2 December 1950 Blackpool 3 Sheffield Wednesday 2
Matthews inspires second half victory rally
LATE WINNER
Blackpool 3, Sheffield Wednesday 2
By “Clifford Greenwood”
LITTLE Walter Rickett, whose game at Wembley in 1948 remains one of the great exploits in Blackpool's postwar football, came back to Blackpool this afternoon for the first match which a Sheffield Wednesday team had played on the ground since the first instalment of the 1943 war Cup final.
The Wednesday, who are finding points elusive in the First Division, entered the game desperately seeking a couple to lift the Hillsborough club out of the relegation “No man’s land,” playing a team which had a Welsh international on one flank of the half-back line and an Eire international on the other.
Hugh McJarrow, who was listed on the programme at inside-right, played at centre-forward.
Blackpool fielded again the forward line with three 26-year-old colts in it, Alan Withers retaining the inside-left position after W. J. Slater, the amateur international, had pronounced himself unfit.
There were a few hundred people from over the Yorkshire border, a dozen mascots in blue and white competing with the pantomime horse act by the Atomic Boys which was banned at Stoke.
IN THE SUNSHINE
On an afternoon of sunshine and calm after the week’s rain and gales, the attendance, even at two o’clock, had passed 20,000, which at this time of the year and so early in the afternoon, was above the Blackpool average.
Teams.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, Mortensen, Withers, Perry.
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: McIntosh; Bannister, Curtis; Gannon, Turton, Witcomb; Rickett, Henry, McJarrow, Froggatt, Woodhead.
Referee: Mr. C. Fletcher (Davenham).
THE GAME
First half
They played today with one of the almost white and laceless balls.
Blackpool lost the toss and Wednesday raided on the north-to-south route which has produced 75 per cent of Blackpool’s goals this season.
It was raiding, too, fast and open. An offside decision against Henry as the little Wednesday forward was cutting in on an open wing halted the Yorkshire team’s first advance, but others followed it.
Not until Matthews, in one of those down-the-line sprints which make it seem incredible that this Peter Pan of footballers has been so long in the game, was Blackpool’s front division in action at all.
Then in rapid succession one attack after another hammered on a Wednesday defence not too assured under any of them.
WITHERS SHOOTS
The tall right-back, Bannister, made one superb but almost impudent clearance with two Blackpool forwards on him, but there was no threat of a goal until the seventh minute.
Then the alert Withers took a pass from Kelly, and from an almost impossible position nearly on the line hooked a ball so fast that it was brushing the bar as McIntosh leaped late at it.
A few too many unguarded positions were being left open by the Blackpool defence in this fast early football.
Shimwell redeemed one of these tactical errors by racing back fast to head away a centre from a wing forward who was too often passing him in Wednesday’s direct, aggressive football.
A minute before, Mortensen had catapulted into the lower ranks of the Kop, hurling himself at a flying centre, and a minute later, in another Blackpool raid, another soaring ball missed a couple of Blackpool forwards and the far post by inches.
DIRECT RAIDS
Rickett shoots barely wide
It was about 50-50 in the first 15 minutes.
Blackpool were a little inclined to play the down-the-centre pass to excess, but there was class in the front line’s football, just as there was a direct purpose in every raid Wednesday built.
One of these direct-for-goal swoops ended in Rickett racing on to a pass in another unmarked position and shooting barely wide of a post.
On a turf which was rapidly churning into mud the football had not only pace in it but design, too.
Glamorous it may not have been, but it was good to watch, and Wednesday, in spite of such a humble position in the table, were still not being outplayed, even if the left flank of the Yorkshire club's defence was under the famous Stanley Matthews hypnotism every time the England forward was given a pass.
NEARLY A GOAL
From one of the succession of centres from this quarter, in fact, a goal nearly came in the 21st minute as Matthews beat three men, lured the goalkeeper out and crossed in front of an open goal a ball which glanced off Mortensen’s head wide of a post.
