28 October 1950 Newcastle United 4 Blackpool 2
Beaten, they might have built winning lead
ROBLEDO ‘HAT TRICK’
Newcastle United 4, Blackpool 2
By “Clifford Greenwood”
THEY were always mad about football in Newcastle.
They’re crazy about it these days now that the United are in the hunt for the First Division championship, entering this Blackpool game as one of the few teams still undefeated at home.
St. James’s Park and all its approaches were massed an hour before the kick-off, and with queues longer than I have seen outside any ground this season there were prospects of a 50,000 attendance.
Hail, snow and sunshine prefaced the match.
Blackpool, who came on to Newcastle from Whitley Bay in the early afternoon, had Stanley Mortensen leading the forwards again on a ground not far from South Shields, where he served his apprenticeship in the game.
Newcastle played the men who won 2-0 at Bolton a week ago, and everywhere in the North-East today were being quoted as odds-on favourites to win again.
MATTHEWS v. McMICHAEL
An interesting feature of the match was the second meeting in three weeks of Stanley Matthews and the Irishman, Alf McMichael, who in the England-Ireland game in Belfast was reputed almost to have played the wing forward out of the match.
Few full - backs have ever achieved that distinction.
I saw a little coterie of Blackpool people in tangerine tarn o’shanters and with tangerine ribbons on their rattles in one of the paddocks fronting the main stand.
Teams:
NEWCASTLE UNITED: Fairbrother; Cowell, McMichael; Harvey, Brennan, Crowe; Walker, Taylor, Mi1burn, Robledo (G.), Mitchell.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, Mortensen, W. J Slater, Perry.
Referee: Mr. T, Seymour
(Wakefield).
THE GAME
First half
The losing of the toss by Blackpool made no particular difference.
Hugh Kelly, fast across to an exposed wing, repelled the United’s first raid, and out on the other wing Shimwell made a big clearance to halt another before a minute had passed.
The football in the opening skirmishes was curiously and utterly undramatic in spite of almost continuous pressure by a Newcastle forward line which threatened a lot as it was building a raid but invariably made a false pass to end it.
The first time the Blackpool forwards crossed the half-way line an open space offered itself to W. J. Slater, and without any hesitation Cowell, racing back into the gap, whipped the bouncing ball away from the amateur for the game’s first comer.
PERRY’S PASS
It was worth nothing, with Perry slicing the kick into the side net, but a couple of minutes later, as another open avenue on to the United’s goal gaped, Perry put a pass into it, and Mortensen, probably unprepared for the unexpected chance, merely stabbed the ball slowly to the waiting Fairbrother.
One waited for even a glimpse of a purple patch, and for eight minutes waited in vain. Then, with the United’s defence again inexplicably open, a Blackpool front line which had been hammering at it almost continuously for a couple of minutes snatched the lead.
The left wing built the goal. Over from this quarter flew a high centre which appeared to have little menace in it until Brennan, leaping at it fell on the wet turf and could only head it short and away to his right.
THE LEAD
Mortensen goal after a Mudie shot
The alert Mudie was on to it in the next split second.
All that happened afterwards seemed to be in slow motion.
Fairbrother fell to the shot, but lost the ball, beat out another shot, but fell again, and was still sprawling as MORTENSEN, darting to the loose ball, hooked it away from him, with the goalkeeper still prostrate and clawing vainly in the mud.
It was nearly all Newcastle afterwards in a retaliation as fast and furious as all the early football had been unexciting and almost placid.
Jackie Milburn. who has scored four goals in the two other games Blackpool have played on this ground since the war, shot past Farm, releasing a bedlam from 40,000 people seconds after a linesman’s flag had been lifted against him for offside.
The goal, of course, was disallowed, and yet three minutes later, in the 14th minute of the half, a goal might still have come.
SKIDDED AWAY
Walker put low a pass across the face of the Blackpool goal so fast that it skidded away from three Blackpool men and across an open space, with no Newcastle forward in position to walk it in.
