9 December 1950 Arsenal 4 Blackpool 4
Late penalty saves Arsenal in eight goal thriller
WHIRLWIND RALLY
Arsenal 4, Blackpool 4
By “Clifford Greenwood”
A LONDON FOG WAS CREEPING UP OVER THE HIGHBURY STADIUM AN HOUR BEFORE BLACKPOOL’S MATCH WITH THE FIRST DIVISION LEADERS AND CUP-HOLDERS THIS AFTERNOON.
That Peter Pan of half-backs, Joe Mercer, won the toss for Arsenal, whose forwards went off at the expected blood-and-thunder pace, so fast on the ball that by sheer pace a right-wing raid was built in the first half-minute which a leapfrog hurtling dive by Hayward over Goring’s head repulsed.
It was Arsenal everywhere without, however, the Blackpool goal ever being seriously menaced.
Then Garrett lofted high into the Highbury team’s penalty area a ball which the 6 ft. Leslie Compton headed down and away from the pursuing Mortensen.
In the next minute Don Roper cut in from the right wing and shot a rising ball which Farm held over his head as if nothing were simpler in all the world.
They were still saying “Ooh” in a sort of mass admiration for this exploit when they were saying “Ooh” for another reason entirely.
EARLY LEAD
Young Withers in the right place
It was a goal-a strange, freak sort of goal-for Blackpool with exactly four minutes gone on the clock.
Direct from the goalkeeper’s clearance a raid was built-built in two direct forward passes.
Mortensen made the first into the open space.
Waiting for it was Mudie, who glided it forward into another.
And there, in the right place at the right time, as if by instinct, was young ALAN WITHERS, who raced on to the ball, ran forward, and collided with the advancing Swindin.
What happened afterwards was all in slow motion, with the two men sprawling on the grass, the ball rolling away from them, big Compton chasing it, and the ball itself crawling over the line after hitting the base of the post.
That awakened the game to raging fury.
It awakened Blackpool, too, to football which for the next five minutes had the Arsenal defence in confusion.
YAWNING GOAL
Twice in that time, in the sixth and eighth minutes, the Arsenal goal nearly fell.
The first time Stanley Matthews, taking his first pass of the match, outpaced Lionel Smith, and, with the full-back bumping and boring still, crossed a ball which Withers missed as it bounced away from him with the goal yawning wide open.
The second time, after Barnes had given a corner to halt Perry, the young South African crossed a perfect centre from the flag.
Swindin leaped to it and missed it.
Up to it, too, as he stood behind the goalkeeper, leaped Mortensen, headed down to an empty line a ball which Compton cleared as he stood with one of his full-backs beneath the bar.
It could actually have been 3-0 for Blackpool with eight minutes gone.
EQUALISER
Lishman adds to his goal total
Yet in 14 minutes it was 1-1 instead.
This was a peculiar goal, too.
There had been signs of an Arsenal challenge to Blackpool’s unexpected supremacy, but there had been nothing else until this one raid came.
It was created on the right, tore Blackpool’s left flank of defence so wide open that Farm had to leave his goal to narrow the angle for a forward racing alone on his goal.
The mist obscured the rest.
All I saw was McPherson in possession of the ball in front of an open goal stabbing across a slow deliberate shot which hit the base of the post and cannoned out.
Afterwards there was confusion under the bar of the empty goal until, the ball rolling loose out of a pack of men, LISHMAN darted on it, and shot fast and low from 15 yards out one of those goals which in Highbury games he has made a habit of scoring.
Pressure on the Blackpool goal afterwards was as furious as in the first couple of minutes, with George Farm twice qualifying for high-jump championship honours to snatch away centres crossing his goal.
NEAR DOWNFALL
Yet again, in the 17th minute of a match as fast and intense as I have seen for a long time, the Arsenal goal might have fallen and was perilously near downfall.
There was something wrong with the famous Arsenal defence today.
