21 April 1951 Sheffield Wednesday 3 Blackpool 1

McKNIGHT GOES OFF INJURED - MUDIE ALSO HURT

Blackpool's gallant 10 beaten after great fight

SECOND HALF RALLY

Sheffield Wednesday 3, Blackpool 1

By “Clifford Greenwood”

BLACKPOOL THESE DAYS ALWAYS SEEM TO BE PLAYING IN MATCHES FOR BIG STAKES.

A team which in seven days was committed to the ordeal of a Cup Final might have reasonably expected a game this afternoon which could be taken at half-pace. That was not the fate of Blackpool, who came to Sheffield this afternoon to meet a Wednesday team offered, after a midweek defeat of Derby County, a gambler's chance of escape from a relegation which seemed inescapable a few weeks ago.

The presence of nearly 30,000 people in the mid-April sunshine half an hour before the kick-off was not, in these circumstances, unexpected.

Inside another 20 minutes this attendance was soaring to 40,000.

The last time I saw a Blackpool team on this ground was as long ago as January, 1947, when the Wednesday won a third-round Cup-tie 4-1 on a field as thick in mud as the fun fair at Battersea.

Today the recent rains had left the pitch so fresh that not for months have I seen one with such a lot of grass still on it - almost a replica of the field on which Blackpool may be playing at Wembley next week

RICKETT PLAYS

The Wednesday announced the men who won three days ago, among them Walter Rickett, the former Blackpool forward, and Jackie Sewell, who has the questionable distinction of being the world's highest priced footballer.

Blackpool fielded the Wembley defence, with a forward line which included George McKnight and Rex Adams.

Teams:

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY. - McIntosh; Henry, Finney, Jackson, Curtis; Packard, Witcomb; Sewell, Woodhead, Froggatt, Rickett.

BLACKPOOL. - Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Adams, Mudie, Mortensen, McKnight, Perry.

Referee: Mr. C. Fletcher (Northwich).

THE GAME

First half

Blackpool's duck mascot was so surprised by the appearance of grass inside the centre circle that, pecking away at this unfamiliar ration, it could not be persuaded to leave the field, and in the end was photographed by the Press, with the referee and the two captains grouped about it.

Nearly 50,000 people were massed inside the gates when Harry Johnston won the toss and the aid of a fresh wind.

It was an amazing opening. In exactly 40 seconds the Wednesday were in front. One Blackpool attack was repelled.

WOODHEAD swooped on to a forward pass, centre-half Hayward was in front of him, lost the bouncing ball.

On went the Wednesday leader, cut inside, and, as the ball was still bouncing, shot it so fast and low that as Farm fell sideways to his right at it, it hit his clenched fists and cannoned over the line inches inside the near post.

That sent Hillsborough's 50,000 mad. It sent the Wednesday mad, too.

FIGHTING FOOTBALL

Walter Rickett won a corner by hurling himself at man and ball, and taking both away.

That was the sort of football - fighting, desperate football - which the Wednesday played everywhere for a time. Blackpool went reeling backwards under the all-out assault.

Only three minutes of this tempest had raged when trainer John Lynas was out to George McKnight, who, the first time he went into a tackle, came out of it limping, and hobbled over the line and then on to a wing.

Blackpool had not built one raid when this happened - not one until Jackie Mudie sold three men a "dummy" before shooting a ball which hit another man and cannoned away.

Of the Blackpool forwards there was for a time scarcely a sign, with the line again reduced to four men and a half-pace passenger on one wing.

TOKEN RAIDS

Blackpool face keen tackling

The early ferocity of the Wednesday's football had begun to abate with 10 minutes gone, but the Blackpool front line could still make only token raids on a Sheffield defence as fast into the tackle as a pack of terriers.

Mortensen twice shot wide at the end of one raid opened by Johnston, the first time a pass to him had found him instead of the wrong man. Came the 10th minute, and with the pace and the tackling relentless as ever came another hullabaloo.

