30 December 1950 Blackpool v Manchester United

BLACKPOOL’S BIGGEST FOOTBALL BLACKOUT

60 men win race to clear ground, then “ref” calls game off

Blackpool, Manchester United

By “Clifford Greenwood”

IN ONE OF THE BIGGEST SATURDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL BLACKOUTS IN LIVING MEMORY, THE BLACKPOOL AND MANCHESTER UNITED MATCH AT BLOOMFIELD-ROAD WAS POSTPONED THIS AFTERNOON AFTER A THRILLING RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK AND THE STILL FALLING SNOW TO GET THE GROUND FIT.

"I had no alternative but to call it off," I was told by Referee Gavin Black, of Kendal, as he left a field which, within five minutes of the cancellation being announced, was a barren waste, not a line visible and one forgotten hand barrow standing forlorn half way between the north goal and the centre line.

"Assuming that the lines had not been obliterated - and I fear they soon would have been - it would have been impossible to begin the match until nearly 2-30, with the gates still closed."

ALL THEY COULD

WITH one upward glance at the darkening skies Mr. Black commented "And long before the end there would have been no daylight left to play football in.

"The club have done all that could be done. These men" - indicating the gangs walking wearily from the field, four hours' work.

"They cleared the field all the odds against them at noon but the snow has come again and that I am afraid has settled it."

Outside the ground 3,000 people slowly dispersed, a couple of hundred of them from Manchester ringing a sort of funeral tocsin on their bells and rattles.

By 2-30 except for the bandsmen clustered under the little southwest corner stand it was a scene of complete and utter desolation.

Not one of the 22 men wanted to play. That is no secret - and I am not blaming them.

I have not yet forgotten the famous snowstorm match at Everton in March last year, when they played a game in a snow blizzard and called it football, but it was football in name only.

THE SHOVEL AND SPADE BATTLE

AND here is the full story of the race against time.

The man to answer the question whether the match would be played, Referee Black, of Kendal, was awakened at his home at six o'clock this morning, learned that all the expresses from Scotland were three hours late, many of them almost at a standstill in snowdrifts, and ordered a car immediately.

He was in Blackpool before eleven o'clock, went out on to a field which resembled a Siberian waste, but as soon as he prodded a boot toe into a square of turf which had been exposed, said "If you can clear the entire pitch the match is on."

Then began the race against time.

Gangs of men were mobilised wherever they could be recruited.

A tractor was ordered and a snowplough.

The tractor was too tall to enter the south-western corner of the ground beneath the small spanning stand and at noon had still not been put into commission.

But out on the pitch, with shovels and spades and with the aid of a small fleet of lorries the three inches of snow was slowly being dug or scraped off the grass, and loaded into the lorries and emptied in mountainous piles beyond the lines.

The lines were being marked, obliterated with a drift of snow still falling, and marked again in red.

At noon two-thirds of the field was still under its thick white carpet and a call was broadcast for extra volunteers.

An hour-and-a-half before zero hour the southern half was clear, and the northern penalty area visible inside its red lines.

In the meantime, after a formal test, Stanley Matthews was declared unfit for the game, and understudy Albert Hobson told that he would be playing.

The Manchester United men arrived at the ground, walked on the firm snow-dusted turf which the spades and shovels had revealed to view, and said to a man, "Yes, you can play on this!"

But Mr. Black issued his second ultimatum "Not unless the entire pitch is cleared."

Nobody knew, even as late as one o'clock an hour-and-a-quarter before the teams were to go into action, whether "Operation Snowbound" would achieve its purpose.

The timetable afterwards was: 

1-30:  With the southern half of the pitch almost level and clear, 60 men and three motor lorries were massed inside close to the northern penalty area.

Standing in the players' entrance tunnel Referee Black said "We are fighting time now. The prospects are not good."

Huge wooden covers were still in position protecting the goal areas.

Backwards and forwards from the pyramids of snow being scraped on to the field to the miniature Alps bordering the side lines barrows and handcarts trekked. Backwards and forwards, too, the three lorries and one small tractor moved.

QUEUES

Outside the gates there were queues, but there were not a thousand people in all of them.

This was a day to discourage even the football fanatic. All the lines were visible from the centre stand, but snow was still falling.

1-45: The men and the lorries were winning. The last mounds in the southern sector were being shovelled into a light van which had appeared at this near-zero hour on the field.

The penalty area had been brushed and the frozen grass was actually visible in patches.

