9 September 1950 Blackpool 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

POINT FROM WOLVES IN FURIOUS GAME

Blackpool hadn’t the punch to win

DEFENCES ON TOP

Blackpool 1, Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

By “Clifford Greenwood”

AS W. J. Slater had played six matches in three weeks, which represents a test of endurance for a young amateur, Manager Joe Smith gave him a rest today as soon as Stanley Mortensen had completed a test shortly before noon and at the end of it said, “I can play.”

Mortensen was drafted into the vacancy at inside-left where he appeared for only the third time in postwar football - the two other games were as long ago as November, 1948 - enabling George McKnight, “hat trick” hero of the Fulham match, to lead the front line again.

The Wolves, who scored as many goals in one afternoon a week ago - seven against Bolton - as the Blackpool forwards have scored all season, could not play Jimmy Mullen, the wing forward who shot the winning goal in the corresponding match last season.

Dennis Wilshaw, one of those men who can play anywhere in a forward line, came in as his understudy.

It was a summer’s day at last for football, with the sun so hot that after the recent rains and winds it was almost a heat wave.

PACKED GROUND

It packed the ground, but a visit by the Wolves for a promised repetition of last season’s famous “Dunkirk” Cup-tie would have done that even if the heavens had opened.

“Battle of Britain” celebrations, including a PT display by the Fylde Farm School ATC and a concert by the RAF (Weeton) Band, prefaced the match.

There was little sign of movement near the terrace entrances when the teams took the field, and the attendance was estimated at nearly 32,000.

A few minutes before the kickoff there were reports that hundreds of people were stampeding from one closed gate to another.

It was confirmed as the game opened that all the gates had been locked.

Teams:

BLACKPOOL.—Farm; Shimwell, Wright (J.); Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, McKnight, Mortensen, Perry.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS.—Williams; McLean, Shorthouse; Crook, Chatham, Wright; Hancocks Dunn. Swin- bourne, Pye, Wilshaw.

Referee: Mr. H. T. Wright (Macclesfield).

THE GAME

First half

England wing half Billy Wright, whose Wanderers played in white, won the toss.

The Blackpool defence was put in a north goal into which the unfamiliar sun was glaring, the goal which was defended in the desperate 10-men retreat last February.

The Wanderers’ first raid was repulsed, and twice afterwards Shimwell made cool clearances after taking the ball away from Wilshaw before Williams in the Wolverhampton goal came into the game at all.

Then it was one of his own men who put him into it, the goalkeeper leaping almost to the height of the bar to reach a ball punted back to him by centre- half Chatham.

WOLVES RAID

It was fast but uneventful football in the opening minutes until Kelly put a pass wrong.

The Wanderers then built a raid on the left, and Hayward, after once losing the ball, passed back fast to his goalkeeper before falling and afterwards nursing a knee in a collision with Swinbourne.

There was one brief raid afterwards by Blackpool before the Wanderers snatched the lead with the sort of goal in which this Wolverhampton team has been specialising for years.

In the Blackpool raid there was a crossfield wing-to-wing advance before Williams fielded at the angle of bar and post a high, falling centre from the right.

Almost directly, the Wanderers broke away. For the first time Wilshaw, out on the left wing, found himself in a position where no full-back watched him, cut inside, and crossed a centre.

SWINBOURNE THERE

Shoots fast and low past Farm

It seemed that the ball’s bounce deceived two Blackpool men.......

Whatever happened, SWINBOURNE brushed past the two of them, reached a shooting position, and almost took his time before shooting from it fast and low away from Farm’s right hand.

Within a minute, Blackpool were within inches of being level. A full-back who had twice been passed by Matthews took the line of least resistance against this elusive raider and gave a corner.

The ball came over perfectly from the England forward. Up to it jumped Jackie Mudie, the smallest man in the pack of men waiting for it, reached it, and headed it down so fast that Williams, leaping to his left, only reached it with his fingertips and glanced it away from the post for another corner.

NEARLY 2-0

Afterwards for a time it was nearly all the Wanderers again, and in another brisk raid Swinbourne might have made it 2-0 if he had not taken a divot instead of the ball in another shooting position.

The Wanderers’ front line had a greater decision and fewer passes, but with the end of the first quarterhour Blackpool were raiding for a time almost constantly without reaching shooting distance of the Wolves’ closepacked goal.

