21 October 1950 Blackpool 2 West Bromwich Albion 1

MUDIE’S WINNING GOAL WAS A SUPER-THRILL

Late victory for gallant ten

SLATER INJURED

Blackpool 2, West Bromwich Albion 1

By “Clifford Greenwood”

IT WAS THE LAST OF THE ILLUMINATIONS MATCHES AT BLACKPOOL THIS AFTERNOON, WHEN FOR ONLY THE SECOND TIME IN 10 YEARS WEST BROMWICH ALBION CAME TO TOWN.

The attendance was in the region of 30,000 15 minutes before the kick-off, including a couple of thousand people from Birmingham making a Cuptie commotion with rattles.

The Albion, who can apparently afford to leave out such a forward as Irish international Dave Walsh, who scored his 100th League goal last week, fielded Fred Richardson as leader of the forward line.

Blackpool, too, had an understudy in this position, Willie McIntosh making one of his infrequent appearances in the centre, where, as I know, he always prefers to play.

Stanley Mortensen’s pulled thigh muscle is a lot easier, but it was always out of the question that he would be able to appear in this match.

It was a fine, almost windless day, with the chill of autumn in it.

Teams:

BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, McIntosh, W. J. Slater, Perry. 

WEST BROMWICH ALBION Saunders; Rickaby, Millard; Kennedy, Vernon. Barlow; Allen, Williams, Richardson, Betteridge, Lee.

Referee: Mr. E. Plinston (Stockton Heath).

THE GAME

First half

Harry Johnston lost the toss, and Blackpool defended the north goal. It was a goal on to which the Albion forwards often advanced in the first two minutes without ever reaching it.

There was, in fact, no attack at all on the Albion goal until in the third minute Mudie gave Matthews a pass, and the outside- right, racing away from his fullback as if Millard was standing still, crossed a ball too high for McIntosh, high as the little forward leaped at it.

That prefaced a couple of raids on this Blackpool right wing, the second of which ended in Matthews actually cutting inside and shooting a low ball which cannoned out off Vernon’s outstretched right leg.

MUDIE SCORES

It was Matthews and Johnston who indirectly produced a goal for Blackpool in five minutes - and a grand goal it was.

The Albion conceded a throw- in to repel the raid. Johnston took it and, I think, surprised the West Bromwich defence by the length of his throw.

Over sailed the ball. Up to it leapt Slater.

Off the inside-left’s head the ball glanced away to MUDIE who, waiting for it pivoted on one foot and with the left hooked a ball fast away from Saunders, who could never have seen it until it was at rest in the bottom, of the net.

It was one of the best scoring shots a Blackpool forward has produced this season.

AN ESCAPE

Albion leader loses bouncing ball

Within a couple of minutes the goal would have been negatived if young Richardson had not lost a bouncing ball in »front of a nearly open goal. Lee raced on to it and shot it fast against Shimwell’s legs as the full-back crossed his path.

There was a lot to admire in the fast and direct football of the West Bromwich front line afterwards.

There was a lot to admire, too, in the way the Blackpool defence repelled these moves.

Twice Hayward made down-field clearances with three men on top of him. Repeatedly, too, both full-backs closed gaps on their wings by their speed and decision in the tackle.

The Blackpool raids were still almost limited to the Johnston- Mudie-Matthews triangle. Yet, for all that, it was grand football almost everywhere.

MUDIE’S PASSES

Jackie Mudie’s passes on the inside of his full-back constantly put his partner away, once gave Matthews an open passage into which the outside-right raced at remarkable speed before crossing a low ball which hit a full-back standing sentinel in front of two Blackpool forwards.

Twice in a minute afterwards Kelly shot wide after a free-kick had been repelled, and McIntosh hooked Perry’s centre barely wide of a post.

It was at this time almost all Blackpool. Mr. Plinston saw one tackle on Matthews by Millard which might have been punished by a penalty, but refused one.

FREE-KICKS

Albion in retreat everywhere

A minute later he spoke to the full-back after a similar incident yards away from the area, this time gave a free-kick - a free-kick which was followed by too many others as the Albion, retreating everywhere and repeatedly deceived by the cunning of the superb Matthews, began a little too often to employ the reckless sliding tackle.

It was one Blackpool raid after another with the first half-hour gone, and not all the raids were on the right.

Two on the left won corners before Slater leapt to a high centre from the other wing, headed wide of the far post, and immediately collapsed for the second time in the match, presumably stunned in a collision.

This time. too. he was taken off the field, with two ambulance men racing on to offer assistance to the Blackpool trainer.

