more serious. And only he knows what risk he will take in declaring himself fit.
He was out for only a minute or two. The first time he tried to turn under “battle” conditions he stopped and said “I can’t do it and that was that.
Crosland plays
A MOST useful team man, poor Ron had to declare himself out of the match, and young Johnny Crosland, really a centre- half, got the vacant place.
And right away I want to say that Crosland covered himself with glory in this game. Under such circumstances I would readily forgive a last-minute player if he didn’t get the ball square on his boot throughout the 90 minutes. But Johnny got it square all the time. He kept his head.
RICKETT HAD JACK CAREY WORRIED
ALL sorts of plans are worked out for Cup Final triumph, but I should doubt very much whether a final tie has ever gone according to plan. This one had many unexpected twists.
To the Blackpool players perhaps the biggest surprise of the game was the way in which Wally Rickett bothered that great full-back, Jack Carey.
Transferred from Sheffield United, Wally had scarcely done himself justice in his early matches for us, but he came on to his game at Villa Park and in the Final justified the name he had made at Bramall-lane.
Carey, a master at keeping the winger shut out on the touch- line, was repeatedly forced to turn and chase an elusive little opponent who simply did not know what nerves meant and certainly paid no heed to the fact that he was up against - dare I go as far? - the greatest fullback of my time.
Little Munro, too, justified his choice by running anywhere and everywhere in search of the ball.
Penalty goal
WE took the lead with a penalty kick after I had been brought down. The ball, from a big kick, beat both Chilton and myself and we turned to chase it.
I raced slightly ahead of him and was going headlong for goal when down I went.
The referee gave a penalty kick, and Shimwell converted it with a terrific kick which had It been a few inches straighter would have knocked the goalkeeper through the net.
Just about the hardest kicker the game, Eddie meant the ball to go between the post and to rely on speed.
Photographs were later produced which seemed to show that the foul for which the kick was awarded took place outside the penalty area.
Equaliser
HAVE since read that the referee, Mi. C. J. Barrick, has other pictures which suggest the reverse. So perhaps the old tag that what can’t speak can’t lie isn’t true;
In any event, we can’t wait for photographs to be developed before a referee decides whether or not he should award a penalty kick.
We did not hold this early lead for long.
Jimmy Delaney put a big kick down the centre, and it seemed to hang in the air in a curious fashion. But even so there seemed little danger and Eric Hayward let the ball pass, with the idea that it would bounce nicely for the goalkeeper.
But the Wembley turf is different from any other in the country, and even that practice at Lytham had not fully prepared us for what happened next.
Rowley there
THE ball hit the ground, but instead of bouncing into Robinson’s waiting hands it “stood up and begged" as it were - so that it never reached the goalkeeper.
And there was Rowley on the spot. It must have been about the easiest goal - in the actual finish - ever scored at Wembley, but Rowley wouldn’t have been on the spot to make it if he had taken the clearance for granted.
Before half-time we were in front again. Matthews took a free-kick, Kelly headed it forward and I managed to take the ball and move in one action.
I hardly had to move, just to sidestep and move forward a little, and I had a clear shot at goal. And so we led at halftime.
Next week
HOW WE LOST WHEN I CRIED.
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