25 August 1951 Huddersfield Town 1 Blackpool 3
Blackpool goals wipe out early lead, bring win
YOUNG HOBSON THE DANGER MAN
Huddersfield Town 1, Blackpool 3
By “Clifford Greenwood”
BLACKPOOL were back at Huddersfield again today.
The last time they were at Leeds Road there were only three weeks to go before the Cup Final, and Blackpool lost and had Allan Brown crippled.
It has been said that it was on this ground that Blackpool lost the Wembley match, but why bring that up?
Stanley Matthews was out of action, and for the first time since last season’s League match with Newcastle United Albert Hobson played in a First Division match, his partner Jackie Mudie, who was given leave again by the RAF.
Huddersfield fielded the men who have won three points from the first two games.
This achievement did not seem to have sent this Rugby League stronghold into flames, for in spite of the long queues at most of the gates an hour before the kick-off there were big open spaces on the terraces with half an hour left before the teams came out.
RAIN CLOUDS
Rain clouds were low over the ground, and a wind which had the bite of autumn in it was blowing in gusts.
Teams:
HUDDERSFIELD: Mills; Howe, Kelly (L); McGarry, McEvoy, Boot; McKenna, Nightingale, Taylor, Hassall, Metcalfe.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Johnston, Hayward, Kelly (H); Hobson, Mudie, Mortensen, Brown, Perry.
Referee: Mr. R. P. Hartley (Burnley)
THE GAME
First half
Harry Johnston won the toss in front of an attendance estimated at 30,000.
A right wing raid by Blackpool, with one of its captain’s famous long throws-in to aid it, opened the match which in the first couple of minutes Blackpool dictated without ever shooting or making a shooting position.
Ultimately, after the raid had gone on and on with the Town retreating all the time, the tall McEvoy headed out a flying ball to which Mortensen was leaping, and Hobson, running in to meet it, half-hit it wide of the far post.
Town’s first attack had punch in it. It had such punch that after Garrett had conceded a free-kick and a loose ball had bounced away from Hayward, Kelly conceded a corner and the corner, even if only indirectly, produced a goal.
TAYLOR SCORES
A strange goal it was too. The corner was half cleared. Back rolled the ball, was cleared again, and lofted over again from the left wing. TAYLOR was fast to move up to it, hit it as it bounced in front of him, and was, I think, as surprised as Farm and 30,000 other people as the ball fell abruptly in flight and brushed under the bar.
This fourth-minute goal might have been followed by another in the next minute - and would have been if, with the Blackpool defence rocking back, Farm had not hurled himself at the feet of McKenna as the little outside-right darted into an open space, where the ball was bouncing and almost waiting for him.
It was, in fact, five minutes after this shock goal before Blackpool even crossed the halfway line.
MORTENSEN’S CHASE
But when it was crossed in the ninth minute Mortensen, chasing one of Brown’s long down-the-field passes, stampeded an unprepared Town defence into surrendering a corner.
Even when the corner was cleared the right wing, intercepting the clearance, built another raid which ended in Hobson slicing a high centre on to the roof of the net.
It was fast football and it was good football, too, open direct and aggressive, with scarcely a pass delayed.
Once Mortensen lashed away one of those shots which when they go in are called “wonder goals.” Hugh Kelly made another of them a couple of minutes later, and this one, swerving fast in the air, was near to a post which Mills, in spite of an acrobatic leap, could never have covered.
MUDIE’S RAID
Twice afterwards, the tearaway Town forwards raced into the offside trap, but with 15 minutes gone Blackpool were still attacking, Mudie taking a pass from Hobson, racing 30 yards with it, and losing it only as Mills catapulted desperately at his feet.
With this pressure continuing, Mortensen moved into the path of a right wing pass, and was flagrantly obstructed by the Town’s centre half.
Mr. Hartley gave one of the new indirect free-kicks, which caused a lot of comment but led nowhere.
IN A TANGLE
It was, in fact, the Town who were nearer a goal, the Blackpool defence tangling itself up excitedly and giving a shooting position to McKenna, who, as he fell, stabbed wide of the post a ball which he could have shot inside it.
Three minutes later, Hobson, accepting a long downfield pass by Johnston, hit it from 25 yards with such venom that Mills was glad to parry and beat it down before he cleared it.