The tide was rising and flowing fast against Wednesday with 25 minutes gone.
Pass after pass was still escaping Mortensen, skidding away from him in the mud or else being taken off him by a centre-half, Cyril Turton, always that fraction too fast in the tackle for the Blackpool leader.
It was Jackie Mudie who almost gave the lead to Blackpool in the 27th minute. The Wednesday conceded a corner under a pressure which for a time was almost continuous.
HIT THE POST
Mudie goes near with a header
The ball flew over from the right-wing flag. The little inside-right seemed to fall on both knees to it, and was almost in an attitude of prayer as he headed it fast on to the base of a post, with McIntosh impeded by his own men and a mere spectator.
That was an escape for Wednesday who might have got into arrears again three minutes later if Withers, given a pass into a shooting position by Kelly, had decided not to shoot but to make another of those interminable passes to the shadowed Mortensen which were negativing half Blackpool’s advances.
Attack after attack was made on the Wednesday goal afterwards, and yet in one breakaway by the Sheffield forwards Mudie had to race back 50 yards to repel an attack on his own.
OVER THE BAR
In another raid Rickett crossed to the unmarked McJarrow a ball which the centre-forward hit over the bar.
Wednesday still bore no particular resemblance to a team with relegation fears.
In the 35th minute, in fact, Blackpool nearly lost a goal as Kelly crossed a square pass to an unprepared goalkeeper and left Hayward to make a desperate clearance anywhere, with the empty goal gaping behind him.
Within the next two minutes, with Wednesday’s front line still in action and all the time looking as if it meant serious business, an indirect free-kick was won in the penalty area, but it led nowhere.
SHEFFIELD LEAD
Brilliant goal by Froggatt
Yet within two minutes, in the 38th of the half, Wednesday, with as fine a goal as has been seen on this ground for a long time, took a lead which was not undeserved.
One man built it and scored it. The man was REDFERN FROGGATT, son of a famous father, whose father would have been proud to see the son score such a goal as this.
The tall inside-left took the ball away from a Blackpool man as the half-back was falling, raced on to two men in front of him, swerved away from them both, outpaced a third, and with Farm alone in front of him shot a little masterpiece of a goal.
BIG LEAP
Within a minute it was nearly 1-1.
Johnston, racing into a forward position, shot a ball of such pace that McIntosh had to make a cat's leap at it to reach it. And within another minute it was nearly 2-0, with Rickett taking a pass as it reached him and shooting a ball which Farm punched out brilliantly for a corner.
Another two minutes, and with the football of an almost Cup-tie pace and intensity, Mortensen swerved on to a ball, pivoted on one foot, and with the other hit a shot which the leaping McIntosh appeared to punch on to the bar in an acrobatic sideways leap at it.
A goal seemed near every minute as the interval approached.
OPEN SPACES
Wednesday wingers given too much room
There would have been another for Wednesday if Farm had not dived to reach a ball headed away from him by Henry, with the little forward left unchallenged by Rickett’s model centre from another of those open spaces in which Wednesday’s wing forwards were too often being allowed to play.
The lowly but not at all humble Wednesday were still making a great match of it, and still leading at half-time.
It was, nevertheless, a lead almost lost in the last half-minute of the half as Mortensen, leaning high to Garrett’s free-kick, headed backwards a ball which sailed out inches wide of a post.
Half-time: Blackpool 0, Sheffield Wednesday 1.
Second half
The opening of the half was sensational. A couple of Wednesday raids were repelled. Then, with less than a minute gone, Mortensen went after another of those passes which he was being invited to chase here, there and everywhere.
A full-back halted him with so little concern for the proprieties, and Mr. Fletcher gave a free-kick on the penalty area line.
Matthews crossed it, Johnston leaped at it, and headed it against the bar. Diving at it as it cannoned down, MORTENSEN headed his eighth goal of the season from almost under the bar.
Almost incredible drama followed.