This time it left Blackpool’s young left wing with such an acreage of living space that when Bill Perry was discovered with a long cross-field pass he had yards in which to move before cutting in and shooting a low ball.
George Swindin fell so late to it that the shot appeared to skid away under him, leaving Mortensen to shoot it back again on to a line where again the famous Arsenal packing system was present in force to repel it.
WONDER SHOT
Forbes puts Arsenal in front
Yet, with 23 minutes gone and within a minute of the fast and aggressive Mortensen heading fast into Swindin’s hands, Arsenal were in front.
And in front, too, with a sort of wonder shot that is written about in boys’ magazines.
One raid was repulsed, and another and another.
Out came a loose ball again, rolled into an open space 30 yards out.
On to it raced “Ginger” FORBES, the half-back from Scotland, and shot it back so fast that it was rising out of Farm’s reach and shaking the roof of the net before the goalkeeper was off the grass, leaping sideways but vainly at it.
Four minutes later it was Arsenal 3, Blackpool 1.
This was a good goal, too, a goal built on a series of short crisp passes down the centre which in the end left such a gap in Blackpool’s defence that GORING, accepting the last pass, was left all on his own to race the ball on to the deserted Farm and almost to walk it past him.
If it was drama you were after, Highbury was the place this afternoon.
NOT OUTPLAYED
Strangely, too, except for fierce, almost savage Arsenal assaults, Blackpool were not outplayed, won one corner on the left and another on the right, and in between built a raid which ended in Mortensen, for the third time in the first half-hour, passing George Swindin with the ball and hitting a full-back on the line with it.
The Arsenal full-backs were still posting an indifferent guard on the Blackpool wings, but there was no absence of the aid packing formation in front of a goal.
Otherwise, in fact, Blackpool would not have been in arrears.
And for minutes afterwards Blackpool were raiding often, with Perry on one wing and Matthews on the other constantly taking passes away, and either stabbing them inside or crossing them from long range.
In pursuit of one of these short passes Withers was in the wars, but was soon back again, even if he was limping out on the wing as Blackpool, without his aid, created a raid which went on and on until a long falling centre came to rest on the roof of the Arsenal net.
It was strangely calm-calm for this tempest of a match-in the minutes prefacing half-time.
Opportunism by the Arsenal forwards and one half-back had given the London team the interval lead.
Half-time: Arsenal 3, Blackpool 1
Second half
The Austrian footballers who are playing Scotland next week were at the match.
If they did not love every minute of the first half they must be severe critics.
The football had been good, the drama almost non-stop, with both defences now and again torn open by the pace and at times the ferocity of the attacks unleashed at them.
Within two minutes of the second half opening it was nearly 4-1 for Arsenal, and would have been if Farm had not fallen full-length to a shot punched fast at him by Don Roper after the wing forward had pounced on a ball mis-hit to him by Kelly, and gone away with it like a hare.
In the next couple of minutes two Blackpool raids were competently repelled by an Arsenal defence playing in the old massed formation.
STRONG ATTACKS
Blackpool active on the wings
The first was built superbly by Perry for Mortensen, who found himself catapulting into a pack of men in his path as he tore after the South African’s low pass.
In the next minute it was the other wing in action, with Stanley Matthews leaving his full-back standing, resisting the challenge of the half-back, swerving away from another man, and passing slowly inside close to one post a pass which was cleared anywhere by half a dozen men in red and white.
Yet it was only a goal deferred.
In another two minutes, in the sixth of the half, it was 3-2.
It was almost a carbon copy of Arsenal’s third.
MORTENSEN SCORES
The raid was built on the right flank.
A centre inside, a pass down the centre by Mudie, and MORTENSEN was after it to shoot low past the Arsenal goalkeeper as that deserted character fell in desperation but a split second late at his feet.
Afterwards Arsenal were again retreating everywhere.
From a free-kick on the right, conceded without ceremony by a full-back constantly being passed by the elusive Matthews, Compton could only head down to Perry a ball which the wing forward thundered over the bar at a great pace.