And in another two minutes Hobson put over another perfect high centre which Mills punched away from the challenging Perry amid a pack of men outnumbering the South African four or five to one.
STRANGE HALF
Huddersfield had taken the lead, and against a Blackpool defence not too firm under pressure had threatened in a break away now and again to increase it.
And yet 20 of the 30 minutes had been played in the Town’s half of the field by a Blackpool forward line which was neat, almost dapper, in approach but which had seldom carved out a scoring position.
So it went on, too, with Kelly building a succession of raids on Blackpool’s left wing and Blackpool’s forwards constantly racing on the Town’s defence - interrupted only when Nightingale swerved past four men before shooting over the bar.
And Hobson was stealing little of the show.
Again Harry Johnston gave him a pass such as wing forwards often see only in their dreams.
FOURTH CORNER
Hobson was after it so fast that he glided it away from the full-back, gave him a yard start in five, passed him, and crossed a centre which McEvoy thundered over the line for Blackpool’s fourth corner of the half. That was in the 31st minute.
In the 33rd minute came another corner won by Hobson.
Yes, it was that man again.
Yet as soon as the Town attack raided again the Blackpool defence revealed once more its inclination to lose position and composure.
And, in fact, it required fast interceptions by Hugh Kelly twice in quick succession and a hit-or-miss tackle by Hayward to repel these sudden spurts.
FARM’S SAVES
George Farm was in action a minute later, however, making a great diving clearance at the feet of the aggressive Geoff Taylor, and another when Vic Metcalfe crossed a knee-high centre.
Yet soon Blackpool were attacking again. This time, Hobson, half losing a bouncing ball, could only lob it into Mills’ arms with the goal gaping wide open as Blackpool Promenade.
As the half approached its end the referee, on a protest by a couple of Huddersfield men, examined Mortensen’s studs.
A minute later, Perry raced fast on to a crossfield pass and hit it so hard that McGarry, in a great dive, headed it out as Mills flung himself late at it.
Half-time: Huddersfield Town 1, Blackpool 0.
Second half
Blackpool went off in the second half as if it were to be a continuation of the first half serial. There was an attack on the right, another on the left, and a third on the right which came to its familiar end as the ball escaped three men before passing out loose to Perry, who, cutting in fast, volleyed it high over the bar.
Then Hobson accepted a pass from Mudie, beat L. Kelly, and hooked back from the line a pass which Brown stabbed hesitatingly into the crouching Mills’ arms.
It was such promising football in the open, but it was breaking down repeatedly on the barrier of a defence never giving a man a half-second to dwell on the ball.
Blackpool came again in raids which produced a grand shot by Allan Brown which nearly brushed the far post, and a couple of fine clearances by Mills.
Twice inside a couple of minutes Taylor and Hassall shot into the net of the Blackpool goal from positions yards offside.
Then direct from the free-kick Blackpool snatched an equaliser with a great goal in the 15th minute.
A great goal it was, a goal such as I had despaired of ever seeing Blackpool’s forwards score this afternoon. The right made it and completed it.
Hobson moved on to Shimwell’s free-kick with the intelligence he had been revealing all the match.
The pass from the wing came to the waiting Mortensen when the centre called for it.
Neatly, unselfishly, Mortensen backheeled it into the open space on his left, and into that space raced JACKIE MUDIE to shoot home from 15 yards a ball which was swerving away from Mills all the time and hitting the far wall of the net before he fell.
That was 1-1, and half a minute later it was 2-1 for Blackpool. This goal was a gift.
AND THE LEAD
Again the Blackpool right wing raided, and a gap opened up into which ran Albert Hobson.
He shot fast and low, the ball hitting the knees of the waiting McEvoy, who watched it cannon off and spin yards out of the clutch of the despairing Mills as he hurled himself vainly after it.
Afterwards, Huddersfield raided with all the fury of sudden desperation.
Vic Metcalfe’s shot was perfect, and he saw George Farm hold it perfectly on both knees.
Attack followed attack, and in one attack a goal was near again as Mudie cannoned into the back of a Town forward and had a free-kick given against him 10 yards outside the area.
Hassall thundered it wide.
Ten minutes from time Perry eluded three men before shooting a ball which hit the bar and cannoned high into the air.
