30 September 1950 Derby County 4 Blackpool 1
County sharpshooter has four-goal joy day
WEAK DEFENCE
Derby County 4, Blackpool 1
By “Clifford Greenwood”
One of the youngest players ever to take the field against Blackpool in the First Division, 17-year-old Kenneth Scott, a blacksmith’s apprentice at Denaby Colliery, made his first appearance in big football in the match at the Baseball Ground this afternoon.
Another Kenneth, Ken Oliver, who won his spurs years ago at Sunderland, was reintroduced into a County defence which has been losing too many goals in recent weeks.
Blackpool had Tom Garrett at left back, and in the forward line, which again included the versatile Scot, Willie McIntosh, as an inside-left, Stanley Matthews played the first game he has ever played on the ground in a Blackpool jersey.
Rain fell in torrents all the morning at Derby and continued to fall until a few minutes before the kick-off, soaking turf which had not a bare patch on it but which threatened to make the ball skid everywhere and to reduce the prospects of good football.
TWO-TIER STANDS
Tall double-tier stands - the sort which on a ground of similar acreage Blackpool intend to build one fine day - have increased the Baseball Ground’s capacity to nearly 35,000.
There were early signs that in spite of the rain it would be taxed nearly to the limit.
Teams:
DERBY COUNTY: Brown; Mozley, Parr; Ward, Oliver, Musson; Scott, Stamps, Lee, Morris. Powell.
BLACKPOOL; Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, Mortensen, McIntosh, Perry,
Referee; Mr. L. Peake (Rotherham).
Collections were made at all the turnstiles and on the ground for the Creswell colliery disaster fund. Hundreds were spilling over the paddock walls and being assisted by police reinforcements to less congested quarters, if there were any, as the teams appeared.
First half
There was no wind and the rain had ceased.
When Tim Ward won the toss for the County it made no particular difference.
Johnny Morris, who played for Manchester United against Blackpool in the 1948 Cup Final, put the young recruit, Scott, in the game in the first minute with nearly the first pass of the match, but the wing forward, with all the time in the world, sliced his centre on the roof of the net.
It was all the County in the opening minutes.
There was a big open space left on the County’s right flank of attack nearly all the time in these preliminaries, and when Scott put another pass in it his centre this time flew in high, and was headed out by Hayward close to the post.
In repelling one Derby raid Harry’ Johnston skidded to earth a yard inside the penalty area and was hit by the ball as he fell. Derby demanded a penalty, which Mr. Peake refused.
HEAVY PRESSURE
Another minute, and Powell’s fast, low shot hit the Blackpool captain again, and cannoned off for another corner which was not repelled before Shimwell, losing a bouncing ball, sliced it over the line for another.
It is not often that a Blackpool defence forfeits two comers in a game’s first four minutes. It is not often that Blackpool have to face such relentless pressure so early in the afternoon.
And yet when Blackpool at last made a raid Ward ran into Matthews’ pass to his partner - a - long, calculated pass - and gave a comer, and from the corner the County's goal nearly fell, Mortensen moving fast to a low ball and gliding it only inches wide of the post.
DERBY AHEAD
Farm beaten by pace of Stamps shot
That was in the seventh minute. In the next the County were in front.
There was attack on the right, a fast throw-in, a pass inside.
JACK STAMPS swooped on to the ball, veered a couple of yards to his left, and from 10 yards shot with his left foot a thunderbolt of a ball which beat Farm by its pace as the goalkeeper fell to his left.
This goal had been coming from the first minute, and with the Blackpool defence often losing position on the treacherous turf and with both wings of the Derby forward division often in big open spaces, other goals were repeatedly close afterwards.
Perry made two lone little forays on Blackpool’s left wing, was halted in the first by the England fullback, Bert Mozley, and by the offside whistle in the other.
ONE-WAY TRAFFIC
For the rest, the game moved all the time on the Blackpool goal.
Powell shot wide of one post from a possible scoring position. Past the other Ward, racing through with his forwards, shot, too.
Yet, after all this pressure Blackpool were near a goal, and, I think, might have had one in the 17th minute.
Then McIntosh, waiting in perfect position for Mortensen’s pass, took it, ran on away from Oliver and, as Brown came out to meet him, shot wide of the post of a gaping goal as he fell under a belated tackle.
A minute later Morris spooned the ball tamely over the bar after the new England centre-forward, Jack Lee, had put him in a position for a shot.
I have not seen a Blackpool team so unimpressive, so completely out of contact with its normal as was this Blackpool team during the early part of this match.
IN RETREAT
The forwards could not build a sustained raid. The defence was in retreat, and often a desperate retreat, for minutes on end.
In the 23rd minute, in fact, the County were nearly 2-0. Scott took another pass in another patch of otherwise uninhabited territory, crossed it at full gallop so perfectly that, waiting for it at the far post, Lee headed it in fast.
Across to it Farm leaped, reached it and cleared it as he collided with a post.
Blackpool were still reduced to breakaways, and yet, strangely, in nearly all of them a goal threatened.
