13 January 1951 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 Blackpool 1

HARD FIGHTING BLACKPOOL HOLD THE WOLVES

Brilliant Mortensen goal wins a point

SEE-SAW GAME

Wolverhampton Wanderers 1, Blackpool 1

By “Clifford Greenwood”

THEY ARE TALKING AGAIN IN WOLVERHAMPTON OF THAT OLD FOOTBALL MIRAGE - THE LEAGUE AND CUP DOUBLE IN ONE SEASON.

One of these days a team is going to do it, and as the Wanderers are playing these days they can do it this season - undefeated since November 11 when this match opened, and coming into their game at the time when championship teams invariably reach their peak.

The Wanderers played the men who won at Plymouth in the Cup a week ago, and Blackpool had 10 of the Cup team out, plus Jack Ainscough, the young Post Office engineer, who was playing his first game in the First Division.

They were swarming into the ground in thousands an hour before the kick-off, and there were prospects of an attendance approaching 50,000 in a town which caught football fever in the days of Major Frank Buckley and has never got over it.

MILD MIDLANDS

After all the cold days it was as mild as early spring in the Midlands, and this afternoon the sun was actually shining on a pitch not a lot scarred by the recent rains and frost.

Teams:

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS: Williams; Short, Pritchard; Chatham, Shorthouse, Wright; Hancocks; Dunn, Swinbourne, Walker Wilshaw.

BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Ainscough, Kelly; Matthews, Mudie, Mortensen, Brown, Perry.

Referee: Mr. H. T. Wright (Macclesfield).

Blackpool must have forgotten what it is like to play in tangerine away from home. Because of another colour clash they were in white again today for the seventh successive game on tour.

The two rivals for the England right-half position, Harry Johnston and Billy Wright, tossed, and the Blackpool captain, winning it, gave his team whatever little benefit the wind offered.

THE GAME

First half

In the first minute Jack Ainscough made a great clearance, and followed it with a long lobbed pass down the centre which nearly built an attack.

I said "nearly." Actually it was a Wolves raid which was created out of it, for the big Shorthouse punted the ball up the field so high that it sailed over a Blackpool defence unprepared for it and left Walker, out on his own, chasing it.

Less than 60 seconds and there was a Wolverhampton forward standing by himself with the Blackpool goalkeeper facing him.

EARLY ESCAPE

Walker shot. Out almost instinctively Farm jerked his left leg, and watched the ball cannon off it into an open space, where Garrett cleared it.

That was nearly a goal against Blackpool almost before the game had opened.

Afterwards the Blackpool defence was in retreat everywhere to a Wanderers forward line as fast as ever after a long pass, terriers in the tackle and greyhounds out in the open.

Three times in the first three minutes Farm had to leave his goal to snatch away long forward passes which this land speed record brigade were pursuing.

"M" RAID

Yet the first time the Blackpool front line went into the Wanderers' territory a corner was won in a Mortensen-Matthews raid which ended in Pritchard hooking the ball over the line almost in desperation, with the wing forward at his heels.

One had to admire the calm football which Ainscough was playing in this early Wanderers' tempest.

There were signs that the Wanderers' storm was beginning to blow itself out with six minutes gone - if a Wolverhampton storm can ever be said to blow itself out in this particular region.

In the seventh minute, in fact, the Wanderers went in front in a mass raid which was all fire and fury.

WOLVES GOAL

And Johnny Hancocks makes it

ocks made the goal, as so often I have seen Stanley Matthews make them for Blackpool.

On to the line he raced after eluding his full-back, almost reached the near post, put a pass backwards. On to it Swinbourne darted and shot a ball which hit a man on the Blackpool line.

Out it cannoned. Wilshaw shot it back again, hit another man. Out it skidded in the mud again, and WALKER, fast on to it, shot it for the third time low and fast past a Blackpool goalkeeper in the midst of a pack under the bar and obviously unsighted.

Within a minute it was nearly 2-0.