Six minutes from time, Mudie chased a loose ball down the centre, and was faced by Mills, who dived at his feet, fell, and lost the ball.
It rolled away to his left, and the goalkeeper was still full length on the grass when BROWN, following up fast, shot low and at a great pace into the empty goal from 15 yards out.
Result:
HUDDERSFIELD 1 (Taylor 4)
BLACKPOOL 3 (Mudie 60, McEvoy og 61, Brown 80)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
IT was a strange game. The Blackpool forwards raided continuously, but could not score for an hour, and in a minute, with the aid of an in-off goal, scored twice and virtually won the game.
The forwards played football which had class in it, but took a long time to score goals.
That, I think, was because it took the inside men such a long time to settle to their game.
Once they were in it, ominous gaps appeared in the Huddersfield defence.
Albert Hobson had by all standards the finest game he has ever played in the First Division.
This understudy, given an assembly line of passes by Mortensen and Johnston, was nearly the man of this match.
CLOSED THE GAPS
Hugh Kelly, too, has seldom been in a match as he was in this one, repeatedly in the first half closing those wide open spaces which were left by the full-backs.
Moral of the second half seemed to be that Blackpool are gradually but unquestionably coming back into their game. It was, in fact, a great after-the-interval show.
Attendance, 33,584.
By Clifford Greenwood
TWO TEAMS come to Blackpool next week.
One has a record at Blackpool about as grim as an obituary notice. The other has a record glittering as tinsel, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Portsmouth, who are Monday evening’s visitors (6-30) have yet to win at Blackpool since the war, have, in fact, not even won a point in five successive visits. Wolverhampton Wanderers, who come to Bloomfield-road at the weekend, have, by contrast, not lost at Blackpool in the First Division for five years.
All of which is a little strange, considering that twice during this period Portsmouth have won the League championship and the Wanderers have not won it at all.
But that’s football, that is - and at the beginning of a season football is so strange and peculiar that not even Sherlock Holmes could justifiably tell Dr. Watson that it was elementary.
What happens this time?
It is conceivable, this being topsy-turvy time in the topsy-turvyest game in the world, that at last Portsmouth will win at Bloomfield-road and the Wolves for the first time since 1946 have their fangs drawn here in a League match.
I’m expressing no opinion, for, obviously, if a Chelsea shadow team can win at Blackpool anything on earth can occur.
It is sufficient to record that Monday’s visitors will enter the match after such a dismal sequence of results at Blackpool as 3-4, 0-1, 0-1, 1-2 and 0-3, and that the Wanderers five days later will derive whatever encouragement they can from the fact that after losing 0-2 in 1946 they have won twice and drawn twice, the last time in a 1-1 game last season.
All that is certain about these games is that both are manifestly good box-office.
Leave it at that.
ALL TOPSY-TURVY JUST NOW
Takes time to settle down
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 18 August 1951
THESE are Alice-in-Wonderland days in football. There is a Blackpool duck instead of the White Rabbit - and the Mad Hatter is presumably the dispassionate critic will inevitably become if he seeks to sort out the tangle.
But for the rest football today is a sort of new version of the old classic - either the Lewis Carroll original or the Walt Disney adaptation.
The Duck what the
Consider what has happened during one brief week at Blackpool.
On the season’s first day Blackpool lost to Chelsea when everybody expected Blackpool to win and said they could not lose, which is a singularly indiscreet opinion to express about any football match at any time of the year, and an opinion of abysmal stupidity on a season’s first day.
A YEAR AGO—
LAST season they were such Jeremiahs that Manager Joe Smith lost patience with them, I recall, at Blackpool's annual meeting, and with that famous jaw, joy of the cartoonists, jutting aggressively, said:
"Why, to hear some people talk, we’re in the Second Division already."
That remark had a parallel as long ago as 1946.
Then, when League football began again at the end of the war, Harry Johnston, unexpectedly made captain of Blackpool, said at a time when everybody was giving his team as little chance in the First Division as a flyweight would have in a ring with Randolph Turpin:
"We’ll show ’em. Just let them wait a week or two."
That season Blackpool led the First Division table at the end of September and did not lose one home point until nearly Christmas.