Jackie Sewell cut into Blackpool's goal area at a great pace, fell under Johnston's tackle, and released an excited demand for a penalty as the wing half climbed on to his feet, the ball beneath him and the ball at last being cleared by him.

Immediately, in the next minute in football still of a tempestuous pace, the Wednesday goal had its first escape.

OVER THE BAR

Two fast passes by the Blackpool front line produced a high centre.

The ball was curling away from the leaping McIntosh when up to it leaped Curtis, who headed it high over his own bar, with confusion all about him.

Another minute, and Johnston took a chance with a back pass. Sewell darted on to it and shot it at Farm, who jerked out a leg to repel it.

Another minute, and as Mudie went fast in pursuit of a forward pass three men crossed his path, two of them felling him in a sandwich tackle.

Mr. Fletcher refused a penalty which appeared to be inevitable. It could have been 1-1. Instead, a couple of minutes later, in the 18th minute of the half, it was 2-0.

LEAD INCREASED

Woodhead pass makes a Sewell goal

This was a goal built by one unhesitating forward pass.

Woodhead made the pass, glided it into such an open space that when SEWELL accepted it, this £34,000 forward was left in a position where a free transfer man might have scored, mastering the bouncing ball as the Blackpool goalkeeper came out to him, and in the next split second shooting it past him.

Nobody could accuse the Wednesday of pulling their punches - and nobody could expect the Wednesday, in these particular circumstances, to pull them.

One consequence was that between the 20th and the 25th minute Blackpool had two more casualties.

The first was Stanley Mortensen, who, catapulting to earth under a tackle, lay still, and in the end was carried off the field.

He was back inside a couple of minutes, but before another three had gone Jackie Mudie took the count.

He was not taken off but had to hobble on to a wing, and with half an hour gone Blackpool had a skeleton forward line, with the two inside men in the wing positions.

CHANCES MISSED

The Wednesday were still raiding at the rate of half a dozen attacks to every one by Blackpool, but after that second goal few scoring positions offered themselves, and two of them, in any case, were squandered as Rickett shot high over the bar from one position and Sewell in another allowed Shimwell to race across him before making a dramatic clearance.

Farm held superbly a shot by Froggatt, clutching it with both hands under the bar as it was rising at him.

Within another minute, too, Hayward made a brilliant clearance as Sewell tore in on him after a forward pass.

Blackpool were being outplayed as Blackpool had been outplayed almost continuously except for a few minutes before the Wednesday's second goal.

The defence, with the first half-hour gone, was assuming some semblance of its usual solidity, and, in fact, even with two crippled forwards, Blackpool were in the game as the Wednesday had never allowed them to be in it earlier.

SHEFFIELD ESCAPES

No raid led anywhere for a time until the Wednesday's defence, always a shade excitable under pressure, lost Shimwell's long free-kick and with it nearly a goal.

Twice afterwards the Blackpool left wing made the sort of raids it had never been making during the first half-hour, and in the half's last minute a two-man raid by Mortensen and Johnston ended in the wing half losing the ball, deceived by its baffling bounce, in a scoring position.

Two goals lost and two casualties - not a good half for Blackpool.

Half-time: Sheffield Wed 2, Blackpool 0.

Second half

Blackpool reappeared with 10 men, George McKnight left in the dressing room and Mudie still an outside-right.

Still, no longer against the wind, this under-strength Blackpool had plenty of the game in the half's first two minutes before nearly losing a goal in the third.

A free-kick against Shimwell was crossed from far out on the left wing.

Farm went up to it, and, impeded, only half hit it out, leaving Sewell to dart to the loose ball and volley it high over the bar, with the Blackpool goalkeeper lost to view in a mass of men.

That the Wednesday defence were fated to make heavy weather against the wind was soon revealed. Twice inside a minute, in fact, early in the half a goal was nearly surrendered, GAPING GOAL The first time Sheffield lost a flying ball which eluded Mudie within half a dozen yards of a gaping goal.

The next time, as a high centre raked his goal, McIntosh leaped at it, clutched at it, lost it, and fell as his two full-backs and his centre-half hurled themselves into the gap and cleared the ball off the empty line.