TEN MEN

That left Blackpool with 10 men with exactly 31 minutes gone. But for a time it made little difference to the game’s course.

Jack Vernon, in fact, unashamedly gave a corner while Slater was still prostrate on a ground sheet and apparently still semiconscious.

Farm made a grand clearance - the first time he had been in action for nearly 10 minutes - as Slater began to walk gingerly up and down the line.

He was still pacing up and down it when Blackpool nearly increased the lead with 35 minutes gone.

Matthews and McIntosh made the position. Johnston went after the squared pass from the wing as fast as an inside forward, lost the ball, but watched it roll out loose to his left.

THERE AGAIN

Mudie forces Saunders to diving save

There Mudie was in position again, this time to shoot another low fast ball to which Saunders had to fall full length to claw it away wide of a post.

Immediately afterwards Slater went forlornly out on to the left wing, but in less than half a minute had been persuaded by his trainer to go to the dressing room.

There were frequent raids by the Albion afterwards against Blackpool’s ten men, and in one of them Garrett made a great close-range clearance as Williams was racing in fast on to a bouncing ball.

Not unexpectedly, in fact, the Albion had nearly all the half’s closing minutes without putting Farm to any particular test, so closely was he protected by his defence.

GARRETT CLEARS

In the last two minutes of the half Hayward sliced the ball away for one of the Albion’s few comers.

The corner might have produced something material if Garrett had not headed away almost on his knees near a post. Then Allen crossed a high centre which the nonstop Barlow - a great player this Albion wing half - missed in a mighty leap.

Yet, in spite of this late Albion storm, it was Blackpool who almost increased the lead with only half a minute left. McIntosh, allowed to race away from a position which appeared offside, hooking wide, with Saunders out of position.

It had been a grand, nonstop half.

Half-time: Blackpool 1, 

West Bromwich Albion 0.

Second half

Blackpool still had only 10 men when the second half opened.

The first raid was, however, built by the depleted team, Mudie releasing another of those low square passes with which he had been supplying Matthews all the afternoon and the wingman crossing a centre which Saunders was able to clear at his leisure, with no Blackpool forward near him.

Blackpool were still not out played.

Millard conceded another free-kick perilously close to the penalty area in another Blackpool advance, and for a time Blackpool’s four forwards were almost all the time in action.

BRUSHED THE BAR

The Albion obviously meant business and now and again threatened danger, but no attack led anywhere until Richardson made position for himself brilliantly out on the right wing and crossed a centre which almost brushed a bar before Lee, racing in on it, hit it into the side net.

There were early signs, however, that Blackpool’s reduced force were destined to a rearguard action before the afternoon ended.

The Blackpool forwards were being reduced to one-man and two-men spurts, with no inside man there to link the line.

OFFSIDE TRAP

Albion attack often caught

And yet for a time nothing important happened, with the Albion front line constantly galloping into the offside trap.

Yet I saw Kelly, Hayward and Garrett make clearances with a Back of forwards racing in on them.

Then Williams found himself in possession of a loose hall in a shooting position and shot it so fast that Farm could only beat it out and lurch forward to retrieve it in a desperate dive.

McIntosh escaped once in pursuit of a long clearance by Shimwell, made position, and crossed inside a pass which Perry could not master and eventually lost with the goal gaping wide open.

TOOK THE COUNT

Otherwise it was a nearly uninterrupted assault on the Blackpool goal, interrupted once, however, by another free-kick for a hit-or-miss tackle of Matthews which ended in Johnston taking the count from the Albion goalkeeper’s fist as he leaped to the ball close to the near post.

Blackpool were still holding out and the Albion were still conceding too many free-kicks with nearly 25 minutes of the half gone.

Yet with exactly 20 minutes left the Albion made it 1-1. It was a goal which, I think, should not have been scored.

There had been another Albion raid which had been half repulsed. The ball ran loose 20 yards out

RONNIE ALLEN, the former Port Vale wing forward, was wandering loose, too, in the inside-left position, ran on to the ball shot it fast, and watched it sail over Farm’s hands as the goalkeeper, outside his goal, leaped at it but could not reach it.

That released a series of raids by the depleted Blackpool. One won a corner, and in another Perry shot wide at great pace, with McIntosh calling in vain for a pass.

Another produced another free-kick within measurable distance of the West Bromwich penalty area. It was a gallant bid by a 10-men team, and yet always it seemed doomed to failure.

Two minutes left, and there was a sensation which had the ground in a hullaballoo.