And last season the team that, according to the more depressing of the citizens, was doomed to relegation qualified for the Cup Final, finished third in the League, and fielded a forward line - and it was the forward line which caused all the depression - that finished the season with a higher aggregate of the goals than any other attack except the Spurs.
Black gloom
THE result when Blackpool lost was black gloom and disillusionment. The disillusionment was as black as the gloom, because all during the summer people in this part of the world had been telling each other that Blackpool had never had such a team as the club were fielding today, which was probably true, and that such a team would be invincible during 1951-52, which was an arrant and unwarrantable assumption.
Time marched on - four days of it. And Blackpool played at Portsmouth, where, as the result of the Chelsea Waterloo, everybody said that Blackpool were doomed to defeat, and Blackpool immediately won.
What they're saying
NOW everybody is saying how remarkable it is. And, strictly, it is not remarkable at all. For this has been happening during the early days of football seasons since the time of the Old Etonians, and will probably continue to happen until the sands of that famous desert grow cold.
For the truth is that it takes a week or two for a team to settle, to establish whether it is a team good, bad, or indifferent, to reveal whether the passing of a few short weeks of an English summer has made it better or worse or left it exactly as it was.
Postwar record
PEOPLE who were so depressed by Blackpool’s failure against Chelsea may or may not be impressed by the information that, except in 1946, and again two years ago, Blackpool teams have lost one of the season’s first two matches every season since the war. But that is what the records say.
And, in fact, the 1948-49 team, the team that had been to Wembley four months earlier, went the whole hog and lost them both.
There is, therefore, nothing without precedent in the Chelsea fiasco a week ago or in the immediate atonement the team made down on the South Coast four days later.
Moral
THE moral appears to be that he is a wise man who sits back and says nothing for a week or two until some sort of stability reveals itself in football form.
I know that Manager Joe Smith was not prepared to assert after the Portsmouth match that everything was (as the Americans so elegantly put it) hunky-dory.
I was not at the match, but I am told that Blackpool’s football during the first half was reminiscent of the team’s best days last season, that it was of infinitely higher quality than the Fleet Street critics have been gracious enough to concede.
But - and the disabling of the luckless George McKnight was not sufficient by itself to account for it - there was a decline in the second half which was a little disconcerting and which, if Blackpool had not built up such a big lead before half-time, might have been serious.
My conclusions
I HAVE seen only one of those first two games. There were, I think, only two definite conclusions to be drawn from them.
No. 1 was that Stanley Mortensen has come into this new season rarin’ for goals again and revealing all the speed and all the daring resource which has given him them in the past, and which made him last season the First Division’s leading marksman - a fact, by the way, which appears to have escaped general notice in this part of the planet - two goals in front of his nearest rival, Jack Lee, of Derby County, and actually 13 in front of Jack Milburn, of Newcastle United.
No. 2 is that the Blackpool defence is still inclined to play that offside game which cost the first goal at Wembley last April and the first goal of the new season in the Chelsea match a week ago.
By Clifford Greenwood
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Time Chelsea smiled
One record has soon gone in Blackpool. Chelsea - and who says "Poor old Chelsea!" now? - have won at Bloomfield-road at last in postwar football.
And about time, too. Scores in Chelsea matches at Blackpool before last weekend were 1-0, 3-0, 2-1, 0-0, 3-2 all for Blackpool.
Last week’s game was, in fact, the first that Chelsea had won anywhere - home or away - against Blackpool since the London team took the points 2-0 at Bloomfield-road on September 16, 1937.
That, incredible as it may seem, is a fact.
Not one man in the Blackpool team defeated in the game 14 years ago is still playing the first-class game in England. Who were the men ?
Wallace; Blair (D.), Witham; Hall, Cardwell, Jones (S'.); Watmough, Hampson, Butler, Jones (T. W.) and Munro.
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MORTY MAKES IT 120
There were only six forwards in present-day football who opened the season with a total in excess of 150 League goals to their names: Top of the list was Horatio Carter, the Hull City player-manager, with 202, and among the others was Peter Doherty, who, one is glad to hear is fit again and will play as soon as he considers he is required, and who has scored 184 goals in peacetime matches.
Approaching this select group, but with still a distance to travel, is Stanley Mortensen, the Blackpool centre-forward, who scored his 120th League goal against Chelsea last weekend, five converted penalties only in this aggregate.
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