This Wednesday defence was wide open to raids, even by a four-man forward line, and lost a goal in the twelfth minute of the half.

The raid came on the right wing. Understudy wing forward Mudie crossed it as if he had been playing as a wing forward for years.

MORTENSEN darted fast to it, and hooked it between two men, as he fell, for his thirtieth goal in the First Division this season.

All that happened afterwards was that three times in five minutes the excitable Sheffield forwards ran full-tilt into an offside trap while Blackpool played calm and confident football in complete contrast to the panic raging everywhere in the Wednesday's game after the loss of this goal.

NEARLY 2-2

Shimwell free-kick hits post

Sixteen minutes of the half had gone, and all the Wednesday's earlier command had gone, too, when it was nearly 2-2.

A free-kick was given - wrongly, I think - against Rickett for a tackle on Mortensen.

Shimwell took the free-kick 40 yards out, crossed a ball so fast that it passed the pack of men leaping at it, hit the inside of the far post, cannoned out, and was headed barely over the bar by Kelly as the wing half flew at it.

This was great football by 10 men. The Wednesday for a time were losing everywhere as earlier they had been winning everywhere.

Except when Hayward, in a flying leap, headed Sewell's fast centre out for a corner all the punch and decision had gone out of the Wednesday's front line.

With 20 minutes left, Mudie reverted to his usual position.

It was still a Blackpool forward line of four men, but it was still a forward line playing, with the wind at its heels, football threatening to snatch a precious point from this desperate Sheffield team.

MASSED DEFENCE

The Wednesday massed no fewer than nine men in their goal area for a Blackpool corner as the Blackpool raids continued - raids interrupted only by two fast forays by young Allan Finney, who twice in rapid succession crossed high centres which Farm held as a couple of men flew past him into the back of the net.

With the game in its last 10 minutes a little of the earlier fury of the Wednesday's raids revealed itself again, attack after attack hammering on a Blackpool defence which repelled them all with an almost nonchalant confidence.

There was every sign at this time, as the game approached its end, that Blackpool were taking no chances and playing out time without another casualty.

Seven minutes from time the Wednesday settled it.

Young Finney made the position, and WITCOMB raced into it to shoot a brilliant goal from 30 yards.

The ball rose fast as a rocket, hitting the underside of the bar before cannoning into the back of the net to a thunderous cheer which was probably audible in the city's centre.

Result:

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 3 (Woodhead 1, Sewell 18, Witcomb 83)

BLACKPOOL 1 (Mortensen 57)

COMMENTS ON THE GAME

ANOTHER prospective inside-forward for Wembley has been lost and a match has been lost, too - only the second defeat for Blackpool since Boxing Day.

That is about all there is to report from this turbulent affair at Hillsborough.

Blackpool made a match of it after being apparently doomed to defeat in the first 45 minutes.

Eleven men instead of 10 - 11 men all out for a point - might at least have won one, but as a game it was not to be taken too seriously - except by the Wednesday, who took it very seriously indeed, and after an utter panic-ridden fade-out for half an hour after half-time deserved to win it.

The Blackpool defence took a long time to combat the Wednesday's hell-for-leather raids.

When it began to present something of its accustomed appearance Hayward was great in it and, in fact, the half-back line had a match of real quality.

FORWARDS' CHALLENGE

The four forwards - for to be frank, Blackpool never had five - played a lot of planned football for 30 minutes after the interval. The aggressive challenges of Mortensen always made the line, even depleted, a force commanding respect.

On the left wing Perry was comfortably building raids, and Mudie was never out of the game even as a wing forward.

Blackpool were probably content to finish this game with 10 men, forgetting the loss of points. The attendance was 51,475.

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MEN OF THE NORTH-EAST YOU'LL BE SEEING AT WEMBLEY 

Newcastle faith in victory is still unshaken

By A. T. Davies

Our Newcastle Football Correspondent

NEWCASTLE UNITED ARE SECOND FAVOURITES IN THE CUP FINAL WITH BLACKPOOL AT WEMBLEY NEXT SATURDAY - AND THEY KNOW IT.