This time the wandering Swinbourne stampeded an open path on the right, eluded Farm as the goalkeeper fell at his feet, and hooked across a high, falling ball which three Wanderers forwards, hurling themselves at it, missed by inches, with the goal wide open in front of them.

BREAKAWAYS

In the first 15 tempestuous minutes the Blackpool forwards were in the game only in breakaways.

Bill Perry won a corner by a pursuit of a long pass with the odds about 50-1 against him, and twice afterwards the Wanderers' defence was exposed with a big gap in its centre before a full-back intercepted the last pass in a couple of direct raids.

For the rest it was the Wanderers everywhere and Blackpool scarcely anywhere at all, with 20 minutes gone.

Yet there were signs that the Wolverhampton defence was not as firm as its front line was aggressive.

Twice men in it were out of position, and twice, too, in a state almost bordering on panic it conceded corners.

GREAT GOAL

Mortensen races away, equalises

From one of these Bert Williams made an England goalkeeper's clearance, holding the ball superbly at the height of a bar as Perry crossed it from the flag.

Another corner came, won by the left wing but created by Matthews' perfect pass to it.

Between the 20th and 25th minutes, in fact, the game had gone almost entirely into reverse.

In the 26th minute Blackpool made it 1-1 - and made it 1-1, too, with as good a goal as I have seen this season.

It was the carbon copy of the Jackie Mudie goal at Charlton in the League match.

Allan Brown was fast on to a loose ball, settled on it, surveyed the prospect, heard a call for a pass and lofted it far down the field.

STAN MORTENSEN raced after it, took it away with him all in one movement, outpaced his centre-half, and from a couple of yards inside the penalty area shot a ball which was skidding away under Williams as the goalkeeper fell to his right to it.

It was good, planned football which had produced that goal.

TRANSFORMATION

Blackpool continued to play it, too, and for a time were not recognisable as the team that had been reeling back in retreat during the first 15 minutes.

George Farm made two great punched clearances from centres flying high across his goal, but with Ainscough supremely confident, the Blackpool defence was much stronger than earlier in the afternoon.

The forwards, too, playing on an open front, were constantly racing on to a Wanderers defence still inclined to lose position under pressure.

Johnny Hancocks hit one of his old "specials" from a free-kick into a massed Blackpool defence with five minutes of the half left, and a minute later Garrett made a fine headed clearance away from a centre crossing from the other wing.

FARM'S LEAP

Punches ball on to top of bar

Another half-minute, and with all the Wanderers' guns firing again Farm leaped at another ball sailing across the front of his goal, was falling backwards as he reached it, beat it on to the top of the bar.

He was still falling as it rolled on, fell down near the other post, and was cleared by the waiting Shimwell.

It was all Wanderers again in these closing minutes of the first 45.

Almost on the whistle Ainscough seemed to find the ball tangled in his legs, lost it, and left Swinbourne to run on it before shooting it so fast that Farm, parrying it out, won the big cheer of the match seconds before the teams left the field.

Half-time: Wolverhampton W. 1, Blackpool 1.

Second half

Blackpool were on the attack as soon as the second half opened.

Brown eluded two men in a corkscrew advance on his own, made 20 yards with it, and fell under a tackle by a third man for a free-kick which Shimwell shot into the massed defence confronting him.

Another minute and Brown was in the game again, gliding out to Perry a perfect pass for which the wing forward was unprepared in a shooting position.

Johnston halted the Wanderers' left wing in the next minute, with the two teams going at it still as if they had forgotten that the Cup-tie day was a week ago and not today.

MATTHEWS ESCAPES

Stanley Matthews was not being completely held, but he was being halted as he seldom is by Pritchard, the Wanderers' fast-tackling back.

Twice Matthews escaped his man and the second time, when he crossed a centre, Shorthouse took the line of least resistance and booted it anywhere over the line, with Bert Williams behind him dancing up and down in a fever of excitement.

Except when Wilshaw raced clear away on his own to cross a centre which was too fast for two other Wanderers forwards racing in to meet it, the Wanderers were not only no longer in command of the game but were retreating.

CLOSE CALLS

Both goalkeepers in brilliant action 

And for a time they continued to retreat.