QUICK REPLY
McJarrow answers a Mortensen goal
Twice inside the next minute a bouncing ball was cleared off an empty Blackpool goal-line, the second time after Henry had made a post shake.
In the next minute this goal, apparently predestined to fall, had, in fact, fallen.
There was a raid on the left, a fast low centre which Farm could only brush out, and McJARROW, in a position where goals are seldom missed, headed the ball over the empty line.
So soon had a Blackpool defence, all at sixes and sevens during those critical 60 seconds, lost again a position which the front line had retrieved.
JOHNSTON SHOOTS
Afterwards in rapid succession there was a shot by Johnston which a shooting forward would not have disowned and a Mortensen free-kick a long way off the beam.
And following those raids there was another corkscrew advance by Matthews which ended in a centre raking a goal under whose bar the tall, vigilant Turton cleared coolly with his full-back out of position.
Wednesday’s forwards were not in the game as they had been, but every time they were in it there was a potential and sometimes an actual menace to the Blackpool goal, so swiftly were passes exchanged, so often were those passes finding men in open spaces.
Repeatedly, as had been happening all the afternoon, Stanley Matthews was, as they say, serving them up on a plate to the inside forwards.
EQUALISER
Matthews makes goal for Johnston
All three of them missed one ball which skated away in front of an open goal before this master of wing forwards made a goal to put the score at 2-2.
A corner was half-repelled. Back sailed the ball to Matthews, who took almost a casual view of the position before crossing it back again.
JOHNSTON leaped up to it and headed into the roof of the net a ball whose remarkable pace left McIntosh standing.
That was in the 15th minute of the half. In the 17th minute Blackpool were nearly in front, with the entire south stand cheering a goal a second too soon as Mudie, escaping on his own, lured McIntosh out of his goal, and shot a ball which, it is likely, hit the goalkeeper as he fell and glanced away off him wide of a post.
Wednesday afterwards were almost completely outplayed and utterly outwitted by the brilliance—there is no other word for it—of Matthews, who was passing his man and two or three other men reinforcing the full-back every time the ball reached him.
AMONG THE FORWARDS
Still a goal would not come, and still had not come with only 15 minutes left, with Johnston in one raid and even Shimwell in another racing up among the raiding Blackpool forwards.
It was Shimwell, in fact, who forced McIntosh to his knees with a free-kick which had been prefaced by a few too many others and was followed also by a few too many.
From one of them Blackpool nearly took the lead 13 minutes from time with a duplicate of the second goal, and a minute later Matthews almost won the game on his own by disdaining the expected centre, cutting in instead, and shooting a ball which McIntosh was glad to reach in a big leap under the bar.
AHEAD AT LAST
Withers goal with 10 minutes to go
Yet the goal came with 10 minutes left as it had seemed almost ordained to come. This time it was the left wing that built it.
Perry raced 30 yards down this wing at amazing speed, passed his full-back, and, almost on the line, crossed a perfect centre.
Up to meet it beyond the far post Mortensen leaped, headed it back again to where WITHERS, instinctively in position this time, forced it over the line to a cheer which thundered to the skies.
The game ended in a drama. Five minutes from time Withers had a goal disallowed, and in the last minute of all Farm made a superb diving save from Woodhead and McIntosh in the other goal fell sideways to beat out Mortensen’s scoring shot.
Result:
BLACKPOOL 3 (Mortensen 46, Johnston 60, Withers 80)
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 2 (Froggatt 38, McJarrow 48).
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
IS there ever a game in which that great forward Stanley Matthews does not qualify for big billing?
This was definitely one of his star games. No one man won this match after Blackpool had twice been in arrears, but the elusive Pimpernel from the Potteries made two of the three goals, and all the afternoon toyed with a defence which could make nothing of him whatever.
Except for the winning goal, which had the left wing’s signature all over it, the Blackpool front line was inevitably stronger again on the right, but the entire line in the second half, with Mortensen always hunting for chances and aggressive all the time, made a great match of it during those last 45 dramatic minutes.