Only a few heaps of standing snow were left and they were being shovelled non-stop into the lorries.

The gates were still closed. Outside the waiting queues had increased to 2,000.

The last word was still with Mr. Black and he said "I must see the field clear before I give a decision."

The teams were in their dressing rooms but no order had at that time been given to them to change.

ALMOST HIDDEN

1-50: The snow began to fall in such thick clouds that from the back of the centre stand the work gangs out in the centre of the field were almost hidden behind the white screen.

Slowly the red lines disappeared Out in this new storm paced Mr Black, the man with the unenviable verdict to give.

2-0: The decision was: "No match." The news was given to the waiting teams by a boy messenger racing from the centre of the field. There were no cheers in the dressing rooms merely because they were too polite to give them.

BEFORE three o'clock the Manchester United team and their escorts had left the ground by coach.

"It's a nice town is Blackpool," commented Mr. Matt Busby, the United manager, "but we don't want to be marooned here for the weekend."

A few minutes later Bloomfield-road was deserted as it has never been for years on a Saturday afternoon in midwinter.

All that was left was a quiet post-mortem in the Blackpool board room.

During it nobody blamed referee Gavin Black for the action he had taken.

"He had no alternative," commented Mr. Harry Evans, the Blackpool chairman.

"Football could not have been played in these circumstances.

"We did all that could be done in the time left to us.

"The field was cleared half an hour before the kick off, but ironically as soon as it was cleared the snow began to fall again and that ended it.

"A football match cannot be played with the lines invisible."

Now for the Cup to make a really happy New Year

TODAY'S MESSAGES

INSTEAD OF WATCHING FOOTBALL THE BLACKPOOL CHAIRMAN, MANAGER AND CAPTAIN SENT THROUGH "THE EVENING GAZETTE" NEW YEAR MESSAGES TO BLACKPOOL'S FOOTBALL PUBLIC.

They were all bulletins of good cheer.

Mr. Harry Evans

IF only our players escape the casualty list there is no reason whatever why in 1951 the Blackpool Football Club should not maintain or even enhance the standard of good football which the club and its teams have set during recent years.

Our main ambitions are on the Cup in the New Year.

We are hoping - and with good reason, I think - at least to play a draw at Charlton next week and afterwards to go on towards the great goal which is Wembley.

Given equal luck we can make progress in the Cup, and achieve something in 1951 to make it a memorable year in Blackpool football.

Whatever happens the club, its directors and its staff are intent on doing everything that can be done for the prestige of Blackpool football in the New Year and in the future.

Mr. Joe Smith

I enter the New Year as the manager of a club, of which I am proud, with every confidence.

The signing of Allan Brown at a record fee for Blackpool is not an indication of a revision of the club's policy.

Such a footballer as Brown was signed because obviously the front line required a man of his experience and unquestioned talents. And not for one season only but we hope for many seasons to come.

But we shall still be faithful to the policy of encouraging and developing the young player, for it has paid us in the past and it will pay us in the future.

I have had many letters praising the quality of the football played by our young teams in the Central League.

That is about the highest compliment this club could be paid. Our policy in 1951 will be to ensure that such compliments are given and deserved again.

I have been too long in football to talk glibly about a club's future, but with the young players we have on our staff today, such players, to name only three, as Alan Withers, W. J. Slater and Jackie Mudie, we have good reason to face the future with complete confidence.

Harry Johnston

I AM speaking not only for myself but for my team when I say to the Blackpool football public, "A happy and prosperous New Year."

We shall at least do all we can to ensure that while they are watching us play our football they will have in 1951 a happy New Year.

We are not overconfident, but we do think that we can go a distance in the Cup this year.

We are in a league position which enables us to concentrate on the Cup and we have in the dressing room and on the field the team spirit which a team whether in Cup or League must have if it is to achieve success.

All I can say is that there will not be a match in 1951 in which every Blackpool player is not giving all he has to give. No man, no team, can do more than that.

Every ticket sold

EVERY ticket for the match had been sold in advance.

The club issued an immediate announcement that the tickets would admit to the match whenever later in the season it was played.

The date has not yet been settled.

Anybody who wishes to claim their money back can do so by returning their ticket to the ground next week.

Phone lines

BLACKPOOL Football Club have been kept busy answering the telephone from early this morning as thousands of Soccer fans rang to ask only one question: "Is the match on?"

The calls came from all parts of the Fylde and from as far afield as Manchester. Lines in some instances, were blocked for minutes on end as subscribers rang the ground.