Another corner came to Blackpool - a corner brilliantly cleared by Williams.

And almost direct from the clearance the Wanderers nearly went in front again, for the clearance built a right-wing raid, and when the ball was crossed Farm punched it backwards as it was falling beneath the bar, fell with it, clutched at it, and as he gripped it took a leapfrog dive over one of his own full-backs.

Nobody could say that this was one of those tame hangover League matches which so often follow Cup-ties.

The Wanderers were overplaying the moves in which the inside forward or the centre wandered out to the wing.

Repeatedly these understudy wingmen sliced their centres high and wide, and repeatedly, as a result, one raid after another faded into a stalemate.

AINSCOUGH CLEARS

Yet twice in rapid succession I saw Jack Ainscough make great clearances, first on one wing and then on the other. Johnston, too, halted raids by a Wolverhampton attack raging into action again.

In one Blackpool raid Mudie shot barely wide of a post at a thunderous pace, and in another Brown was as close to the other post.

Yet all the time, with 20 minutes left, the Wanderers were going all out again for a goal to win, and whatever power cuts there had been earlier there was none now.

Yet Blackpool were still not out of this game which so often they had threatened to lose and then had promised to win.

HOOKED WIDE

Mortensen went away into another wide open space in the Wolverhampton defence in pursuit of Shimwell's long forward pass, was forced away from the direct path to goal, and in the end hooked his shot wide.

The Wanderers were making the pace and making nearly all the attacks, too. The Blackpool defence was still holding, forfeiting a corner on the left flank and immediately afterwards another on the right.

Johnston made one great clearance and then another almost in the jaws of his oppressed goal and Farm another as the ball flew high across his goal as again he fisted it out backwards.

Ten minutes left, and it was again still there for either team to win.

MATTHEWS SHOOTS

Matthews nearly won the game for Blackpool with only seven minutes to go, cut inside from his partner's pass, and instead of passing shot a ball which Williams held brilliantly as he crouched close to the near post.

It was still anybody's game.

Three minutes left, and in spite of all the Wanderers' pressure Blackpool nearly won again as Mortensen went fast after Mudie's forward pass - so fast that he had his centre-half trailing, and in the end, in desperation, Williams, racing out to the penalty area edge, took a flying dive at his feet.

Result:

WOLVES 1 (Walker 9)

BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 26)

COMMENTS ON THE GAME

ANY team that comes away from Wolverhampton these days with something has done something out of the common.

Blackpool did it this afternoon and a point was won on a ground where no Blackpool team has won a match since the war.

It was a point won chiefly because the defence, after being nearly riddled in the first quarter-hour, massed its forces and during the last half-hour played a valiant action in retreat.

One of the stars of this action was Jack Ainscough who comported himself as if he had been in the First Division all his days, unaffected by the game's tempestuous pace, fast into the tackle, definite in everything.

He was one of the stars and Harry Johnston, who never plays finer football than when the tide is rising against his team, was another.

HIGHLIGHT

Yet it was no two-man defence. The highlight of the match was in fact the almost impregnable front this defence ultimately presented everywhere after the Wanderers' forwards early in the afternoon had threatened to engulf it.

Were the forwards never in the game? They were in it a lot without packing the punch the Wanderers possessed, playing, too, the good football any forward line must play with Allan Brown in one position, seldom putting a pass wrong, and in another Stanley Matthews who, closer as was the watch on him today, was always threatening to stampede the Wanderers' defence.

And Stanley Mortensen these days is a raider to be feared, fast on a chance and aggressive all the time.

This, if ever there was one, was a point won by the sweat of the brow, but good football won it, too.

---

NEXT WEEK: HERE NEXT WEEK FOOTBALL'S COSTLIEST FORWARD LINE

FOOTBALL'S "Eldorado" forward line - The highest-priced attack in the country - will be playing at Blackpool next weekend when Sunderland come to town, writes Clifford Greenwood.

Leading will be Trevor Ford, the centre-forward whose transfer from the Villa cost the north-east club nearly £30,000. It will be his second visit to Blackpool this season. The first time he had not a goal, but his centre made the goal which gave the Villa a 1-1 draw.