Two minutes later Blackpool were as near to a goal, Perry crossing a perfect falling centre which Bill Slater missed by the width of the famous cat’s whisker in a great leap at it almost under the bar. There was no championship football in Newcastle’s game in the first 15 minutes of a match which was becoming faster the longer it lasted, with Blackpool’s football revealing everywhere a design and a class which often must have upset a United defence not united at all.
Yet Newcastle raided a lot after the first quarter-hour had gone.
George Robledo once brushed past Johnston and shot a ball which doubled up Farm like a jack-knife as the goalkeeper came out to meet him, clutched the shot to his chest, and fell in a heap as the forward, under his own impetus, somersaulted over him.
A couple of minutes later, too, Harvey glided through the Blackpool defence a ball which Farm, racing out again, snatched away from Robledo with the forward tearing fast on to it.
Another minute, and Milburn sliced into the side net a ball which skidded away from him as he raced to it.
In the next five minutes Blackpool rejected a couple of chances.
MISSED CHANCES
The first was in the 22nd minute. The left wing made it.
Perry raced after a long pass, reached it, took it to the line, waited until Mortensen was in position for it, and crossed a ball which the leader lost as it bounced in front of him, with the goalkeeper alone facing him and four men closing in on him a split second later.
In the 24th minute it was the right wing or, to be exact, one man in it, who made the chance.
This time Matthews took a pass on the half-way line, outpaced both his half-back and full-back who chased him for 40 yards, and in the end crossed an accurate centre.
On to the ball Mortensen darted again, shot it low and fast into the arms of the deserted Fairbrother.
Nor was that all. Immediately before those two raids Mortensen had leaped at a Matthews’ centre and almost brushed the bar in a flying leap in his old manner.
EQUALISER
Milburn scores with brilliant shot
Yet those two chances might have been goals, might have given Blackpool an unassailable lead, and, almost inevitably, I think, the price for missing them had to be paid.
The account was met in the 29th minute in one fast, crisp raid.
Robledo took a forward pass, waited with it until MILBURN was in position, glided it through, and left the centre- forward to whiplash a brilliant shot past Farm - a shot which no goalkeeper on earth could have done anything about.
It was about 50-50 in the Matthews - McMichael duel. The forward was always too fast for the full-back out in the open, but at close quarters the fullback twice in rapid succession took the ball away from the forward.
MISSED THE POST
It was, however, on this wing again that Blackpool’s next chance came. But this time it was Mudie who made it, the little inside-right squaring a neat pass back to Slater, who from the inside-right position shot a ball which barely missed the far post.
That was the last time for a comparatively long time that the Blackpool forwards were within shooting distance of the Newcastle goal.
All the intervening minutes were spent in an almost nonstop assault by the United’s half-backs and forwards on a Blackpool goal which was being brilliantly defended.
Yet, in spite of all these raids - and one of them ended in Hayward lobbing back to Farm a back pass to which the goalkeeper had to leap high - it was in front of the Newcastle goal that another scoring chance offered itself.
CLOSE CALLS
Newcastle defence has more escapes
This time Slater moved a shade late to a pass into another open space, and lost the ball, which rolled out to Mortensen, who lashed it wide of a post, with Fairbrother yards out of position.
Two minutes later, with only three minutes of the half left, this Newcastle goal, which might have fallen half a dozen times during, the half, escaped again.
Another raid cut through the defence in front of it almost at will. Out rolled a loose ball. Mudie was in position for it, shot it back and was, I think, an unfortunate young man to find Cowell falling on his knees on the line in the path of the shot.
UNITED IN FRONT
A minute later the United were in front. It seemed such a simple goal, too.
Out on the left wing Mitchell, an artist on his day, juggled with the ball almost impudently, lofted it over high, and left ROBLEDO to leap at it and head it far outside the reach of Farm’s right hand to a tumult which seemed to shake the skies.