The alert Swinboume, who has the height and build of a centre- forward, headed wide of a post after Johnny Hancocks had taken his partner’s perfect pass and raced away from Jackie Wright for the first time. j

PYE SHOOTS

In the next minute, too, Pye shot at a great pace away from the other post.

These Wolves worked to direct action all the time.

Yet their goal was near downfall in the 20th minute as Matthews, far away from home on the left wing, exchanged passes with Mortensen.

The raid ended in the inside- left crossing a high centre in front of the Wanderers’ goal, and McKnight headed it back perfectly for Mortensen, in a great leap at the flying ball, almost to brush the whitewash off the bar.

Back came Blackpool immediately, fighting like terriers for the ball, and using it with such precision in passes that one raid on the right had the left wing of the Wolverhampton defence scattered and outwitted.

THUNDERBOLT

A great Perry drive cannons back

Yet it was on the other wing that the goal nearly came, Perry unloosing a thunderbolt of a shot which appeared to hit one man before cannoning back to Mortensen, who from a nearly impossible position hooked it barely over the bar.

Backwards and forwards the match surged afterwards. One shot by Swinbourne hit Johnston, and rebounded off this tireless half-back for a corner.

Other Wolverhampton raids followed, but nearly all were inconclusive.

With 25 minutes gone, in fact, it was Blackpool who were raiding nonstop for a time and revealing football which had lost nearly all its earlier indecision.

FURIOUS SORTIE

Kelly shot wide of a post at long range, and in one furious goalmouth sortie which one of Johnston’s long throw-ins had created a fast, desperate tackle by McLean alone took the ball away from Mudie as the little Scot was darting on to it in a scoring position near a post.

Yet, to be frank, it was the Wanderers’ front line that packed the big punch near goal.

Wilshaw once cut inside on an open wing and crossed a ball which Dunn shot over a pack of men, and Farm had to make a great acrobatic punched clearance as it was falling over him beneath the bar.

EQUALISER

Goal follows foul on Matthews

Yet when in the 33rd minute Blackpool made it 1-1 the goal was deserved and justice served.

There was a tackle on Matthews which so incensed the west paddock that a babel of jeers and protests against the full-back was still raging as the limping Matthews took the free-kick.

It was a pinpoint precision free-kick, just too far for Williams to reach it and just high enough for JOHNSTON to take it in mid-air and head it, as he fell backwards, far away from the goalkeeper’s clutching bands.

The Wanderers nearly went in front in the next minute as Hancocks lashed in one of his famous “specials” which was shooting wide of the far post as Pye tobogganed at it and missed it by inches almost under the bar.

“MORTY’S” HEADER

Yet it was Blackpool who were dictating the match almost everywhere as the interval approached.

Stanley Mortensen was near to a goal which would have been the goal of a season if it had counted, going up like a rocketing pheasant to Kelly’s crossfield free-kick and heading it wide of the far post, with the entire Wolverhampton defence standing still and watching him amazed by his speed.

Once the Blackpool goal - and once only m the last five minutes of the half - was in grave peril, but after Hayward had headed a ball the wrong way the vigilant Wright eventually headed it back, too, but this time into his waiting goalkeeper’s hands.

It had been a great, fast half. Blackpool had made a great comeback after an uncertain opening 15 minutes.

Half-time: Blackpool 1, Wolves 1

SECOND HALF

In the first minute of the second half Mudie sliced a centre on to the net roof from Matthews’ pass.

Afterwards the traffic was on the Blackpool goal almost continuously for a time without ever reaching it. but it was Blackpool who first seriously menaced a goal in this half.

Then Matthews, who was being treated with less concern for the proprieties than I have seen this season, won a free-kick to another tumult of protest, and in the end watched it thrown away as Kelly put it to the wrong man.

Yet in the fifth minute of the half Blackpool nearly went in front again after an uncommon duel between Perry and Williams out on the edge of the penalty area, which ended in the goalkeeper clutching at the ball outside his area.

BY INCHES

This time the freekick was perfectly placed, and as it crossed a packed goal Mudie missed it by inches almost under the bar until it skidded out to McKnight, who lost it as it bounced high up at him.

In one Wolverhampton raid Johnston forfeited a free-kick almost on the goal line, which Farm fielded magnificently, but in the 10th minute of the half the Wolverhampton goal was near surrender again.

Therj was a raid down the centre. Williams appeared to lose the ball in the sun’s glare, had it brushed out of his hands by a raiding forward ,and was still sprawling yards away from his goal as McKnight shot in low a ball which Chatham cleared on the line of the empty goal.