On one side of him may be Len Shackleton, the will-o'-the-wisp from Yorkshire, who usually scores against Blackpool, and, in fact, in his last two games on the ground has snatched points from Blackpool.

Last season it was a long-range shot and it won the match. A year earlier a late and almost impudent goal gave Sunderland a 3-3 draw when all had seemed lost.

Then there is Ivor Broadis, the forward - and a great forward on his day he can be - whose signature Blackpool at one time coveted when he was at Carlisle, and on the wings there are the talented guerrillas that such accomplished inside forwards require.

Yes, it's quite a forward line, this Sunderland front line squad, calculated at any particular time to explode into devastating action and to explode high into the air the defence facing it.

It is the Sunderland defence that is what the best people call the team's "Achilles heel."

The forwards have scored plenty of goals - and at the price paid for them they ought to score, too - but half-back and full-back lines have given nearly as many away, and so next week Sunderland will come to Blackpool a lot nearer the foot of the table than a team with such a distinguished cast should be.

They will come, I suppose, with plenty of confidence. And so they should. For in four visits to Blackpool since the war Roker teams have won three times - once it was a dramatic 5-0 - and lost only one out of the eight points which have been at stake.

Another team, obviously, that subscribes to Mr. Reginald Dixon's thesis that they do like to be beside the seaside.

---

THE WORST CROWD IN THE LAND?

No it isn’t as bad as that

By Clifford Greenwood

IS THE BLACKPOOL FOOTBALL PUBLIC THE WORST IN THE LAND? ARCHIE LEDBROOKE, WRITING IN THE "DAILY DISPATCH," AFTER THIS WEEK'S CUP REPLAY, THINKS IT IS.

"What a dreadful crowd the Blackpool players have to put up with," he comments. "I suppose there are 92 bad crowds in the Football League, but the lot at Bloomfield-road are surely the worst."

And, reviewing the Cup-tie, he writes:

"They grumbled at Brown - 'too slow' they were shouting. They groused at Perry - 'doesn't know when to part with the ball' they complained.

"They moaned when Mortensen, having dribbled through to the muck and slush in the penalty area, fell over instead of bursting the back of the net. They even criticised Matthews - 'go in and shoot.'"

Archie Ledbrooke is a good friend of mine. I respect him as a football critic. But I think he has some of this a little wrong.

I know whom he has heard lamenting about or denouncing every man in a Blackpool jersey. It's an occupational disease with them. I know where he has heard this criticism.

These critics pretend to be impartial. They are actually the most prejudiced people on the ground.

Chorus of woe

THEY are nearly all in the centre stand and paddock. They are the only people whose comments can be heard in the Blackpool Press box.

There have been times when I have decided that except for the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem there is no place in the whole wide world echoing once a fortnight with such a chorus of misery, woe and vituperation.

The Blackpool club have contemplated action against them.

Only a few weeks ago the club had to print a notice in the programme protesting against the immoderate language of a few of them and threatening reprisals.

But these critics are only a small minority, making the hullabaloo which a minority always seems able to make.

The Blackpool football public in the mass is, I think, as loyal as any other in the land. It stands for hours in queues waiting - not without complaint, but still waiting - for the Cup-tie and big-match tickets.

Storm and tempest

IT huddles under the east-side shelter in storm or tempest. It endures the English winter - and a bit of the autumn and spring, too - on the exposed terraces of the Kop. And it sits in tolerable comfort in the stands, too.

As a public, I know, it was spoiled by the all-star football the Fates - and the RAF - supplied for it during the war.

It is, in any case, a cosmopolitan public, 50 or 60 per cent of it owning its first allegiance to cities and towns far away, Blackpool only the town of its adoption and, therefore, Blackpool and its football team not commanding all its affection.

It is, in my opinion, none the worse for that. It may be critical, but nearly all the time it is intelligently critical.

By contrast, the Anfield crowd, who at times seem almost to resent the presence of the other team on the field, never is intelligently critical, and never, apparently, wants to be.