If Manager Joe Smith, of Blackpool, has been receiving confidential reports on their home games since the semi-final replays he must inevitably assume that they have been kidding, or that their progress to the Cup Final is the biggest fluke in football history.

If he is wise, he will settle for a strong element of truth in both theories. Newcastle may not exactly have been kidding, but they certainly have not been all out in every game, and luck played its part in their Cup games.

But there never was a team more utterly confident of winning the Cup.

BANKING ON LUCK!

DO not let Blackpool think the sorry League draws and defeats have given these Tynesiders an inferiority complex - and it would be well to remember that way back in 1932 and 1924 it was luck that pulled Newcastle United through to odds-against Cup wins over Arsenal and Aston Villa.

Luck may mean nothing to Blackpool, but it is an inspiring talisman to Newcastle United. They bank on it, and thrive. Their luck is in

Says director Stan Seymour: "We shall win the Cup. There isn't a shadow of doubt about that. It's our year, and the players know it. Recent defeats mean nothing, because it was soon realised that we could not hope to win Cup and championship. There just had to be a reaction - but see us at Wembley!"

Skipper Joe Harvey, dark-chinned Yorkshireman, whose sense of humour takes 90 minutes off on match days, says: "Win? Yes, the boys are set on it. Nobody has ever thought that we might be beaten."

Matthews menace

AND what about Stan Matthews? For weeks the players have been reading, and hearing terror tales about what Stan will do to them, and if their hair remains uncurled it is not because they are not among his most ardent admirers.

The big job, of course, goes to Bob Corbett, Newcastle's wartime left-back, a director Seymour discovery, who worked in the pit until a couple of years ago and has never raised a complaint or asked for a transfer even when there seemed no hope of promotion to the first team.

As recently as last season any club could have had Bob for a moderate four-figure fee.

Even now nobody on Tyneside expects him to master the master, though when Matthews was playing for Stoke he said, after a game against Corbett, that he had never seen a more promising young back.

But the generous Stan has said the same thing since then about Newcastle's Irish left-back Alf McMichael, and about other players. Such praise gives them hope and encouragement, and adds to the Matthews roll of fans.

Respect, no fear

BLACKPOOL folk may be pleased to know that though Bob Corbett never hopes to write his name in imperishable letters in the records of football he will provide Stan with an opponent after his own heart.

Corbett will do his darndest, and when his tackle hits thin air he will join in the laugh. He has respect for Matthews but no fear, and if his best isn't good enough he'll accept defeat without resentment.

After all, ten years underground in a coal mine builds character.

Newcastle hope that somehow they will handle the Matthews menace by covering the centre, so it's up to Stan Mortensen - and Frank Brennan. The Mortensen-Brennan battle may be the key to the game. 

Brennan is not unbeatable, but it's mighty hard to get past him.

Little Napoleon

THE man who has made Newcastle's forward line is Ernie Taylor, football's little Napoleon, who is not only 5ft. 4in. in height but built to correct proportions.

Newcastle have tried hard enough to sell him and got near to it when Hull City jibbed at the fee, and Ernie has demanded his transfer only this very season.

But it is Taylor, not Milburn, who has engineered the attacks that have brought the goals. Milburn, in his best form, rates among the great centre-forwards of football history.

But the little man designs the plan. In the air he hasn't a chance. On the ground he has few, if any, equals in the game today. Not the Joe Smith type, but he can shoot at that.

Skill on wing

AND full-back Shimwell may find himself with a more exasperating task than Corbett against Newcastle's Bobby Mitchell, the outside-left who hesitates, halts, drags a foot, and tiptoes like a cat in water, but gets through with the ball.

Newcastle only wish that he would not go looking for new opponents to beat, and hesitate so fatally when the goalmouth is yawning wide in front.

For the rest of the Newcastle side, from skipper Joe Harvey to goalkeeper Jack Fairbrother, all that need be said is that they know what is wanted and have the enthusiasm and competence for the job.

