16 December 1950 Blackpool 0 Tottenham Hotspur 1
That late punch just too much for reshuffled Blackpool
HAYWARD HURT
Blackpool 0, Tottenham Hotspur 1
By “Clifford Greenwood”
THE ONE-TIME CENTRAL LEAGUE FULL BACK A PARTNERSHIP OF TOMMY GARRETT AND JACKIE WRIGHT WENT INTO BUSINESS AGAIN IN A FIRST DIVISION MATCH THIS AFTERNOON, WHEN THE SPURS CAME TO TOWN FOR THE FIRST TIME FOR 14 YEARS.
Eddie Shimwell had been under treatment all week for a pulled muscle, and shortly after noon today Manager Joe Smith decided that it was unwise for the ex-Sheffield back to play on a frozen ground which had a dusting of crumbling snow and sand on it.
So back to the first team after a two-month absence came Jackie Wright in a Blackpool team that faced 10 of the men from White Hart-lane who played a draw with Sheffield Wednesday a week ago, plus the young reserve, Colin Brittan, understudy to Ronnie Burgess the Welsh international wing-half.
It was not so cold as it has been this week, but the attendance, in spite of the box office attraction of last season’s high-scoring Second Division champions, had not reached 20,000 10 minutes before the kick-off.
The mascots were out again in force, among them a few hundred from London and with them the famous cockerel mascot which I last saw at the Cup semifinal at Villa Park nearly three years ago.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm, Garrett, Wright; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, Mortensen, Withers, Perry.
'SPURS: Ditchburn; Ramsey; Willis; Brittan, Clark, Nicholson; Walters, Bennett, Duquemin, Baily, Medley.
Referee: Mr. T. W. Rand (Easington Colliery).
First half
At the kickabout, with men falling down in front of the south goal even before they went into action, it was obvious that both teams were fated to play on a surface as treacherous as an ice rink for the character who goes on it without skates.
Losing the toss, Harry Johnston committed his defence to this half of the field.
In it the Spurs soon built a raid, and before it ended Alf Ramsey had strolled far up from the full-back lines to shoot a free kick a long way wide of a post.
Young Perry duplicated the act with a shot as wide of the Spurs goal in Blackpool’s first raid into territory which appeared almost normal by comparison with the Arctic “No man’s land” in front of the Blackpool goal.
The players - those defending this goal and those attacking it - could not stand in this waste.
And everywhere else in the opening minutes the ball was being chased by a couple of packs who fell backwards or skated forward out of all control as soon as they reached it.
GREAT CLEARANCE
Jackie Wright made one great sliding clearance - and sliding was the word - after once losing this elusive ball, but for minutes afterwards there was little semblance of order in the football - and in such circumstances it could not have been expected.
As football, in fact, it was very nice Alpineering, but nothing else until the understudy, Colin Brittan, came racing up into an unmarked position, and from 30 yards shot a rising ball which Farm fielded magnificently under the bar.
Yet when Matthews came into the game, introduced into it by Withers’ long crossfield pass, the Spurs’ goal was so menaced that without any apology Clark punted the ball so far away that it hit the eastern boundary wall and almost disappeared from view.
SANDED MANTRAP
Even Matthews was handicapped
Even Stanley Matthews, however, could do little except tread warily on this sanded mantrap.
He was given another pass on the wing-to-wing plan, this time by Bill Perry, but could do nothing with it except half-hit it into a massed Spurs defence.
Eddie Baily, the England inside-left, in another ’Spurs raid, shot from long range a ball which almost rocked Farm off his feet as he parried it.
Medley headed Brittan’s free-kick wide of a post in another attack by the London team, but it was seldom that a raid came to anything resembling a definite conclusion.
Most of them began nowhere in particular and ended there, too, until Johnston and Mudie, with two fine passes, built position for Matthews to cross a perfect centre which Ditchburn punched out in a big leap over a pack of men.
MATTHEWS’ DASH
That was the best raid the first 16 minutes produced. There was not another comparable with it until Matthews escaped his fullback and raced nearly 50 yards on one of the few patches of visible grass and compelled the Spurs to concede a profitless corner.
This Blackpool right wing could not be kept out of the report. It attacked again, and won another corner after Mortensen had given Matthews the sort of pass that wing forwards see in dreams but seldom on a football field.
The Spurs were not being outplayed, won a couple of corners, too, but the few planned advances were still being built by Blackpool, who were using fewer passes and making the greater progress with them - such a pass as one which Withers swept all down his wing for Perry to chase and ultimately to lose to Alf Ramsey.
IN THE NET
But ’Spurs goal is disallowed
Yet it was still the Spurs who were shooting at whatever range a shot was reasonable - and even unreasonable. Duquemin almost grazed the bar with another long one before, in the 25th minute, there was at last a sudden spurt of drama.
The Spurs made a tentative sort of advance. Up went a linesman’s flag. On went “Sonny” Walters to lift the ball gently over Farm’s head and over the empty line.