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BLACKPOOL MUST KEEP EYES ON 
VAUGHAN AND KIERNAN

Two Cup danger men

BY OUR CHARLTON CORRESPONDENT

QUITE APART FROM THEIR WARTIME TRIUMPHS IN CUP FINALS AT WEMBLEY, CHARLTON ATHLETIC HAVE WON A FULL FA CUP FINAL AT WEMBLEY STADIUM.

QUITE APART FROM THEIR WARTIME TRIUMPHS IN CUP FINALS AT WEMBLEY, CHARLTON ATHLETIC HAVE WON A FULL FA CUP FINAL AT WEMBLEY STADIUM.

It was in the season 1946-47, when Charlton beat Burnley 1-0 after extra time. In the previous season Charlton also reached the Final at Wembley. But on this occasion Derby County beat them 4-1 - after extra time.

Blackpool have reached Wembley once - in 1947-48. And they did not win the Cup.

I want the Blackpool players to remember this - Charlton Athletic, trying to avoid relegation, and Charlton striving to win the Cup, are two different propositions.

Must go all out

BECAUSE they won at Charlton last Saturday - mind, it was only by a bare goal, and next Saturday there may be 30,000 more London football fans to cheer on Charlton - the Blackpool players, I am sure, will not take next week's game for granted.

They will have to go all out to win, and only real guts will get them there.

There are quite a few things the Blackpool players will have to do if they are to emerge winners. Chief of these are:

1. Speed up their game to match Charlton's extra speed and thrust. That may mean that an extra 20 per cent., at least, is needed.

2. The Blackpool forwards will have to slip their passes twice as fast as they did last Saturday.

3. The shooting will have to be performed with the same execution. Hesitancy will be fatal. Charlton will be after Blackpool like a lot of terriers.

Defenders' task

QUITE a lot of responsibility will rest on the Blackpool half-backs and backs. The whole Blackpool defence, fine as it is, must match and beat Charlton's tactics.

Blackpool must be quicker in the tackle than Charlton. Their distribution must be quicker than theirs. And their final thrust for a goal must be quick and accurate.

Now I come to Charlton's chief weapons. They are of fine calibre.

Sam Bartram is still the prince of goalkeepers, a real wizard. Only a shot of exceptional merit can beat him.

From what many professional footballers tell me, Frank Lock is the best left full-back in the League to stop Stan Matthews.

Charlie Vaughan, the Charlton centre-forward, can be the most bewildering leader of an attack on his day. He may easily be the match winner next Saturday.

Grand winger

FINALLY, Bill Kiernan, the Charlton outside-left, is, next to Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney, the best winger, also the best shot, as a winger, in the Football League.

Probably Johnston, the Blackpool captain, will appreciate this. Kiernan played a blinder against Aston Villa on Christmas Day and scored both Charlton goals.

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MORTENSEN SETS UP GOAL RECORD FOR BLACKPOOL

First Division bag - 100

By Clifford Greenwood

WHEN STANLEY MORTENSEN SCORED BLACKPOOL'S FIRST GOAL AT CHARLTON LAST WEEKEND THERE WAS A CHEER, THE LONDON FOOTBALL PUBLIC BEING AT TIMES ADMIRABLY IMPARTIAL, BUT NOT THE CHEER THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN IF IT HAD BEEN KNOWN THAT THE GOAL WAS MAKING HISTORY.

Few people knew that it was. Yet when I returned home I recalled a remark by the Blackpool forward in the coach as we were en route from the Valley to Euston. "I must be near my 100th League goal," he said.

He was not only near it, but had, as consulting my record books, I discovered, scored it about an hour and a half earlier, and had become the first Blackpool forward ever to score a century of goals in First Division football.

No other forward has ever done it. Jimmy Hampson scored 247 goals in 360 games for the club - a remarkable, probably unsurpassable record - but of those 247 goals 76 only were put on the First Division marksmen's sheet.

Not another Blackpool forward has ever approached three figures in the First Division, and, obviously, it will be a long time before another ever will.

He admits it

I AM glad that this new milestone in the career of the man from the north-east has been reached and already passed this season. For there has been too common an assumption everywhere that his days in the big-time football which he has at times taken by storm since the war were near their end.

He has not been this season, admittedly - and he knows it and acknowledges it - the destructive force - destructive of defences which he has been. There have been times when he was that half-yard slower to a chance, when the spark which once ignited him seemed to have gone out.