FOOTNOTE. - There is one certain way to beat Newcastle United in any game. But Blackpool must find that out for themselves. Fair enough?

They can hit back

AS a team Newcastle can achieve tremendous pace by their long passing game which riddled Wolves for 20 minutes at Sheffield but did not produce a goal, and one of their greatest assets is their courage after a reverse.

Bolton Wanderers, Bristol Rovers, and Wolves all got in front, but were beaten.

For once the first goal in a Cup Final may not be decisive - if Blackpool score it.

NOTE. - This is a Newcastle opinion. Blackpool probably have other views.

Cup Final in the air

THE Cup Final between Blackpool and Newcastle United at Wembley next Saturday is to be broadcast in the Light Programme.

As in former years the BBC will go over to Wembley half-an-hour before the kick-off for a description of the scene and community singing.

Commentators for the match will be Raymond Glendenning and Alan Clarke with summaries at half-time and full-time by Charles Buchan, the former English international, and Henry Rose.

Cup train - no need to change

For the convenience of Blackpool passengers returning from the Cup Final at Wembley British Railways have arranged for a through coach to Blackpool to be attached to the 10 a.m. train from Euston Station on Sunday, April 29.

This will obviate the necessity of passengers changing at Crewe.

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IT COULD HAVE SO EASILY HAVE BEEN THE DOUBLE

December 16 a date to remember

By Clifford Greenwood

WHEN this Blackpool season - the greatest in the club's history by every analysis - is put under the microscope, two dates will stand out in it as high as the Tower over the town,

One, inevitably, will be April 28, which is Cup Final day. The other - and few people have yet appreciated its significance - will be December 16.

That was the day when the Spurs came to town, and, on a pitch fit for a little elementary alpioneering but not strictly fit for football at all, avenged the first-day-of-the-season defeat at White Hart Lane by winning 1-0.

Two games only have Blackpool lost at home this season, and, that, by the cruel irony of chance, had to be one of them.

One realises now what would be happening today, the greater tension there would be in the air, the even bigger banner-heads there would be in the papers, if Blackpool, instead of losing that game, had won it.

The difference

If then, it had been 1-0 for Blackpool instead of 1-0 for the Spurs the position at the top of the First Division today would have been materially different.

For, instead of leading the field by four points, the London team would have been in front by only two, with Blackpool and Manchester United separated by only that distance from their tails.

See the headlines now?

"BLACKPOOL FOR THE DOUBLE!" And Blackpool, entering this afternoon's match at Sheffield in such circumstances, would have been nearer the double than any team has been for a generation.

Wembley plans

AND now for Wembley!

The itinerary for the weekend is published this week. It differs from the 1948 programme chiefly in the fact that the directorate and management have presumably decided that there is sufficient in the old keep-out-of-the-South doctrine for the team to be going down to the capital a day later than they went three years ago.

In 1948 the men were at Ascot by Thursday afternoon. This time they will not leave Blackpool until the 10 a.m. train from Central on Friday, and are to be billeted for the night at a hotel only three miles from the Stadium.

The coach taking them to Wembley will not have to leave until an hour and a quarter before the kick-off, will reach the Stadium at 2-15, and, as a result, the pre-match prologue, which has torn a few nerves to tatters in its time, will be reduced to the minimum.

In the town close to London's outskirts where the team will spend Final eve the players will probably go to a suburban music-hall or cinema on Friday evening, and, in fact, it will be as nearly as it can be a replica of a dozen other Friday evenings during the season.

The team prefer it that way. They were asked, and this was their choice.

Their captain, Harry Johnston, who may yet be hailed - and deservedly on contemporary form - as England's captain before this season's end, will have to leave them on Friday to go into London as chief guest of the Football Writers' Association for his presentation of a silver statuette as the "Footballer of the Year."

From their wives and sweethearts, who will also be travelling on the 10 a.m. train on Friday, the players will be separated, too, until they meet at the club's customary London headquarters, the Grand Hotel in Southampton Row, after the match.