FIRE AND FURY

Neither side long in command

There was still a lot of fire in it, and now and again a spurt of fury with neither team ever long in complete possession of the match.

The Wolverhampton defence could not master Harry Johnston’s long throw-in today.

From another McLean headed over the line in desperation for a corner which was immediately followed by another.

From the second Mortensen, in a flying dive, headed wide those few inches which make all the difference.

Within a minute, Wilshaw was allowed to cut in, with the Blackpool defence Waiting for the off- side whistle, and crossed a ball which was lost in a thick mass of men before Farm appealed to beat it out for a corner, which was also followed by another

FOUR CORNERS

That made four corners - two to each team - in a couple of minutes and was illustrative of the sort of game it had become and, in fact, nearly always had been—about 50-50.

Twenty minutes of the half had gone, and I noticed Mortensen and McKnight repeatedly interchanging positions.

It was no less noticeable at this time, with 25 minutes left, that the Wanderers were going back and back into a massed retreat, with the forwards only escaping in occasional spurts.

FINE CLEARANCE

Not that the Wanderers were out of the game.

Jackie Wright had to make one fine clearance away from Hancocks as the wing forward was racing into one of those positions where he often scores.

And in another raid Johnston had to cross the face of his goal at a desperate pace to halt Pye as the inside-forward was darting in to a squared pass.

I had written too soon that the Wolves were retreating. Everywhere it was Blackpool who were reeling back as the game entered its last quarter hour.

BACK PASSES

Twice Wright made shrewd back passes to his goalkeeper, but, for the rest, the Blackpool forwards, for a time, almost faded out.

With 10 minutes left, Blackpool were battling not to win two points, but to make certain of one.

Now and again the forwards escaped, but Mortensen, back at centre-forward again, seemed to be the only man packing the punch demanded to break down Wolverhampton’s relentless defence.

In the last minute Farm punched over the bar a long- range shot by Crook which was sailing .under it as the goalkeeper reached it with a great leap,

Result:

BLACKPOOL 1 (Johnston  33)

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 1 (Swinbourne 6).

COMMENTS ON THE GAME

THERE was no repetition today of the Wolverhampton avalanche against Bolton, or the Blackpool landslide against Fulham. Both defences, firm, fast into the tackle, ensured that.

Neither forward line, admittedly, was ever completely mastered. In approach these front - line divisions -  the Wanderers with fast, long passes and Blackpool playing to a less open but not unattractive game - revealed flashes of class.

But in front of goal there was always the last split-second tackle to halt a raider, always the man fast into the open space.

Jackie Wright had a great game against the fabled Johnny Hancocks, and Johnston was constantly closing a gap whenever a bouncing ball deceived his defence

That happened often and was, in fact, the cause of the Wanderers goal.

TIRELESS “MORTY”

Again one had the impression that if Blackpool were to score the goals which win games it was Stanley Mortensen who would have to score them.

He had a tireless, almost gallant match, played in three positions, and was the man threatening to stampede the Wolves heavyweight defence ir all of them.

Matthews had a distinguished first half, but was no longer the complete master when his fullback began to play the ball instead of the man.

I am still convinced, too, that one of these days Perry is going to score goals. He was moving into the positions where they are scored constantly this afternoon.

In a sentence, it was the defences who stole this match.

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NEXT WEEK: It’s Fulham again—and then to Roker

IT is next week the end of A the two - matches - in - a week serial for Blackpool. And Blackpool, and all the other teams, will not complain about that.

To Craven Cottage go Blackpool on Wednesday evening to play on a ground where only twice since the war has a team in the tangerine been engaged.

The first time was the Cup quarter-final of 1948. which was won 2-0 and opened the door to the historic Spurs semi-final. That day Harry Freeman, the Fulham fullback, was taken ill on the field, was out of the match from the early minutes and Blackpool beat 10 men.

Last season it was Blackpool who had the skeleton force on view, entering the match with the remnants of a team that had been left after the tumultuous Wolverhampton Cuptie three days earlier.

It was 1-0 for Fulham, and yet, as I recall it, Blackpool Reserve -for Blackpool were little else that afternoon in London - had the chances to win and sbnply could not take them.

From London on Thursday morning the team will go north to Whitley Bay, will remain there until the morning of the Sunderland match at Roker Park, where in the last two years draws have been played 1-1 last season. 2-2 a year earlier.