A loose ball was punted down the - centre. JACKIE MUDIE reached it a few yards beyond the centre circle, beat the unprepared Vernon to it, swerved away from him, took the ball away.

SHEER DRAMA

The rest was sheer drama. On went the little forward, three men pursuing him.

On and on he raced, reached the penalty area, waited for Saunders to come out to him, swerved away from another last-minute tackle, and shot the ball low over the empty line as he fell, with a couple of men on top of him.

Half the Blackpool team tore down the field to mob Mudie, and the Kop, in a raging excitement, cheered continuously until the final whistle at last silenced them.

Result:

BLACKPOOL 2 (Mudie 5, 88)

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 1 (Allen 70)

COMMENTS ON THE GAME

NOT for years has there been such a dramatic finish at Blackpool.

That justice was served by the result cannot be disputed, but a draw seemed so inevitable before Jackie Mudie scored his late goal that thousands of people had left the ground and missed it and will, I suppose, be regretting it all the weekend.

Blackpool, I think, would never have been in peril of losing even one point if W. J. Slater had not been lost to the forward line shortly before half-time.

In the first half the Blackpool right wing triangle appeared to be able to win the match all on its own against an Albion defence which could never hold it and was often making heavy weather of it out oh the other wing

After the interval the absence of a forward who could hold the line together was revealed.

BREAKAWAY RAIDS

The attack was reduced to mere guerrilla raids, with McIntosh often leading these forays but always outnumbered and invariably finding himself pitted against men inches too tall for him.

It was in this half that the defence, by holding the Albion to one goal, gave this depleted forward line the chance to snatch its sensational victory.

Compliments, then, first to the defence and in particular to Harry Johnston, who played tirelessly on and on among the halfbacks and full-backs and sometimes even up with the forwards.

Kelly, too, was seldom beaten in the tackle - how good he is in it - and the full-backs and Hayward closed nearly every gap as soon as it opened.

This was a magnificent achievement by Blackpool, one probably less by football than by refusal to surrender, but deserving of compliments all the same.

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NEXT WEEK: The Newcastle cupboard is usually bare

UP to Newcastle go Blackpool next weekend - to Newcastle which since the war has been as bare of points for Blackpool teams as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was bare of bones for the dog.

There have been, I know, writes Clifford Greenwood, only two postwar matches between the clubs at St. James’s Park, but the United have won both of them, and won, too, with a conviction which could scarcely be questioned.

Last season, on the football year’s closing day. it was 3-0 for the United. A year earlier it was 3-1.

In those two matches Jackie Milburn, who is still considered by a lot of competent judges as the best centre-forward in England - and can you think of a better one? - scored four goals.

There is a man who obviously wants watching. But the United front-line is not composed of one marksman and four others. They all have goals in them, have scored 16 times in six home games this season, which may not be sensational but has been sufficient to retain an undefeated home record.

It stands out a mile therefore, that it will be a big test for Blackpool next weekend against a team challenging for the championship and inspired by football’s most fervent crowd, 50,000 or 60,000 of them every time.

Blackpool have won only one point - In a 0-0 draw at Bloomfield-road last season - in Newcastle matches since the war. It will be a mighty exploit if in present circumstances this sequence is interrupted next Saturday.

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QUEST STILL ON

Blackpool cheque may cross the border

By Clifford Greenwood

THERE’S NOWT (AS SOMEBODY ONCE SAID) AS QUEER AS FOLK.

For months, even for years, the Blackpool football public have been asking, “When are they going to buy some new forwards?” It began as a whisper. It became a thunderous demand.

I was told that the club had the money, which was true. I was told that everywhere there were the men to sign, the forwards who could solve all Blackpool’s’ frontline problems, which, strictly, was not true at all.

Then last week a bid was made for Harry Potts, the Burnley forward.

Blackpool’s delegation of Chairman Harry Evans and Manager Joe Smith, who resolutely refused to enter an auction sale for this accomplished inside-forward, were told within half an hour of reaching Turf Moor that £20,000 was the lowest price Burnley would accept.

Offer—and after

So, probably against their own sense of football values, even in these inflationary days, they made the offer, which was immediately accepted.

What were the reactions in Blackpool, the town which for years had been telling the Blackpool directorate, “Buy - and forget the price ”?

Before Harry Potts and his wife came to town and were shown a house on the club’s property list which they said was too small, I was being informed from every quarter that it was madness for Blackpool to offer such a fee for a player in his late 20’s.

Down to earth

WHEN, a couple of days later, the Blackpool directors decided that in all the circumstances they were not prepared to continue the negotiations, the entire community, almost without an exception, rose up and pronounced the name of the Blackpool directorate as blessed. Or very nearly.