Homecoming

THERE will follow the little private celebration - and it will be a celebration, win or lose - at the Cafe Royal - and a day in London, with the lady guests returning on the 10 a.m. train on Sunday - and the team on the 10-40 a.m. from Euston on Monday.

Shortly before 3-30 the players will leave the train at Preston, snatch half an hour for tea, and, with or without the Cup, join a motor-coach which will bring them by the coast road into Blackpool and the Winter Gardens banquet which has been substituted for the giant Mayfair fiesta of 1948.

That is the weekend's blueprint - everything in it except the result - and the second half of it destined to be considerably revised if after extra time there should be a draw and the necessity of a replay at Villa Park in a match with a five o'clock kick-off the following Wednesday.

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Happy family

PRESENT at the match, by the way, will be every professional and amateur on the club's staff, the groundsmen and everybody else in Blackpool's backroom squad. Guests of the club, they are to go by train to London on Saturday morning and return in the evening.

Yes, they are all one happy family and treated as such at Blackpool these days.

How many people will be there at the match? The total is 99,636, and the ticket issue is 5,296 at two guineas, 14,064 at one guinea, 14,219 at half-a-guinea, 9,812 at 7s. 6d., and 55,195 at 3s., with a mere 1,050 as complimentaries.

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Good luck! They’re all saying it

Messages of good will to the Blackpool team next Saturday afternoon at Wembley flood my mail, writes Clifford Greenwood. They come from all parts of the world, from a variety of unexpected sources.

There have been air-mail letters from E. Elliott, who still calls himself a "True Spion Kopite," in spite of his present exile in Queensland, Australia, and from such outposts as RAF Changi, Singapore, where Flight Sergeant H. Gallimore writes for a little colony of Blackpool and Fylde men serving in Malaya.

There is a note from Geoff Kirkham, who writes for himself and a few others in Katong, Singapore, and from the faithful of 45 Mess in HMS Unicorn, who in spite of their ship's distant patrols in foreign waters, are in constant contact with this writer.

Mr. R. H. Bonney writes from Histon and recalls the long-ago days when he watched Blackpool football at Raikes Hall - "We could see the games," he writes, "from our bedroom windows in Hornby Road" - and there is a message from Jock Richmond, the former Lytham goalkeeper, who is living in Toronto these days and reports that he is still playing football.

And from one Blackpool home comes a bulletin from the entire Shakespeare family in Brooklyne Avenue. Seldom has a club commanded such loyalty on the eve of one of its greatest days.

AND NOW THE REFS’ OWN CLUB

IT will be an interesting reunion, its repetitive theme song, "Fancy meeting you!" when the Cup Final referees meet in Blackpool next month to form their own exclusive little club.

Membership will be confined to men who have won the supreme honour of being selected to act as judge and a one-man jury all in one in a Cup Final.

Mr. Bert Fogg, of Bolton, one of the best of the line, who these days is a sports journalist and often in the Blackpool Press box, was telling me all about it when he came to town for the Middlesbrough match last weekend.

Among the old brigade will be Mr. J. T. Howcroft and Mr. Jim Mason, names still recited almost in reverential awe by the generation who knew them.

There will be the contemporaries there, too, among them, it is hoped, Mr. C. J. Barrick, of Northampton, who had the Blackpool - Manchester United Final three years ago, and Mr.

W. Ling, the Cambridgeshire schoolmaster, who will have his passport to membership after he has taken next week's Wembley match.

Headquarters of the inaugural meetings will be the Continental Hotel, and the sessions will last three days from May 12 to 14.

The club will afterwards meet once a year, probably on Cup Final Eve.

***

So look out, Newcastle!

COMMENTS on the England-Scotland international by "J.W.T.," who was once on "The Evening Gazette" staff:

"I shudder to think what will happen to Newcastle in the Final if Harry Johnston and the two Stanleys reproduce this form with their own club players.

"Johnston was the defender of the day and saved England time and again in an otherwise mediocre rearguard...

"Stanley Mortensen probably never had a rougher 90 minutes or was in a more gory battle... A knight-without-armour who often panicked the Scottish defence with his alarmingly swift and insidious thrusts, typical of the two armour-piercing strokes which led to the Hassall and Finney goals.