Well, as Fulham a week ago won 1-0 at Sunderland two days before losing 4-0 at Blackpool, it should be a star away selection next weekend.

It should be, but I have a suspicion that, in spite of a defence which for a season or two has been a little vulnerable, those Sunderland forwards are not going to be subdued so much longer.

I expect a big test for the Blackpool defence. ' But the Blackpool forwards should find no Rock of Gibraltar facing them in the Sunderland half-hack and full-back lines.

There could be a few goals In this game.

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GOALS! TWO IN THE NEWS SHOW IT CAN BE DONE

By Clifford Greenwood

MEN OF THE WEEK IN BLACKPOOL FOOTBALL ARE A CENTRE-FORWARD WHO PREFERS TO PLAY AS A WING-HALF AND AN INSIDE FORWARD WHO SEEMS DESTINED TO BECOME A CENTRE-FORWARD.

No. 1 is GEORGE McKNIGHT, the Irishman who came from Belfast in 1946 to wear the mantle of the departed Jock Dodds but found the garment fitted him nowhere in particular and was converted into a wing-half of distinction.

No. 2 is R. U (“BOB”) STEPHENSON - “Bob” when he is not called “Len” - whose name, except for its resemblance to the novelist's who wrote “ Treasure Island,” had made no particular impression on the Blackpool football public until last weekend.

Talk of the town

Both ran full-tilt into the headlines within A COUPLE OF DAYS.

R. L. Stephenson was introduced into the Central League championship team a week ago. He was played out of position. It was his first match in the Central League.

By the time I arrived home from Manchester the town was talking about him.

I. was soon being told wherever went that a new star had been born, and it is a fact, I hear on good authority, that if he had not been hurt in this Central League baptism the selectors on Monday would seriously have considered his inclusion in the First Division team for the Fulham match.

It would have been premature, and Manager Joe Smith realised it. But, with the first two men for the centre-forward position unfit, Bob Stephenson had at least - and all in one match - qualified as second reserve for the position.

Too early yet

BUT First Division football is no football yet for a recruit as unaccustomed to the big game as he is. And Blackpool, I think, have sufficient sense to realise it, just as from all accounts, this player himself has, too.

If he is only half as good as 1 am assured he promises to be, he may yet be one of the answers to Blackpool’s forward problem For a problem there may still be, in spite of George McKnight’s sensational “hat trick,’’ as George McKnight himself - no conceited player this - would be the first to admit.

His achievement on Monday evening when he scored three goals at a faster rate than any Blackpool forward has ever scored them in First or Second Division football should not and must not, be played down.

McKnight's feat

IT made a story, a good story - the fielding at short notice of a forward who had become a wing-half, who has often said he wanted to remain a wing-half, and who, before the beginning of this week, had not led a forward line in first-class football since Blackpool were at Wolverhampton on January 17, 1948, two and a half years ago.

That such a player should score three goals in three and threequarter minutes was an exploit which qualifies for all the record books and will probably be quoted when this Irishman has long since finished playing football.

In less than four minutes he assured himself of whatever immortality there is in a game in which even the greatest triumphs are often only seven-day wonders.

No guarantee

But three goals in less than four minutes, whoever scores them and however they are scored - and in this case they were an example of brilliant opportunism - must not be accepted as a guarantee that the Blackpool forward line will now at last score goals by the dozen,

No, as I see it, the Blackpool-Fulham match will be viewed in its correct perspective if it is seen as a game which revealed that one marksman, one forward swift to take a chance, can cross the ‘t’s” and dot the “i’s” of all the admirable football which the front line and the wing halfbacks have been playing in approach since this season opened.

Out beyond the penalty area Blackpool’s football was of no higher quality against Fulham than it had been in all the earlier matches I had watched this season. Some of it was not of as high quality.

Perry’s part

THE inclusion of Bill Perry gave admittedly the line a decision which it had not possessed in those earlier' games, and while bouquets are being thrown about, one should assuredly be presented to the South African for his display in this match.

But it was in front of goal that there was the big difference, the conversion of chances which before had been neglected. And because it took a wing-half who was once a forward to convert them the name of George McKnight must go up in lights and remain there now for a long time.

He showed that it could be done and how it was done. Just as in a lesser degree, Bob Stephenson gave the same lesson in his Central League debut.

It is for that reason that these two are the men of the week in Blackpool football.