It had been a curious half. Blackpool had often been outplayed and yet could have been leading at half-time by two or three goals so utterly had the Newcastle defence repeatedly lost position under pressure.
The price had been paid for those missed chances.
Half-time: Newcastle United 2, Blackpool 1.
Second half
It was nearly all Blackpool for a time. There was a raid by the Newcastle front line which ended in Walker; from a position suspiciously offside, crossing a fast centre which raked the Blackpool goal, with no forward in position to reach it.
For the rest, the game moved almost continuously on the Newcastle goal, and in the sixth minute of the half it was a goal which might have fallen again.
Everybody expected Matthews to go. on with a forward pass.
Instead, he crossed the ball into an open space far away on the other flank, where Perry, racing on to it, shot it wide of a post, with no Newcastle player within challenging distance of him
WIDE AGAIN
Blackpool still missing goal chances
A minute later, too, the South African outside-left took another pass fast away and shot it far away from a post.
The number of shooting and scoring chances the Newcastle defence had conceded during this one afternoon was astonishing.
The Blackpool forwards still seemed utterly unable to profit by them. The acceptance of even half of them would have had the United goals in arrears with little over half an hour left.
It was still a game of phases, one team commanding every passage for a time and then the other.
When the Newcastle forwards were in it there was always dynamite in their punch.
GREAT TACKLE
Shimwell made one fine headed clearance after the United’s left wing had again torn the Blackpool defence open, and within a minute the brilliant Garrett, unquestionably the best full-back of the match, made a great tackle on Milburn almost in the jaws of goal.
In one Blackpool breakaway Johnston went racing away into the inside-left position far down-field before shooting a ball which cannoned back off a full-back closing a gap in front of the raiding half-back.
Two minutes later, too, Blackpool built in three crisp moves, one of the best attacks of the match, the Matthews - Mudie partnership moving in perfect order before the inside-right took his partner’s second pass and shot a ball which Fairbrother held superbly as he fell to his right-
Yet all the time the tide was beginning to flow almost tempestuously against Blackpool.
George Farm fell bravely at Mil bum’s feet as the Newcastle leader chased a Robledo pass.
Three minutes later came the goal which gave the United a two-goal lead and two minutes afterwards a fourth goal to settle the match.
No. 3 was on the score-sheet in the 21st minute of the half
The Blackpool defence was. I suspect, trapped in its own offside snare.
Three men waited that half- second which ultimately makes all the difference for a linesman’s flag to be lifted out on Newcastle’s right wing, never noticed Shimwell putting the wing on- side far away on the other flank.
It was Milburn, a wandering centre - forward at times today, who was the man on the right.
He cut in fast, eluded Hayward a yard inside the penalty box, and crossed a ball which left ROBLEDO and Mitchell all alone in front of the unprotected Farm.
INTO THE NET
In the end - and it all seemed to happen in slow motion - the inside-left took the chance, stabbed the ball down with one foot, and with the other shot it into the roof of the net.
Two minutes later it happened all over again, and it was 4-1.
Again Milburn crossed the goal centre from the right wing. This time there was complete confusion in Blackpool’s goal area when it fell.
Shimwell darted into one open space, and cleared a ball which was crossing the line.
NEVER CLEARED
“Hat-trick” jig by marksman
But it was a ball which was never completely cleared, and in the midst of the chaos ROBLEDO leaped at the ball as it flew high in front of him, headed it down, and to celebrate his third goal of the match danced a joyous jig as the ball hit one post, cannoned off it, and crawled over the line near the other.
Three minutes from time the Newcastle centre-half HARVEY scored the goal which the Blackpool forwards, in spite of all their fine football in approach, could not score, leaping up to Perry’s corner kick, impeding his own goalkeeper, and heading the ball backwards past him.