Yet during recent weeks there have been signs that the dynamite is beginning to explode again, and it is a fact, which too few people realise, that his present total of 13 goals is only nine fewer than his total for all last season, that he has scored them in 20 games, and that his first 20 matches last season gave him only 12 goals.

The old courage

THAT there is the old courage in him, the refusal to surrender, the almost passionate loyalty to his team which there has always been, was revealed as recently as Christmas Day.

Few of the 31,000 people at the Liverpool match at Bloomfield-road - as near a capacity attendance as there has been at Blackpool this season - knew that he had been grievously hurt when he went to earth under a collision early in the afternoon.

He was out to the world for between two and three minutes, and when he awakened his under lip and mouth were so lacerated that at the end of the afternoon he had to be given medical treatment. With the bandages on he resembled, I am told, one who had been hit by a truck.

It was two days later before he knew whether he would have to lose two or three teeth, and it was, in short, one of those little mishaps calculated to put to bed for a week a few of those folk who play all their football in the stands.

Yet, with a blood-soaked handkerchief to his lips, this man Mortensen played on almost at full pace for the rest of the afternoon, never evaded a tackle, accepted every challenge offered him, and shot a brilliant goal.

And now, on his own insistence, he plays again today.

There's never been anything wrong with the heart of Stanley Mortensen. There's not such a lot wrong with his football, either.

Figures of his century exploit are:

Season          Goals          Games

1946- 47          28  (1 pen.) 38

1947- 48          21                34

1948- 49          18  (2 pen.) 32

1949- 50          22  (1 pen.) 37

1950- 51          11                19

Total               100               160

Which is not counting his two Christmas Day goals, which put him on the road to the second hundred. 

And, if I know him, he will reach that figure, too, and still in a tangerine jersey.

 

WHAT of the man who has worn a tangerine jersey for the first time during the last week? What's the verdict on Allan Brown?

Mine is that Blackpool will not regret the signing at a record cheque of this modest, intelligent forward.

I talked to him after his baptism at the Valley, and he admitted frankly that after being eight months out of the game the pace of the football in the Charlton match had disconcerted him.

"I've never played in football so fast," he said, and he added, being apparently one of those who always prefer to talk of others rather than of themselves, "I've never seen a footballer like Stanley Matthews, either."

He's not on his own there. Many of us haven't.

One could sense that the football's speed was disturbing Brown both at Charlton and in the first Liverpool game. The second match with the Anfield team I refuse to take all that seriously, for Allan Brown's part in it was obviously destined to be nothing except an afternoon's match-play practice, which, I suspect, was all that in his case it was intended to be.

A variation

BUT will he make the grade in England? One is tired of hearing that because Scottish football is often built to a deliberate design it is of infinitely higher quality than the game as it is played in England.

It is, as I see it, no better and no worse, but merely a variation on a common theme. There are masters in one medium and masters in the other, and not every man can transfer from one to the other, can adapt himself to the faster or slower tempo of one or the other.

But I think Allan Brown will not take long to adapt himself to the English game, for he has qualities in him which would make him a reputation on either side of the Border.

Nature has endowed him with the build of a man, who, once in possession of a ball, cannot be summarily separated from it. She has given him, too, a football intelligence which revealed itself not infrequently in both his opening games, but which was demonstrated for even the least discriminating spectator to appreciate in the two passes which made goals in the first two games he played.

Allan Brown will do for me. He will do soon, I think, for everybody else watching or interested in Blackpool football.

Man of the year

STANLEY MORTENSEN...

Allan Brown. Those two names are famous. But there is another Blackpool forward who will soon at his present progress be ranking with them.

This may be Jackie Mudie's last season for a year or two in big football, for, as I report elsewhere, he may be called up at the end of the season.

But at the present time he is unquestionably the man of the year in Blackpool football for the advance his game has made.

He is "The Third Man" this week, and he requires no Harry Lime theme to identify him.

Blackpool's record at this time last season was:

P   W   D   L  F  A  Pts

26 13   9   4   36 21 35

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SPORTS SNAPSHOTS

BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 30 December 1950

PLAYERS NOW TURN UP IN THEIR CARS

WHEN I went to Bloomfield-road the other day there were half-a-dozen cars outside the ground.

Nothing unfamiliar about that nowadays. There was no board meeting in progress. There was nothing special on at all.

The players were on their morning training routine - and the cars were theirs.