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SPORTS SNAPSHOTS

BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 9 SEPTEMBER 1950

THEY SHOULD BE FOND OF MANCHESTER

WHEN Blackpool lost at Old Trafford a week ago it was the first time a Blackpool team had been defeated in Manchester since February 21, 1948, when the City won 1-0 at Maine-road, Since that day, writes Clifford Greenwood, Blackpool had played five successive games against the City and the United at Maine-road and Old Trafford, winning three times and drawing twice.

Not everybody loves Manchester, but Blackpool, at least, ought to have a little affection for the city where, strangely, in spite of Manchester’s reputation, it never rains when they go there.

***

THE quality of a game is often revealed by the number of throws-in during it.

As a match the Blackpool- Manchester United game was scarcely a classic. Both teams showed a few traces of the endurance test which these early weeks of a season soon become. A high wind, too, was all against good football.

But again it was left to one of George Sheard’s census charts to confirm the general impression that it was no great match, for throws-in alone the ball was out of play no fewer than 53 times during the afternoon. Add nine free-kicks for offside and another 16 for a variety of infringements - and there could not have been a lot of time left for football.

Again, by the way, Blackpool won on comers - five against two - but not in goals. There are no : points for corners.

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FINAL WHISTLE-10 p.m.

Is football by floodlight coming?

One or two of the Manchester United players who were in floodlit games during their US tour this summer were talking on the subject at Old Trafford last weekend, recalling that in one game the final whistle was not blown until 10 p.m., which is an unaccustomed hour for the call of “Time, gentlemen, please” - at least in football.

Manager Matt Busby and Johnny Carey are both almost converted to the project, are convinced that it could be adopted with success in this country, although neither has any particular reason to think that it ever will be.

Training by floodlight is different proposition, it is to be introduced at Blackpool within the next few weeks, chiefly for the benefit of the club’s young amateurs and part-time professionals who cannot train during the day.

The installation which will illuminate the cinder track bordering the pitch is now almost complete.

***

A FAMILY to Watch - the Bensons at Warton.

Billy Benson, the Warton United centre - forward, who scored 45 goals last season, had two in the United’s 5-2 defeat of Victorians in the opening match of the season in the Fylde League last weekend. Brother Ronnie at outside-right scored another two.

This was the first time the Victorians had lost a league match at Warton, and they made a great battle of this one after losing three goals in the first 20 minutes.

Playing for Warton this season are Eddie Medcalf, the ex- Lytham wing-forward who had a few months at Blackpool last season, and Frank Thacker, who was on Blackpool’s prewar staff.

***

GEORGE McKNIGHT’S three goals for Blackpool on Monday night ended an unusual defensive distinction of which Fulham were proud.

They were the only side in the entire Football League never to have had an individual “hat trick’’ scored against them throughout the postwar period.

The last to do it against them was Magnus McPhee - for Coventry City so long ago as December, 1937.

***

IN TWO YEARS - 

MANCHESTER United had six men and Blackpool five of the 1948 Cup Final teams in the match at Old Trafford last weekend.

The United survivors were Johnny Carey, Johnny Aston, Allenby Chilton, Harry Cockburn, Jack Rowley and Stanley Pearson. Left of Blackpool’s Wembley XI were Eddie Shimwell, Harry Johnston, Eric Hayward, Hugh Kelly, and one forward, Stan. Matthews.

And all this has happened in two years.

***

His turn will come

YOUNG Alan Withers went to Old Trafford last weekend as Blackpool’s 12th man.

It means nothing, I know, in particular these days being 12th.man, except that he takes the bonus for a win or a draw - if there is any.

And I don’t suppose that Blackpool have serious intentions yet of promoting to first-class football this former boys’ club international from Nottingham.

But after watching him in action twice last week I think it is only a distinction deferred, writes Clifford Greenwood. If ever there was a young forward of infinite promise it is Alan Withers.

***

FRANK SAID IT TOO!

MET Frank Swift at Old Trafford the other day. It’s always good to shake him by his big hand.

Often last season I met him in Press boxes up and down the north country, writes Clifford Greenwood. Always his commentaries on the games he watched were as impartial as they were expert.

He admired a lot of Blackpool’s football in the Old Trafford match. “But,” he said, “the line wants punch.”

As if we didn’t know!

What does this ex-England goalkeeper think of the man who played with him in a score of internationals.

“Stanley Matthews - well, there’s only one,” he says. And he adds, “What a player he stiff is!”

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