Result:
NEWCASTLE UNITED 4 (Mortensen 8, Harvey (og) 87)
BLACKPOOL 2 (Milburn 29, Robledo 44, 66 and 68)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
NOBODY can dispute that Newcastle were entitled to the points in this game
The United’s forwards took the chances which were offered them. The Blackpool front line rejected all that were offered them or that their own good football - and at times it was good - created.
Never have I seen a stranger first half. The United finished it in front, and yet Blackpool might have gone to the dressing room at half-time in possession of an unassailable lead
Only one of many scoring chances was converted into a goal. That was the tragedy of the match for Blackpool. Afterwards the United stormed to victory.
It was a great match for one or two Blackpool men in spite of the defeat. One of them - star of the team was Tom Garrett. Two goals his wing may have lost in the second half, but for the rest, with the aid of fast-tackling Kelly, he almost played the United’s right wing out of the match.
There was comparable resolution in the centre, where Hayward had a game of valiant qualities, but not, in this match, on the right flank.
FINE RIGHT WING
Curiously, it was on this flank that the Blackpool front line had its chief strength.
Alf McMichael again refused to be subdued by either the reputation or at times the brilliant football of Matthews, but the wing forward had a game which should have produced goals, and little Mudie, his partner, was playing all out all the time, a grim and gallant raider even when the cause was lost.
Stan Mortensen missed too many chances in the first half. The old punch is still not there.
THE Blackpool public may learn next weekend if Harry Potts was worth that £20,000. Or, at least, they will find whatever answer to the question one match can give.
For to Bloomfield-road next Saturday come Everton with a forward line which will have the man from Burnley in it - an Everton team as intent on winning a point or two as Harry Potts himself will be on showing Blackpool all that they missed when they closed negotiations for his services.
It will be interesting to see exactly what happens.
That Everton will come to town desperately seeking all that the match can offer a glance at the First Division table reveals.
For the Goodison Park men are still a lot too near for comfort to the foot of the table, and with an away record which has only one win and one draw in it out of seven engagements can enter the match fortified less by hope than faith.
Yet Everton have achieved a couple of triumphs against the odds on the Blackpool ground since the war, the second of the two as recently as last Easter Monday, when, on a day of gale and tempest, they blew Blackpool out of a game in which Blackpool started as odds-on favourites after a defeat of Arsenal two days earlier, and won by a goal.
And three years earlier, on another Easter Monday, Blackpool were overthrown 3-0 in this match, with Jock Dodds scoring two of the three and making the other against his old club.
It was 5-0 and 3-0 for Blackpool in the intervening years, but as Everton had prefaced last year’s little sensation with a 3-0 win at Goodison Park it would seem that this first all-Lancashire game played on a Saturday at Blackpool this season may not be the one-horse race which it should be according to the League table.
BRIGHT RESERVES - BUT THERE’S NO SITTING BACK
One urgent need
By Clifford Greenwood
ONE FOR THE KOP
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 28 OCTOBER 1950
SPION KOP saw one of the greatest goals for years when Jackie Mudie scored in the last two minutes last week end against the Albion, had a close range view of It.
It was, I suppose, writes' Clifford Greenwood, the law of compensation operating, for the Kop this season has watched the Blackpool forwards score in their goal only half the number of goals the line have scored in the other fronting the south stand.
There have been eight goals for the south end and four only for the north.
It is a fact that Blackpool have never .... scored more than one goal in a game in the Kop goal this season.
Yet two of them - the on-time one a week ago and Stanley Mortensen's against Chelsea have each won a game almost on the post.
***
MANAGER JOE SMITH spent an afternoon watching a Lancashire Combination club's inside-right last weekend.
He missed the West Bromwich Albion match. It was,
I suppose, all in a good cause, but the Blackpool manager was not inclined to think-so.
He was not impressed, and when he was told the fee for the player - a fee which in prewar days would have bought a star - he came home immediately.
***
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.
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