And why not? Shades of the days when a professional footballer often hadn't the price of a bus or tram fare to the ground and walked there.

***

IT is a fact, but until Manager Joe Smith watched his new forward, Allan Brown, play at Charlton last weekend, he had seen him in action in only one other game. And that day he had no particular interest in him.

Yet he will tell you that when he watched the Scot in the East Fife forward-line playing against Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final which the Methil team lost by three goals, he turned to his companion, Mr. Harry Evans, the Blackpool chairman, and said, "Watch that East Fife inside-left."

"He was not in the game a lot. Nor were any of the East Fife forwards. "But," recalls the Blackpool manager, "I liked the way he moved to the ball, his speed on to it and with it."

***

HERE'S a coincidence.

Jock Dodds played his first game for Blackpool at Charlton. Eddie Shimwell would have played his first game there four years ago, was signed in time to play, but was instead in a snowbound train.

Now Allan Brown has had his Blackpool baptism at the Valley.

***

MAN on overtime at Anfield on Boxing Day was George Farm, the Blackpool goalkeeper. One of another George Sheard's censuses reveals that Farm took 20 goal kicks during the afternoon compared with the Liverpool goalkeeper's 11.

Twenty is a figure high above the average for one game. It seems incredible that in a game that Liverpool often dominated that the chart should report that the teams were level in corners - five each - and almost level with throws-in, with 33 for Blackpool and 28 for Liverpool.

That grand - if it is grand - total of 61 is also high above the average, too. One is glad that it is.

***

WHO is Blackpool's tallest forward among the regular first team men?

Appearances can be deceptive, but Allan Brown definitely has this distinction at 5ft. 10in. Stanley Mortensen, according to Blackpool's own records, stands 5ft. 8in., Stanley Matthews 5ft. 9in., Jackie Mudie 5ft. 6in., and Bill Perry 5ft. 7in.

Blackpool's heaviest player is Eric Hayward at 12st. 8lb, and the featherweight of the professionals Derek Lythgoe at 9st 11lb. Next to the top of the heavyweight division is 12st. 7lb. W. J. Slater.

***

WHEN Stanley Matthews was not in the Blackpool lineup at Anfield on Boxing Day it was the first match he had missed all season.

And this is the man who was finished a year ago - according to the wise boys.

It was only the second time he had been out of the Blackpool team this year, and the first time - on October 7, when Chelsea played and lost 3-2 at Blackpool - he was playing for England.

There are only two men who have not missed a match for Blackpool this season. Both are Scots. One is goalkeeper George Farm, the other wing-half, Hugh Kelly.

***

IT is not often that a milestone in Stanley Matthews' illustrious career is allowed to pass without notice being taken of it.

Yet one has been missed by the statisticians this time. It was his 100th League game for Blackpool.

When was it played? As long ago as October 14, when Blackpool were at Portsmouth.

And there was not a line in one paper about it. Not that Stanley Matthews has any particular grievance on the subject.

His ration of publicity, as he would be the first to acknowledge, is adequate. But, for the book, it should be put on record that up to the Christmas games, his appearances for Blackpool in the First Division totalled exactly 110, in this order:-

1947-48 .......... ............ 33

1948-49 .......... ............ 25

1949-50 .......... ............ 30

1950-51 .......... .............22 

On, Stanley, on!

***

Like a swarm of bees

HALF the population - or very nearly - seem intent on making the Blackpool team resemble a swarm of bees.

They are all for the team discarding its present black stockings with the tangerine tops and wearing a stocking of tangerine-and-black hoops.

They all express pride in Blackpool's smart outfit - and it is, the distinctive tangerine apart, one of the smartest in the League - but think that the colour scheme would be complete if this new stocking were introduced.

Nobody, I suppose, has any particular objection. It was only a week or two after correspondents in this column had advocated a tangerine motif in the white jerseys Blackpool wear whenever there is a colour clash that the tangerine collars and cuffs appeared on the white jerseys.

Will the hooped stockings be a sequel to this latest proposal? You never know - they may be.

***

JACKIE MUDIE, the Blackpool forward - and what a grand forward he is these days - is tired of people asking him, "When are you going in the Army? Next week? Next month? We'd heard you'd be off in a few days."

The truth is that he will not complete his apprenticeship in the painting trade until next April. Until then he is exempt under the National Service Act. Blackpool, therefore, will not lose him until nearly the end of the season, and, in fact, may not lose him so soon. That, I trust, answers all the questions.