There is, in short, not such a lot wrong at Blackpool. It is a pity that a few malcontents should give the crowd such a bad name.

And now Stockport

NOW, after the defeat of Charlton, come Stockport County in the Cup a fortnight today.

The County will be the fifth Third Division or non-League team to visit Blackpool for a Cup-tie since the war. The other four, Chester, Colchester, Southend United and Doncaster Rovers, were shown the exit, politely but firmly.

Now, in spite of all the good reports I hear of the football being played by the County - and nobody, after the third round results is inclined to dismiss Third Division football as a low-grade article - I think the team from Edgeley Park which Mr. Andrew Beattie, the ex-Scottish and Preston full-back, has recruited, will go the way of the others.

I know that Mr. Beattie and a few of his team, George Dick, the ex-Blackpool forward, among them, saw the Charlton replay, and after it were reluctantly compelled to conclude that it would be difficult for the County to win on January 27.

Star show

IT was interesting, incidentally, to hear the comments of the newspaper writers in the Press box who were watching Stanley Matthews for the first time this season.

"Why," said one of them, "he's made a comeback today."

"Why," said another, "if he always played as he's playing in this match, he couldn't be left out of the England team."

I had to tell them that the comeback had been made three months ago, that this game he played against Charlton was merely a carbon copy of half a dozen others, nay, a dozen others he has played this season.

They could not credit it, could not think all this magic had been produced week after week. They are wiser now. And so, as a consequence, the England selectors may be.

Mortensen, too

THIS Cup-tie was a great game for the other Stanley, too, for Stanley Mortensen, another forward who was being prematurely written off by a few of the writers who after Wednesday's match were dredging the dictionary for new adjectives in his praise.

Mortensen has a remarkable, probably unparalleled, record in Cup football.

In the 17 Cup-ties he has played for Blackpool since the war - the only Cup-ties in which, to be exact, he has ever played - he has missed scoring in only three of them - the Stoke replay in 1949 and the Doncaster Rovers and the first of the Wolves' ties last year - and in those 17 matches has put 19 goals to his name.

Not even the greatest of all the Cup scoring forwards ever did that.

Model transfer

THEY come and go. One Scot has left Blackpool this week. Another may soon be going, if he has not gone by the time these words are printed.

The Andy McCall transfer was a model. There was no secret bargaining in it, no long auction sale.

The little Scot - given leave of absence to visit his father, who has been in a Scottish hospital for nearly five months - was recalled by telegram, walked into the Blackpool ground late on Tuesday afternoon direct from the station.

He was told that the clubs had agreed on terms - and the fee is not the fantastic figure of £15,000 one paper reported, but not, I think, a lot less than £10,000 - talked in private in Manager Joe Smith's office to the two delegates from West Bromwich, and, inside five minutes, came out and said, "I've signed."

Happy here

HE said later, when I talked to him, "You know I'm happy at Blackpool, but in my own interests I'd be stupid not to take the chance of a first team position - and the higher money that goes with it - somewhere else."

Of course he would. Good luck, Andy!

Blackpool's record in the First Division a year ago was:

P   W D L F  A Pts

26 13 9 4 36 21 35

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VALLEY HAS ITS “LITTLE AFRICA"

BILL PERRY had a happy half-hour after the Charlton Cup tie in London, writes Clifford Greenwood.

He walked into "Little Africa."

Where is it? It's the Valley, where Charlton play.

There are no fewer than eight South Africans on the Charlton staff today - and there would have been a ninth if Manager Jimmy Seed had not been beaten to the signing of Bill Perry by Blackpool's emissary out in the Union.

One of the eight, Dudley Forbes, the wing-half, played in the two Cup-ties against Blackpool.

Another, Syd O'Linn, who was Charlton's best forward in the League match at Bloomfield-road last August, has since had a cartilage operation.

There are now 30 South Africans in English football. Some are here today and gone tomorrow, among them the forward who graded for Birmingham's first team within a month of his arrival and left for home within the next month.