This, too, on a day when the defence was not until the last half-hour as resolute or as sound in its positional game as I have seen it.
GAPS CLOSED
The Wednesday’s wing-forwards, one of them Walter Rickett, who had a great first half, were given far too much freedom for a long time; in fact, it was not until after half-time that the open spaces almost everywhere else were closed.
You can call this Stanley Matthews’ match, and yet only a team with its heart in the right place could have won it against a Wednesday team who for half the afternoon were threatening to win it.
In the end, this Yorkshire team lost it completely.
WATCH all those experts who tell the rest of the community how to win a fortune on the pools but seem singularly unable to win one for themselves.
To a man they will give Blackpool to lose next weekend. And, to be frank, I don’t see how they could do anything else.
For Blackpool go to Highbury, which is no health resort for any other team except the Arsenal, where no visiting team have won this season, and where no Blackpool team have ever won in the First Division.
Obviously, facing a defence which has conceded only eight home goals this season, with 38-year-old Leslie Compton towering in its centre, and as close-packed as Arsenal defences always seem to be, the lot of the Blackpool forwards would scarcely appear to be enviable.
The Blackpool defence, too, will presumably have no half-day holiday against an Arsenal front line which has scored 32 goals, an average of over three a game, in home matches this season, and in whose ranks Douglas Lishman has scored seven times in his last two matches in front of the Highbury thousands.
Yet Blackpool have always played such good football at Highbury since the war, have suffered no greater defeat than 2-0, and have once played a draw, that an inevitable loss of both points is definitely not on the cards.
It will be a case of a team undefeated at home – and a team leading the First Division, too – meeting a team that has lost its last five away games.
On form there could be only one result. But as football has a disconcerting habit of not running true to form, a Blackpool defeat is not as certain as all that.
BLACKPOOL’S NO. 1 PRIORITY IS NEW FORWARD
One who can shoot goals
By Clifford Greenwood
ON January 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson, the ex-Sheffield Wednesday forward, scored a hat-trick for Sunderland at Blackpool.
There was not another hat-trick against Blackpool’s defence in the First Division for three-and-a-half years. Now three have been put on the books within a couple of months this season.
George Robledo had three in a row at Newcastle.
Jack Stamps had four goals for the County at Derby on September 30. Now the lean, long-legged Alec McCrae, leading marksman in the First Division with 17 goals, rejected by Charlton Athletic two years ago, had three in succession for Middlesbrough last weekend.
A fade-out by the Blackpool defence? I do not think so. As these two forwards played in those two matches no defence on earth could have held them.
***
FOR the first time since the war there is a new name at the top of Blackpool's scoring list at the beginning of December.
Jackie Mudie, the 20-year-old Scot, leads the Blackpool marksmen with eight goals, with the man who was never before away from the No. 1 position in post-war football, Stanley Mortensen, second with seven.
No forward at Blackpool has scored during the corresponding period as 5 ft. 6 in. Mudie has been scoring during the last year. It was not until October 15 last year that he had his first game in Blackpool’s Central League team. Since then he has shot 22 goals for the Reserve and nine in the First Division – a total of 31 which leaves the rest of the Blackpool forwards trailing nowhere.
And yet he is still the modest, unassuming youth who played his first game only 13½ months ago outside the Lancashire Combination’s second division.
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NEVER DONE BEFORE ?
WAS Alan Withers’ three-goal exploit for Blackpool last weekend a First Division record? Has any other player ever scored a "hat-trick” in the first half of his baptismal game in the First Division?
I can find no equal to the achievement and definitely it has never been accomplished at Blackpool.
The nearest approach was the three goals scored in his first half-hour as a First Division centre-forward by Phil Watson against the Villa in a 6-2 match on March 18, 1933.
But that was not the Scot’s first game in top-class football, but merely his first game as a centre-forward. It was nearly his last, too, for he was never able to do it, or anything resembling it, again.
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