"The all-too-obvious fact that Scotland went into a dither each time a pass seeped through to Stanley Matthews should have caused England to have used him more than they did, a tragic error for which they paid in the end, despite the fact of Wilf Mannion being off for 80 minutes.

"Whatever changes the selectors desire, they could hardly be in the three Blackpool-held positions. Each man gets pass marks from me."

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AND HERE'S A FORECAST-IN VERSE

STILL they come - verses about the Blackpool Cup team and the Cup Final. What is it about Wembley that inspires people to verse - and worse?

A couple of issues of this paper would be required to print half the poems that have cascaded into this department since Blackpool won the semi-final replay at Goodison Park. Space will not permit the printing of them.

But space must allow a few extracts from one offering by a Briercliffe Avenue (Marton) contributor. For his verses are a preview of the Final, and, according to it, Bill Perry scores in the 15th minute and inevitably Stanley Mortensen later in the day, and Jackie Mudie, too, and Blackpool win 3-0.

In fact, when the third goal came,

Morty slipped forward and just like a brother

Passed it to Mudie, who netted another.

And that is the end of our glad epistle

For there's the ref blowing the final whistle.

Yet, making it different from all the others, there is a brief epilogue, and the epilogue in two lines, which must rank among the saddest words written or spoken by man, is:

But alas and alack, we were not there.

Because there were no tickets to spare.

***

MET Tom Buchan in town the other day.

I never meet him and exchange a few words with him without thinking he is probably one of the unluckiest players ever to wear a Blackpool jersey.

Every time he graded for the first team he was on the casualty list within a month and sometimes within a week. Everything went wrong for him. And yet there was a time when he was promising to become - and might, if the fates had been kinder, have become - one of the illustrious line of wing half-backs bred at Blackpool, nearly all without the payment of a fee, during the last 20 years.

Tom is still living in Blackpool and playing for Wigan Athletic, the team in whose front line Bob Finan's grand career has at last come to an end.

He seems happy enough, too.

For a man whom fame constantly and capriciously eluded in the years when fame is won, is, in fact, a lot more content than a few folk in other walks of life would be.

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***

In five words - a tribute

HE was standing by himself under the arch of the little stand which spans the south-west corner at Bloomfield Road. When I approached him he said: "It awakes a few memories when I look out there!"

He has played his last game at Blackpool, but, because he played some of his greatest games for Blackpool, he has not been forgotten, and never, I hope, will be, in these parts.

Louis Cardwell was never one of the game's darlings of fortune. At the peak of his career, not long after he had left his home town of Blackpool for Manchester City, the war came, and the war sent Louis into remote parts of the earth where no football was played, where there was no £2 a week to be earned in match fees, nowhere at all where he could practise his talent.

Yet you never heard him complaining.

When I met him the other day gazing out at the field where he made his name, where he played his first games as a centre-forward before becoming a £7,000 centre-half he said merely: "It's all in the luck of the game!"

I am glad to know that on the day when George Farm was honoured last autumn for his 100th successive appearance for Blackpool there was a little ceremony in one of the Blackpool

offices which has, strangely, never been reported.

Mr. Harry Evans, the Blackpool chairman, was there, and Mr. Richard Seed, the hon. secretary. And so was Louis Cardwell.

They gave Louis a watch which had this inscription on the back: "To a good club man."

That said everything in five words about Louis Cardwell.

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TICKETS - AND NO QUEUES

DISTRIBUTION of the Blackpool Football Supporters' Club allocation of Cup Final tickets went through without a hitch on Monday evening, with no queues.

Thanks are due to the Co-operative Society officials and staff responsible for the arrangements, writes "J.M.S."

The Marton branch have certainly some quick workers. They have a good programme in hand for future months, last Wednesday's event being the beginning of an ambitious programme.

Bookings for the Supporters' Club Wembley special train are well up to expectations.

Have you ordered your Cup Final Souvenir gramophone record yet? Orders should be placed at the hut. Remember, it's the team's own effort.