In one, Mortensen raced full-tilt after a ball which McIntosh had punted over Oliver’s head, and lost it to Brown as the goalkeeper, all alone, galloped out to meet him and beat him in the race to it yards beyond the penalty area.
BLACKPOOL RAID
Mortensen shot rocks Derby goalkeeper
Matthews, given the right sort of pass at last, built a raid which ended in Mortensen shooting a ball which shook Brown backwards on his line but which the big goalkeeper held as he sprawled beneath the bar.
Otherwise the County’s pressure, even if not as nearly uninterrupted as it had been, or as furious, was still sufficiently sustained almost entirely to outplay Blackpool.
The Blackpool defence was steadying, but there were still few decisive clearances as men were falling and losing the ball in the tackle repeatedly.
It was still only a pale shadow of the Blackpool team I have been watching this season.
GOAL NO. 2
The Blackpool attack was limited to two-men raids.
Mortensen and Perry, in one of them, split the County defence wide open, but lost the ball in the end as Mozley regained possession and took the last pass away from the wing forward.
The second goal which had begun to appear inevitable, came in the 37th minute and followed a corner.
The corner was conceded as Farm fell to a shot which would have passed wide - a shot by Stamps - and beat it out low and inches wide of the post.
As young Scott crossed the centre from the flag - and again placed it perfectly - a swarm of men battled for possession for it almost under the bar.
It skidded in the end to STAMPS, who shot it low, far away from the unsighted Farm, and appeared to hit a Blackpool man, off whose boot it bounced over the line.
HITTING BACK
Mortensen slices ball wide
Stan Mortensen had a chance to reduce the lead within a minute, lashed at a bouncing ball and sliced it wide of a post as he skated to earth.
In another two minutes, too, in a Blackpool raid, this time in crisp, incisive passes, Matthews eluded three men before crossing a centre which Mozley cleared brilliantly.
And a minute after that, McIntosh’s grand pass gave Mortensen an open passage, down which the leader raced before rocketing his shot over the bar, with Brown almost at his mercy.
Those were the sort of chances which a Blackpool forward-line, coming at last into the game, could not afford to miss.
Blackpool, at least, finished the half in the Derby’s territory, but it had been definitely the County’s first 45 minutes.
Half-time: Derby County 2, Blackpool 0.
Second half
It all began again in the second half.
In the first half-minute Hayward had to concede a corner after Garrett’s clearance had hit Lee and bounced away into an open space.
The corner fed nowhere, but it prefaced another series of Derby attacks, in one of which Lee was trapped in the offside snare by a Blackpool defence which still seemed unable to order itself on its customary strong front.
The Blackpool forwards were in the game now and again afterwards, chiefly as the result of Perry’s tireless pursuit of. the ball and, in a lesser degree, through McIntosh.
TWO MORE
Yet, with five minutes only of the half gone the last forlorn chance which had remained to Blackpool was lost There was another great gap in the Blackpool defence as Morris lobbed forward a pass.
JACK STAMPS went after It like a hare, reached it as a Blackpool man tumbled down in front of him, and had Farm alone facing him as he shot a ball which the goalkeeper reached but could not hold as it hit him and spun away from him over the empty line.
That made it 3-0. A minute later it was nearly 4-0 as Morris popped in a shot which hit the base of the far post and came out off it.
The rain began to fall in sheets. Blackpool continued to go back all along the front.
A fourth goal was on the scoresheet in the 12th minute of the half and again it was STAMPS who scored it for his fourth in succession.
McIntosh was penalised for a tackle which appeared to have nothing wrong with it. Mozley took the free-kick, crossed a high ball from 40 yards out.
Up to it Stamps, always in position today, leaped, and headed fast into the far wall of the net.
LONE RAID
Blackpool, at least, refused to call it a day. Matthews raked the County’s goal in one lone raid with a ball which no for ward was in position to head over the open line.
Four minutes after the County had made it 4-0. in fact, Blackpool. reduced the lead.
It was a good goal, too.
Another raid opened on the right. Mudie took a pass and crossed it knee high. MORTENSEN was waiting for it. and hooked it yards away from the falling Brown’s left hand as he fell backwards.
Five minutes later, after the County had retaliated after this sudden and unexpected challenge, Willie McIntosh, who had often been in the wars earlier, began to reel about the field and was taken off.
It looked like a case of delayed concussion.
DEPLETED SIDE
But Blackpool in the game a lot
At full strength Blackpool were m a nearly impossible position. With only 10 men the odds were too high to be calculated.
Yet, strangely, Blackpool were in the game a lot with a depleted team, raided almost constantly for five minutes and yet could not make one shooting position until Perry hit a ball which came back off his fullback.
Still, with 15 minutes left and McIntosh returning to the field, these Blackpool raids continued.
Scarcely a shot came out of them all, and yet to be raiding at all in this state of the game and to be playing football which the line had never earlier equalled, compelled admiration.
This Blackpool team, at least, never seems to know when it is beaten, even if its defeat was inescapable.
The closing minutes were contested almost entirely in the Blackpool penalty area, with the seventh corner of the match being conceded by a hammered defence shortly before the end.