I told Bill Perry that it was probably the English winter which depressed them. "It could be," he admitted, but was a lot too polite to express his own opinions about our famous climate.

***

 - And its good sportsmen

I HAVE commented before, and now I will comment again, on the good sportsmanship of the Charlton people.

Last season, after Blackpool had won at the Valley and taken two points from the Athletic which the London club could scarcely afford to lose, there were no lamentations.

Instead they said, "Well, Blackpool deserved to win - and that's all there is to it."

Notice now the note in the programme for the visit of Blackpool in last weekend's Cup-tie:

"May the team most worthy of passing a milestone on the way to Wembley succeed in its ambition. No good sportsman would wish otherwise."

But only good sportsmen would put that in print before the match.

***

AT the Charlton Cup-tie in London were Mr. and Mrs. Eric Longden. That's not news. It is seldom that they miss a Blackpool match at home and not often they miss one away, either.

When I told the Blackpool team that they were in the next coach in the train coming home the name meant nothing to the younger men in the side. Yet, by a coincidence, it was 20 years almost to the day that the tall Eric Longden played against Blackpool in a Cup-tie - a game which persuaded Blackpool to sign him.

And good service he gave the club, too. He came as an inside forward - one of the tallest for the position ever to play for the club - but he finished as a wing half-back.

Yes, it was 20 years last weekend - or near as makes no difference - since Blackpool went to Hull in a Cup-tie, won 2-1, and in the losing team saw a forward of such talent that they signed him a few weeks later.

***

I HEAR good reports of Geoffrey Bradford, the forward who after trials with Blackpool and Blackburn Rovers is now at Eastville, playing for Bristol Rovers, and, according to these reports, playing uncommonly good football, too.

"Strong, fast, and particularly quick off the mark, he was a live wire, and kept at it all the time, but was out of luck when he hit a post," wrote one commentator about his game in a recent Cup-tie for the Rovers.

I never saw Bradford play in this part of the world, but I was often told that he was big, strong and promising, and there were a few people, as I know, who regretted it when he went to new pastures.

***

WATCHING the Charlton-Blackpool Cup-tie at the Valley last weekend was the Swedish amateur centre-forward, Hans Jeppson, who has been signed by the Athletic. Was he impressed?

"It was fast football," he said, "faster than I have ever seen it played in my country. But I am not so sure - is it? - about its quality."

Nor, to be frank, was I. It was, this first match between the teams, one of those games which is called a typical Cup-tie. And that is a phrase which covers a multitude of sins.

***

FROM 43,737 - £3,900

THERE is gold in that there Cup, but there is not all that gold in it when you play at Charlton.

Such a big proportion of the accommodation at the Valley is on the terraces that even with 43,737 people at the Blackpool Cup-tie a week ago they took only £3,900.

Did I hear somebody say "Why only? ... It's a lot of money"?

I know it is, but at Derby, to take only one match, there were fewer than 25,000 people past the turnstiles, and yet the receipts were only £100 less.

***

And talking of shots -

LATEST little experiment in football reporting by Mr. George Sheard, the Blackpool Press steward, was given its first trial in the Charlton Cup-tie.

He tabulated the shots at goal by both lines of forwards. It is surprising how often forwards sometimes do shoot - as his figures reveal. Blackpool won 12 corners during the match - a total high above the average - and the shots totalled 29, which is also high above the average, representing about one shot every three minutes.

Bill Perry had eight, Stan Mortensen seven, Stanley Matthews - yes, that is the name - four, Allan Brown five, and Jack Mudie one.

Harry Johnston and Hugh Kelly, the wing halves, completed the total with three and one each respectively.

And the Charlton forwards? They won only four corners and had only 15 shots all the afternoon.

***

BLACKPOOL’S BEST

I WAS asked the other day in which match during the first half of the season Blackpool played their finest football.

Assuming that goals are the alpha and omega of the game, the Middlesbrough and Arsenal games stood out as high as the Tower. But for football in the strict academic sense, I do not think the team during Part I of 1950-51 ever equalled the game played for an hour against Burnley at Bloomfield-road in the second match of the season.