Another Blackpool raid nearly made it 3-3 with less than a quarter hour of the half gone as from Blackpool’s assertive right wing flew a centre which Perry stabbed forward to Mortensen, who seemed to lose it as it skidded away off his boots.
This was great football by a team still losing but losing only by a goal.
LEAD VANISHES
Mortensen leaps-and it’s a goal
It was a lead which Arsenal almost lost with 15 minutes of the half gone as Mudie flighted across a high ball which seemed to be brushing the bar as Mortensen leaped at it and missed it by a cat’s whisker.
Two minutes later, in the 17th minute of the half, and the Arsenal lead was lost.
And strictly an Arsenal often outplayed and outwitted in this half could not complain about it either.
I could not see the ball crossed out of the mist.
Presumably it was Matthews who crossed it.
But I could see MORTENSEN leap at it and head it as he was in mid-air sideways to the goal an inch inside the far post for his 10th goal of the season.
Even the ranks of Highbury could scarcely forbear to cheer the magnificent Matthews at this time.
MUDIE’S PASSES
Repeatedly his partner, Jackie Mudie, was finding him with long, gliding passes.
Repeatedly Matthews was taking them away from a defence which for all its fame appeared to have no plan to subdue him.
There were Arsenal breakaways, several of them all repelled, but it was the Blackpool front line which was packing the punch as it had packed it nearly all this half.
It won a corner, yet another corner, or to be exact, Matthews won it.
And this corner had not been cleared, either, before there had been a clash between Swindin and Mudie in which peace was not restored until Mr. Beacock had read the riot act to half a dozen men forgetting football and debating excitably together.
Half an hour gone, 15 minutes only left and there was still not a goal between two teams playing grand football nearly all the time and battling like demons for the rest.
Arsenal won a corner and Blackpool retaliated by winning one minute later, and still there was nothing in it, even if Blackpool had always seemed to be moving faster to the ball.
Fourteen minutes left-and the goal came for Blackpool.
It was an accident, but still it was a goal.
A rattled all-over-the-field Arsenal repulsed a raid.
The ball came out loose from a half-hit clearance.
Eddie Shimwell booted it back again from near the centre line.
Low the ball shot, hit BARNES, the Arsenal full-back, cannoned off him and skidded far away from the falling Swindin’s right hand into the base of the net.
PENALTY
And Arsenal save a point
What a game!
What a finish!
The Arsenal stormed two corners and another, raced four times into an offside trap, desperate, the vaunted home record toppling.
Five minutes left.
An all-out Arsenal assault.
A swarm of men battling for possession of a ball bouncing and skidding in the Blackpool penalty area.
Farm is lured out of his goal, appears in the mist to fall.
A forward shoots.
Somebody punches the ball away.
Who nobody can see in the falling fog.
It is a penalty.
WALLY BARNES is called from the Arsenal full-back line to take it, runs at it in a silence which is almost forbidding, shoots it fast and low away from Farm-and 50,000 people go mad.
Result:
ARSENAL 4 (Lishman 13, Forbes 23, Goring 27, Barnes 85 pen)
BLACKPOOL 4 (Withers 4, Mortensen 51, 62, Barnes 76 og)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
THEY should have charged double prices for this match. Every one of the 57,445 people at it would have paid them if they had known what a match they were to watch.
It was a game in a thousand. Blackpool’s second half I shall not see equalled for years.
The entire forward line played direct attacking football which, at times, tore the Arsenal defence almost to tatters.
Every man in the line, and towering above them all the amazing Stanley Matthews, played a game which nearly lost the leaders a match which appeared won at half-time.
It was a match of two great forward lines. The Blackpool right wing threatened at times to steal the show. But in this match not all the strength was on this wing. In the centre Mortensen was a leader always after a pass and fast away with it.
Bill Perry had the best game he has played in a Blackpool jersey, and this time his young partner was not merely an opportunist, but repeatedly used the long pass to the other wing intelligently.