“They’ve shown good sense,” was told. And there is no question at all that the Blackpool board conformed to public opinion without being influenced by it, when they decided to inform Turf Moor last Saturday afternoon that their negotiations in this particular transfer were at an end.

All of which indicates that all those people who said Blackpool should go into the transfer market regardless of the current high prices came back abruptly to reality when the money was about to be spent.

Everton different

WHO’S blaming them?

I am not.

And in this column for a long, long time I have been writing that it would be lunatic for the Blackpool board to begin a sort of madcap rake’s progress, flinging shekels about everywhere, merely because at last there was the £ s d in the till to spend.

Was Harry Potts worth £20,000?

Frankly, and acknowledging the player’s unquestioned talents, he was not. Not at least, with Blackpool possessing a team still in the top half of the table.

In the case of Everton the circumstances were different, for the Goodison Park team were nearly on the rocks last season, have shown a few signs of drifting towards them again, and cannot these days count the price.

Harry Potts may arrest the decline there. I hope he can. If ho does he will have been worth twice £20,000.

Cannot wait

So where do we go from here?

The public still say that forwards. or, at least one forward, should be signed. But, at least, if last weekend’s events have served no other purpose, they have convinced most folk that no sensible club enters the transfer market these days as if it has taken a ticket for a dip into a brantub content with whatever comes out.

There is still such a lot to be said for the team-building policy which Blackpool have pursued since the war which, after all, has given Blackpool football a status in the game it has never had before.

The pity is that Blackpool cannot afford to wait - and the people who pay at the turnstiles are with good reason too impatient to wait - for all these recruits to reach full maturity.

No. 1 priority?

FOR whatever else it has produced - and it has produced plenty - this policy has not yet given the club those scoring forwards which have been required for so long, and, in particular, it has not given the big strong centre-forward who may yet be recognised as Blackpool’s No. 1 priority.

Whether an approach was made to Aston Villa for Trevor Ford I do not know. But whether it was or not it must always have been destined to failure, with the Welshman insistent that he wanted to play for a club within reasonable distance of his home in Swansea.

Ford is the type Blackpool want, but to go seeking this particular player is to go crying for the moon to fall out of the skies.

Looking North

VET the quest is on, I am assured as it has been on for months, and there are signs that on the other side of the Scottish border there may be developments sooner than a lot of folk expect.

The player - as if you didn’t know! - is Alan Brown, of East Fife, who, since the end of the summer, refusing to re-sign for the Scottish club, has been working in a foundry, but has continued to train, with the directors’ consent, on the East Fife ground.

The Players’ Union, I hear, are interceding in the case, to challenge the legality of East Fife’s action in refusing to put the player on the transfer list.

Present prospects are that the case will never go to court, that offers will be invited, and that Blackpool will be among the first to make a bid - and it will be no token bid, either.

Blackpool’s position at time last season was:

P   W   D   L   F   A  PTS

14  5    6    3  17 10   16

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"Sign, please," said young Pompey

BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 21 OCTOBER 1950

AUTOGRAPH hunting in Portsmouth is not a craze, writes Clifford Greenwood. It is a light industry.

From the minute the Blackpool team arrived in the South Coast town until the minute, 24 hours later, when they boarded the train back to London they were hounded everywhere by the little boys - and the little girls, too - with autograph books.

Not even Manager Joe Smith escaped.

A porter at the Southsea hotel had been assigned exclusively to the mission of driving the brigade out of the entrance and down the steps.

But always they were waiting, as late as 10 o’clock on Friday night, as early as eight o’clock on Saturday morning.

They trailed the players up on to the top decks of buses, out to a music-hall, down the Southsea Promenade, and clustered thick as swarming bees outside Fratton Park.

Stanley Mortensen estimated that he signed 60 books in rapid succession before he could take a walk on Saturday morning.

Last view of Portsmouth was of a young character who could have been cast for “The Mudlark” racing by the side of the train as his book was handed back to him through the open window.

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FRATERNAL PARK

THEY are nice folk at Fratton Park. It was not merely because Portsmouth had won that they were so polite and courteous to their Blackpool visitors after last weekend’s match.

They were just as polite and just as courteous when Blackpool won there a year ago and took point after point away in previous years way back to 1938.

Manager Bob Jackson, who lives in the south but is still proud of his north - country origin - his mother has her home at Cleveleys -said when it was all over last week “Blackpool played the better football for a long time. Nobody knows what would have happened if Stan Mortensen hadn’t been hurt.”