This was football played almost to perfection in midfield, with the ball on the move all the time, every pass finding its man, and the forwards and wing half-backs in complete accord.

It produced only one goal, and in the end Burnley won the match by scoring twice in the last five minutes. But as a football team Blackpool had a great hour during that August evening.

***

SO Harry Kinsell is still on the move. I am surprised.

This full-back who played for Blackpool in wartime football as a West Bromwich Albion reserve was considered of almost England ranking before the war ended. Yet during recent times he has left the Albion, gone to Bolton, and on to Reading, and now has signed for West Ham United.

It seems to make little sense, for if ever there was a full-back of almost classical accomplishment it was Harry Kinsell when he was at Blackpool.

I know that Blackpool were often on the verge of bidding for him, and in fact, according to report, made one approach to the Albion which was immediately rejected.

Kinsell is still, I am convinced, too good a full-back - and still comparatively young, too - not to be settling with one club.

***

Guest night

SOME folk have all the luck.

Guests at a recent carnival organised by the progressive Wrens FC were several Blackpool players and their wives and sweethearts.

And what happened? One of the guests, Bill Perry, won a basket of fruit. Another, Mrs. Andy McCall, won a chicken at the whist drive.

***

He kept it so quiet

SOME people are so modest.

I wrote last week that Mr. J. W. Chambers, of Westmorland-avenue, had called at the office with one of the programmes published for the Football League-Irish League match at Blackpool on September 23, 1931, writes Clifford Greenwood.

Mr. Chambers came and went all in a minute. He never mentioned that he was the outside-right - W. J. Chambers, of Coleraine - who played for the Irish League team in the match.

The Irish team, defeated 4-0 but as game and defiant to the last minute as teams in the emerald jerseys always are, was:

A. Gardiner (Cliftonville); McNinch (Ballymena), Mitchell (Coleraine); Edwards (Linfield), Jones (Linfield), McCleery (Linfield), capt.; Chambers (Coleraine), McCracken (Linfield), Bambrick (Linfield), Borland (Glentoran) and Tierney (Celtic).

Few people knew that one of this gallant eleven now lives in Blackpool.

***

MISSED THE GOAL

I KNOW one man who did not see Blackpool's late equalising goal at Charlton last weekend.

Who was it? One of the Blackpool players who went down to London to watch the match.

He watched it until five minutes from time. Then, with Blackpool losing and attacking in vain, he confessed "I couldn't stand it any longer." He went under the stand. It was a commissionaire who told him that Stanley Mortensen had scored and that it was 2-2.

"I went back and saw the rest," he confesses. "But," he says, "it's often harder watching than playing." It is when you have such a loyalty to a club as this grand clubman has for Blackpool.

***

Blackpool are third favourites

BOOKMAKERS are now quoting Blackpool as 8-1 third favourites to win the FA Cup.

Arsenal, at 6-1, are favourites and Wolves second favourites at 7-1. Manchester United are 9-1.

The other clubs in the First Division are from 20 to 33-1.

FOOTNOTE - Anyone wishing to back Stockport County can get 1,000-1.

***

CUP TICKETS TODAY - For season holders

ALL stand and centre paddock season ticket-holders were able to obtain tickets for the fourth round Cup-tie against Stockport County, to be played at Bloomfield-road on January 27, during and after this afternoon's Central League match.

Season ticket-holders unable to get their Cup-tie tickets today will be able to obtain them from Monday to Friday next week between 9 a.m.-12.30 p.m. and 2 p.m.-4 p.m.

The general public will be able to purchase their tickets at the ground a week tomorrow (Sunday, January 21) at 11 a.m.

NOT BY POST

It is pointed out that no personal applications from members of the public can be accepted before that date and that under no circumstances can postal applications be accepted.

Ticket prices for the Cup-tie will be the same as for ordinary first team matches - 7s. 6d., 5s. 6d. and 5s. for the stands, 4s. 6d. for the centre paddock and 3s. 6d. for the wing and south paddocks.

All stands and paddocks will be reserved.