Result:
DERBY COUNTY 4 (Stamps 8, 37, 50 and 57)
BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 61)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
THE score tells the story of the match. Comment is scarcely required.
Up to the last 20 minutes, when the game had been irretrievably lost, Blackpool were scarcely in the match.
Not for months have I seen a Blackpool defence so often raced out of position. Shooting chances were offering themselves nearly all the afternoon to the Derby forwards, and one of them. Jack Stamps, had a field day.
An early inclination by both Blackpool full-backs to leave the flanks open was remedied later, but gaps were still being torn in the defence by the pace of the Derby front line.
The Blackpool forwards admittedly were seldom given a pass by the retreating halfbacks among whom Hayward often retrieved a crisis by sheer desperation and Johnston was defiance itself.
TOO LATE
But not until near the end, when all the damage had been done, was the front line in action, except as a wing in a breakaway.
On one of those wings Perry and McIntosh never called it a day, which could at least be said for the entire team.
And on the other flank Matthews had his sparkling moments, once in possession of the ball.
But again the chances which Mortensen was once accepting were being missed, and the line, in fact, had no marksman in it.
Blackpool were only a shadow of the team they can be and for a long time they have been. Defeat seemed inevitable almost from the kick-off.
The attendance 32,670.
Gift for Mr. McMillan
BEFORE the kick-off in the Derby County-Blackpool match this afternoon Mr. Stuart McMillan, the County's manager, was presented with a silver cigarette case from the players and staff to commemorate 21 years in the club's service.
The presentation was made in the home team's dressing room by Mr. C. Annable, the County's secretary.
ANOTHER team that has not won at Blackpool since the war come to town next weekend, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Last week it was the Villa, who, until a last-minute draw was snatched, had not even scored a goal at Blackpool in postwar football.
Next week it will be Chelsea, who lost three successive after - the - war games at Bloomfield-road before playing a goalless draw there last season.
Records reveal that neither at Blackpool nor Stamford Bridge have Chelsea won a Blackpool match since October 16, 1937, which is as near 13 years as makes no difference.
Present-day records, too, offer little hope for the London team that this sequence will be elided next weekend, for the prospects are that Chelsea will come to Blackpool holding up the rest of the First Division in the bottom-of-the-table position, and, with only one point won in five away games, it is a bleak sort of outlook.
Yet Blackpool so often lose or draw when everybody expects them to win, or win when everybody expects them to lose or draw, which is an old football custom not peculiar to the Blackpool team, that on a day when Stanley Matthews will be playing in Belfast instead of on the Fylde coast, it would obviously be a mistake to make this a star home selection.
Yet nearly all the prophets will make it one. To be frank,
I wish they wouldn’t!
AND THEY USED TO BE “THE STIFFS”!
Reserve team exploits are triumph of a policy
By Clifford Greenwood
It may never happen, but-
WHY did Gordon Kennedy leave Blackpool for Bolton? Not because Blackpool required the money - that is obvious. Not because the player was all that discontented at Blackpool, even if it stood out a mile that his prospects of anything except occasional games in the First Division were remote.
That was obvious, too.
The truth is. I think, writes Clifford Greenwood, that the Blackpool directors by a narrow majority came to the conclusion that it was in Kennedy’s own interests that he should move. And it is not improbable, either, that they were animated by another motive.
Blackpool have obliged the Wanderers at a time when a full-back was required at Burnden Park. The day may yet come when the Wanderers will oblige Blackpool on the subject of a certain centre- forward called Nat Lofthouse.
It’s not too probable, but you never know, and definitely the latest transaction between the clubs has enhanced the good relationships between them.
***
HARRY JOHNSTON'S TURN MUST COME
I HAVE lost count of the number of times I have been asked during the last 10 days “What exactly has Harry Johnston to do to be picked for England?” writes Clifford Greenwood.
I don’t know the answer to that one.
I only know that about the only man in these parts who has not criticised the selectors’ omission of this talented wing-half, who has never played such football as he has produced since returning from Canada, is the wing-half himself, Harry Johnston.
It could be that he is not in the Irish match next weekend because Stanley Matthews was in it and the selectors were reluctant to take two men from the club for a Saturday game, although they have done so in the case of the Wolves.
It could be, too, that one consolation will be his inclusion in the Football League team against the Irish League at Blackpool on Wednesday, October 18.
Sentiment alone would dictate that. But on his own worth he cannot be left out in the wilderness a lot longer.
***
ONE Midlands newspaper has been conducting a census into transfers since the beginning of last season and has established - as far as can ever be established in the absence of official figures - that Blackpool top the list of clubs who have made a profit in the mart.
Excess of income over expenditure on transfers at Blackpool last season was £24,367. Add the price which Bolton Wanderers paid for Gordon Kennedy last week, and Blackpool are now over £30,000 in credit.
Nice work, and a compliment to Manager Joe Smith and his directors.
Yet one knows that they would spend this £30,000 - or something approaching it for one or two scoring forwards - if they could find them.
***
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