And Mr. Jimmy Stewart, former Blackpool FC trainer, who is now OC of the Fratton Park training staff, gave a shrewd assessment of the game, uncoloured by prejudice.

On good terms these two clubs. Why, Reg Flewin, the Portsmouth captain, spent a quarter of an hour in the Blackpool dressingroom before the match, talking about the Canadian tour with Stanley Matthews and Harry Johnston.

***

BLACKPOOL are still good box office.

The attendance of 47,829 at Fratton Park a week ago bordered on a League record for the ground, was only 3,556 below the record for all matches created by Derby County in a Cuptie last year.

“There are few better or more attractive teams in the country today than Blackpool recorded the Portsmouth programme, and, to the writer’s eternal credit, recorded also that it was not only “The Two Stanleys’' that made the team good and attractive.

***

Lucky for Bolton

I MET Gordon Kennedy in Blackpool the other day. He is still living in the town, has not yet gone to the house which Bolton Wanderers have promised him.

He is as content at Burnden Park as the Wanderers have been content with the signing of him.

He had not, when I wrote these notes, been in a losing team for Bolton since he left Blackpool. Of the five games in which he had played, three had been won and two drawn - and this by a team that was being criticised everywhere in Bolton a few weeks ago.

This full-back was wise, I think, to seek fresh quarters. While he was at Blackpool his prospects of qualifying for First Division football were remote.

It was, I know, chiefly in his own interests that Blackpool agreed to transfer him. The transfer cheque, even if it approached £8,000, was a mere incidental.

***

I WAS glad that at a dinner which the Blackpool FC gave to football’s chief legislators before the Irish League match in the town this week one or two of the game’s rulers acknowledged the services which the backroom squad had given at Bloomfield-road in preparation for the match.

People who have never been behind the scenes in big football have no conception of the overtime which has to be worked, the tact which has to be exercised in the circulation of tickets, the dozens of unexpected problems which have to be solved at short notice, when a big representative match is allotted to a town.

***

PARTICULARLY when the match is to be played on a ground whose accommodation is as limited as is the living space at Bloomfield-road, and when, as one illustration, 60 Pressmen from all four home countries write for tickets for a Press box built for only 40.

Yet it was done, and it was done so effectively that Mr. Richard Seed, the club’s hon. secretary, Mr. Stanley Rowland, the assistant secretary, Mr. John Cobb, and the entire staff down to the groundsmen deserve all the compliments which were given them

With such a staff and with a ground a little less resembling a postage stamp, Blackpool would be able to take these major representative games in its stride every season. One of these days they may often be given, to Blackpool

***

JACK CROSS, the Bournemouth centre-forward who could not be persuaded to remain in Blackpool, where he graduated in wartime football, is in the news.

Several clubs have noticed that during recent times, after a few weeks on the casualty list, he has been playing for the Southern club’s reserve team.

One or two of them have asked Bournemouth “What about it?” I think Bournemouth’s answer will be “Nothing doing”

And it will be given with the player’s approval. For Jack Cross who has already taken one degree in his -scholastic career, is studying these days for another, and at the present time all his interests, both personal and professional are in Bournemouth.

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Any cross words?

PROFESSIONAL footballers used to play cards by the hour when they were travelling by coach or train.

Habits change. These days half the Blackpool team, inspired, I suspect, by amateur international W. J. Slater, pass away the long hours with crossword puzzles. Some are fast at it, some not so fast, but it is not often that a puzzle is left incomplete.

A movement to introduce contract bridge a year or two ago seems to have died the death.

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£9,500 Bill - but they've never grumbled

A HAPPY man today will be Bill Lewis, a full-back who lives for his football.

He has never been out of the Norwich City defence since he left Blackpool last season, and now the City are in the Southern Section promotion hunt, played a vital draw at Millwall a week ago.

The ex-London amateur, who came to Blackpool late in the war after being discharged from the Army, was reluctant to terminate his Blackpool career, but the prospect of first team football again was a lure which he could not resist.

If ever there was a footballer who gave everything to a club which he could give it was Bill Lewis at Blackpool. Now Norwich have a player as faithful and as earnest, and, according to all reports, a good full-back into the bargain.

Lewis was cheap even at the £9,500 which the City paid Blackpool for him.

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"WHAT have some teams to do to please the public? Portsmouth won the Cup the last time it was played before the war, and have twice in successive years won the League championship, and are, in fact, the present holders of the title.

Yet, when I was down on the south coast last week, I was told that at a recent meeting in the town a resolution of no confidence in the Portsmouth directors had been passed.

It makes no sort of sense at all.

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