The referee appeared to give a goal, and the ’Spurs definitely began to celebrate. Then the linesman’s flag, still lifted, called Mr. Rand's attention to the earlier offside signal, and a goal was disallowed without protest.
The football afterwards was as good as could be expected, but seldom anything except experimental.
Tom Garrett was magnificent in the Blackpool defence - one of the few men who seemed able to stand where nearly everybody else was falling down.
SPURS RAID
For a time, too, he was required to reveal every quality he possessed, and so, too, was every other man in the defence with the Spurs building such a succession of raids that often full-back Ramsey was in them.
Harry Johnston made one almost audacious clearance from Baily, with the inside-left chasing an unexpected back-pass.
In front of the other goal, too, Nicholson was almost as adventurous when with his goalkeeper out, he chose to stab back towards an open goal a ball which a full-back cleared as it bounced towards him.
For minutes, after Hayward had been hurt in a collision, Blackpool had been playing in a peculiar formation which had the centre-half at inside-right, Johnston at centre-half, and Mudie at right-half.
NEARLY A GOAL
The injured Hayward goes close
Yet it was in that formation that Blackpool nearly took the lead with only five minutes of the half left, and it was the centre-half playing at inside-right who nearly scored it, Hayward being fast to move on to a forward pass and half-hit it off course wide of a post which net even the long-legged Ditchburn could have protected.
Two minutes later Stan Mortensen won for himself a cheer as he chased a random pass out on to the left wing, lured three men into moving the wrong way, and shot barely over the bar a ball whose pace appeared to have beaten Ditchburn.
FARM'S SAVE
A minute later, too, they were cheering Farm, and cheering him deservedly.
Walters cut in on to a loose ball, took his time, shot it away from Farm, and in undisguised amazement watched the goalkeeper leap at it as it rose over his head and held it as he tumbled half backwards off balance.
That was the last major incident of a half which had been as good as could reasonably have been expected.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Tottenham Hotspur 0.
Second half
Eric Hayward reappeared in the unfamiliar position of centre-forward.
Blackpool raided immediately and forced a free-kick on a Spurs’ defence which obviously inside the first two minutes thought nothing at all of the treacherous tract on which it found itself.
It was not long before the Spurs were over the halfway line and obviously intent on remaining there.
Yet as soon as Mortensen released a perfect pass to his partner, Matthews stampeded the Spurs defence into the concession of a corner.
And before this corner had been cleared the wing forward had raked the London team’s goal again with a centre at which Hayward hurled himself, headed barely over the bar, and laid himself out again in the process.
NEAR DOWNFALL
Within two minutes the ’Spurs’ goal was near downfall, and would, in fact, on a normal surface probably have fallen. Again Stanley Mortensen was the man to make the chance.
This time he pulled half the ’Spurs defence away with him before crossing a centre into a wide open space. Into the space Perry raced, skidded on to the bouncing ball with the goal at his mercy, and stabbed it slowly wide of a post. Afterwards, Blackpool were all out in one of those familiar-on-to-the-south-goal assaults, won two corners in less than two minutes, and for a time had the ’Spurs’ defence massed and desperate.
FROM 20 YARDS
Mudie shot was punched over the bar
Again, too, after a couple of brief forays by the Spurs which won a corner in a game which was positively littered with them, Mudie nearly gave Blackpool the lead, probably without intending to, punting from 20 yards a ball which Ditchburn was glad to punch over the bar. By that time an hour had gone without a goal, and, to be frank, prospects of goals were still a little remote.
Yet in the 17th minute of the half the Spurs were as near a goal as either team had been, and, in fact, were a shade unfortunate not to score.
A big gap opened for the first time on Blackpool’s right flank of defence.
CANNONED OUT
Duquemin raced into it, brushed past Johnston, and shot a ball which appeared to hit Farm and cannon out to Medley, who half-hit it slowly back into the waiting arms of the Blackpool goalkeeper.
That was the only major incident for a long time, with neither forward line able to build a raid with a threat of a goal in it.
Twice in rapid succession Johnston, at centre-half, was in the wars and had the trainer out to him.
In between these mishaps first one team and then the other established a command of the game in midfield but nowhere else.
'SPURS AHEAD
Medley built a goal for Duquemin
One had the impression that the ’Spurs were beginning to pack the greater punch, with Blackpool’s shuffled forward line unable to build anything resembling a concerted raid for minutes.
It was, in fact, at the end of almost continuous ’Spurs pressure that the London team went in front 15 minutes from time.
It was a left-wing forward, Les Medley, who built the goal out on the right wing.
What exactly happened could not be seen from the Press box, but in the end, after a long duel between the wing forward and Jackie Wright for possession of the ball, a centre was crossed.
Down to it fell DUQUEMIN, and almost on his knees glided with his head away from Farm a ball which was bouncing over the line before the goalkeeper could make a move to it.
That goal had been threatening for a long time.
HITTING BACK
But once it had been scored Blackpool began a little belatedly to raid again and raided, in fact, almost continuously until in one fast Spurs swoop Duquemin ran on to a perfect pass and shot a ball to which Farm fell and held magnificently almost at full length.