Neither defence could escape criticism. Both were repeatedly stormed out of the game by the front lines. Yet the close packing of the Arsenal formation often served its purpose, and often, with the ranks split wide open, there was a Blackpool full-back or half-back racing across to close a gap.
This is the sort of football the public love and have too seldom seen since the war.
For 57,000 people it was a game which will be talked about when hundreds of others in present-day football are forgotten.
To Blackpool next weekend come “the team of the century,” “the greatest forward line since the days of the ‘Old Invincibles,’” - and all that.
I quote from the ecstasies of one or two of the London critics, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Who are they writing about? The ’Spurs of White Hart Lane, the Second Division champions - and champions by a distance last season - challengers this season for the First Division title.
Are the ’Spurs as good as all that?
They are nearly as good, but not quite. They have elevated the playing of direct football to a high art and they possess in the Baily-Medley partnership a wing that has already this season played for England.
Their forwards have scored 29 home goals and 20 away from the “Lane” this season, excluding this afternoon’s match at Hillsborough which shows in itself that the line that employs the minimum number of passes to make the maximum of progress - which is often a perfect definition of good football - can put a defence through the hoops and tear it up.
Yet Blackpool won 4-1 at the ’Spurs headquarters on the opening day of the season, and those four goals were the first of 27 conceded by the ’Spurs in the first half of the season.
This defence, obviously, in spite of the presence in it of Ted Ditchburn and England captain Ramsey, is suspect, and can be taken by storm.
The Blackpool defence will have to play with a greater assurance and closer packed than it has played a few recent games if the ’Spurs’ forwards are to be put on the leash next weekend. But, as I see it, the ’Spurs’ defence could lose this match to a Blackpool front line which, confounding all its critics, has scored 10 goals in its last three home games.
Whatever happens, it should be a great match. It has box-office written all over it.
CUP CAN MEAN A LOT THIS TIME
May save season from stalemate
By Clifford Greenwood
WHO is Blackpool’s leading scorer in all matches - First Division and Central League - this season?
The answer, writes Clifford Greenwood, is 20-year-old Alan Withers, who has seven goals in 11 games for the second team and four in three games in the First Division - a total of 11 goals in 14 games for a total which no other player on the staff approaches.
Andy McCall and Ken Smith are second in the Central League team's scoring list with five goals each, with Ewan Fenton, who went into the Army this week, with four to his name, including three penalties.
Len Stephenson is level with four - and, actually, his four in three games represent the highest average scoring on the list.
We shall be hearing of Stephenson in the First Division one of these days. I have seen him only once, but that was sufficient to persuade me that he has everything a centre-forward should have.
***
THE LAD FROM DROYLSDEN MAKES IT 243
HARRY JOHNSTON, the Blackpool captain, is approaching his 250th First Division game and Cup-tie for his club. It is a figure unapproached in Blackpool’s history for 20 years or longer.
His first game in the First Division was at Deepdale on November 20, 1937.
It is a game, which, apart from being a baptism of fire for the 17-year-old colt from Droylsden, is unforgettable, because early in the match Sam Jones, the centre-half, was hurt, and the unknown wing-half went into the position to face the famous Frank O’Donnell, who in those days was playing in all his pomp and glory.
This afternoon at Highbury Harry Johnston led his men on to the field for his 243rd game in top-class football. It is a grand record by a grand player, who created a personal record for himself when he scored his fourth goal of the season against Sheffield Wednesday last weekend.
He has never had as many goals before in one season.
***
THEY may have had to close the gates at Highbury this afternoon for the visit of Blackpool. For Blackpool are still ranked as about the best box-office team from the provinces in the capital, where they are inordinately fond of big names.
Yet the match will not, I think, have created an attendance record for a Blackpool match in London. That was created on October 16, 1948, when there were 77,696 people inside the gates of Stamford Bridge for the Chelsea-Blackpool game, and another 30,000 or 40,000 outside.
That is still the second highest attendance for a League match anywhere in the country since the war.
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