It was great football - great except for a regrettable ruthlessness in defence which the Spurs revealed once the lead had been snatched.
Duquemin would have made it 2-0 if Kelly had not taken the ball away from him brilliantly with the keeper in front of Blackpool’s goal again, and there was increasing menace in every Spurs raid.
But those raids were becoming fewer, with Blackpool in the last 10 minutes staking everything on a furious assault for the saving of a point.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 0,
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 (Duquemin 75)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
ANYBODY who criticised the quality of the football in this match obviously knew nothing about football. For football it was almost impossible to play.
The reshuffling of the Blackpool formation, superbly as Johnston played as a centre-half, was probably sufficient to give the ’Spurs the match.
Admittedly, in the last 20 minutes, the London team’s forwards began to play at last something of the game which has made their name, but there was so little in it that a draw, I think, would have been a fairer result.
Of the few men who conquered circumstances and an ice-rink surface, Tom Garrett was at times out on his own, for this was a day on which such an artist as Stanley Matthews was reduced to the common level, and, pardonably, it was not a high level.
I made Stanley Mortensen the best Blackpool forward because his passes were invariably intelligent but a line which had centre-half in it for two-thirds of the afternoon and finished with Withers limping at outside-left could not be expected seriously to challenge a defence as strong and at times as ruthless as the ’Spurs.
The truth is that nobody could expect anything except what he saw, and that was sometimes a football match in name only.
It was Blackpool’s first home defeat since August 21, and the first time a home point had been lost since September 23.
THERE is something in the London air which seems to suit Blackpool, writes Clifford Greenwood.
In three games in the capital this season an undefeated record has been preserved. It was 4-1 against the Spurs at White Hart-lane, 2-2 at Fulham a few weeks later, 4-4 at Highbury - as if I had to tell you, that! - last weekend.
Now there is a fourth game there - at Charlton next Saturday - a Cuptie dress rehearsal - against an Athletic, who played a 0-0 draw at Blackpool at the end of August but are now drifting on the rocks again.
They have been losing too many goals - this team which is in the Valley in every sense of the term at the present time. There were seven at Middlesbrough last week, and the total for the season had reached 51 before today’s games.
As 17 had been lost at home and as three visiting teams have won there and another four drawn, it appears to be no forlorn quest for Blackpool next weekend.
And, frankly, as the team have played in London this season and so often in the past, it should not be.
This Charlton match was won 2-1 last season, and the record book reveals that of the four games played there” since the war Blackpool have lost only one - and as that was the match which immediately prefaced the Cup final of 1948, with the visitors playing at Charlton but thinking only of Wembley, it could scarcely be taken seriously.
Sam Bartram has been out of the Athletic’s goal during the last week or two, but is back again today, and all sorts of desperate remedies have been applied for the desperate ills which have afflicted a Charlton defence, which has lost 15 goals in its last four games.
But, obviously, if Blackpool can score four times at Highbury, there should be no limit to the number of times they could score at the Valley.
Football doesn’t work out that way - but Blackpool should still come home next weekend with something for the Christmas stocking and something to give encouragement for the Cuptie in the New Year.
’SPURS SHARPEN-UP BY THE SEASIDE
GOALS ARE COMING NOW - AND
GOALS ARE GOING
It’s box-office football
By Clifford Greenwood
NO Pressman is permitted either in the boardroom or near the dressing rooms at Highbury on a match day. Yet few clubs have such a closer relationship with the Press.
That was illustrated by a notice on the board last weekend in the room reserved for the newspaper writers.
It was written by Leslie Compton and signed by the Arsenal centre-half and one of his fullbacks and Lionel Smith. Addressed to “The Gentlemen of the Press,” it said “Thank you” for the good wishes which had been expressed by newspaper men to the two of them after their recent selection for England.
That was courteous, and it was, too, warranted after all the London Press had done in advocating their inclusion in the England team.
***
IT was not as a few papers have written - the first time that Blackpool had made a draw at Highbury when the points were divided in the 4-4 game a week ago.
Blackpool played a 1-1 game there in the first postwar season of 1946-47, when Stan Mortensen scored for Blackpool and Ronnie Rooke for Arsenal.
But when did an Arsenal defence last lose four goals in a game at Highbury? It would be news if anybody knew that. But nobody in these parts appears to know.
According to one London quarter I contacted, it was about the time that King John signed the Magna Carta.
All I can ascertain from the record books is that it was the first time in First Division football since the war and the first time in a Highbury game since the Villa won 4-2 in a regional game in 1945-46
***
Vienna is calling
SAID an Austrian journalist in the Highbury Pressbox during the Blackpool game last weekend: “But this - it is colossal. I have never seen anything like it anywhere.
Said one of the Austrian bigwigs after the match in the sanctity of the Highbury board-room: “We must see Blackpool in Vienna now!”
And a few minutes later he was inviting Chairman Harry Evans and Manager Joe Smith to send their team on a close-season tour of his country during the summer
It’s no business of mine, but I hope that the board decline the invitation. Too much football is being played already without playing it out of hours.
***
Leave a Comment