6 October 1951 Burnley 2 Blackpool 0
Burnley have snap, hit two in eight minutes
JOHNSTON HURT
Burnley 2, Blackpool 0
By “Clifford Greenwood”
AMATEUR international forward W. J. Slater was passed as fit for this afternoon’s match at Turf Moor.
He played at inside-right, an unfamiliar position for him.
There was, I was told, a tentative plan to switch him to inside-left if circumstances during the match should demand it.
So Blackpool took the field without little Jackie Mudie, but nearer 100 per cent. strength than any Blackpool team has been since that ill-fated defeat at Deepdale early in September.
Mr. Frank Hill, the Burnley manager, who was in Blackpool’s service in the promotion year of 1936-37, had made a big shuffle of his forces.
The major experiment was the fielding at centre-forward of the man from Bradford, Billy Elliott, who was considered to be worth £26,000 as a wing forward only about a month ago.
That there were hundreds of supporters from the coast was revealed by the splashes of tangerine and white everywhere.
Teams: BURNLEY: Strong; Woodruff, Mather; Adamson, Cummings, Attwell; Stephenson, Morris, Elliott, Shannon, Chew.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Garrett, Wright (J.); Johnston, Hayward, Kelly; Matthews, W. J. Slater. Mortensen, Brown, Perry.
Referee: Mr. E. Blinston (Warrington).
The Blackpool match in 1947 created a League record of 53,133 at Turf Moor. There were, I should think, 20,000 fewer when the teams took the field, with one little boy pursuing Blackpool until he persuaded Stanley Matthews to sign his autograph book.
THE GAME
First half
With no wind blowing, the winning of the toss was merely a formality. Harry Johnston lost it, and Blackpool faced the town goal and for half a minute attacked it.
Twice the Burnley defence repelled raids built by Mortensen’s passes, and twice, too, the Blackpool defence had to repulse Burnley advances.
Eric Hayward was the man to end the little argument each time, beating the tearaway Elliott to a long forward pass before stabbing the ball back to the waiting Farm.
Afterwards the Burnley front line was both aggressive and fast.
It was so fast out on its left wing that it might have taken the lead as early as the fifth minute.
CHANCE LOST
The wing man gave his partner, Shannon, a gem of a pass, and Shannon swerved the ball away from Johnston, and crossed it at a perfect height.
That left Elliott in a position where a centre-forward should head goals, but the understudy leader merely deflected the ball tamely away to his left, and the big chance was lost.
Except when Brown was half a yard short of Perry’s pass inside, with the Burnley defence suspiciously open, there was not a Blackpool attack to write about for a time.
Burnley raided almost continuously, but no raid led anywhere.
Afterwards, there were Blackpool raids, several of them. In two it was actually Stanley Matthews who finished them with shots, one wide, one into one of Burnley’s familiar packed defences.
BURNLEY SHOTS
Shannon, in a Burnley breakaway, lashed a thunderbolt of a shot wide of a post, and in another spurt took a pass superbly pivoted, and shot again into the arms of the crouching Farm.
Whereupon, as this brief pressure continued, Morris, the Welshman who won the game for Burnley in the last four minutes at Blackpool last season, immediately acquired the habit, and almost brushed a post with a ball which soared in and out by the post as Farm gazed serenely up at it.
A medley of back passes, short passes and no passes at all on the left flank of Blackpool’s defence gave Burnley, less than a couple of minutes later, another shooting position.
GRAZED BAR
It was lost, but not before a sliced shot had sailed out on to the other wing, where Chew crossed it back again so fast that not a man could reach it as it grazed the bar’s face.
There was still, however, not a lot in it.
Blackpool won their second corner of the half in the 17th minute, and with Burnley’s defence in no little panic Matthews forced his full-back to concede a third corner a minute later.
And from his corner Bill Slater rose to a height which no other Blackpool forward can reach and headed barely wide of the far post.
Allan Brown had not been in the game a lot in the first 20 minutes.
In the 21st minute Blackpool were nearly a goal down. Again one had the impression that the defence, a shade casual, had almost invited a goal, when, from out on an open left wing, Chew crossed a centre.
FARM’S LEAP
The scoring position was there and it was nearly converted, too, Morris hurling himself at the flying ball as George Farm, in a great leap, snatched it away, beat it down, and cleared it.
Still Burnley continued to attack, however devoid of plan the majority of raids seemed to be.
Blackpool’s plan was not out of the best text books, either, being based almost exclusively on punted passes downfield or from the wing to the outnumbered Mortensen.
Yet drama entered the game abruptly between the 24th and 25th minutes. Came a raid by Burnley. It was repulsed by Blackpool’s right flank of defence.
Tom Garrett cleared a great distance. Two Blackpool forwards pursued the clearance, and were still chasing the flying ball as it hit the firm turf a yard in front of the Burnley goal, and rose high off it.
STRONG SAVES
It was passing under the bar as Jimmy Strong, one of Blackpool’s wartime goalkeepers, lurched backwards at it and fingertipped it over the bar for Blackpool’s fourth corner.
It went the way of all Blackpool corners, achieved little, in fact, except to build a Burnley raid.
And this raid too had a goal nearly in it. Chew raced on to a long forward pass, cut inside, and shot.
The rest was confusion as this ball hit one Blackpool man, bounced off him away from Farm, and was crossing the line as Wright, moving fast from the other wing, cleared it under the bar.
These episodes wakened up this game, and sent careering into action a Burnley front line which was at close grips with Blackpool’s defence in tumultuous pressure afterwards.
MORE CHANCES
Twice Billy Elliott had chances out in an open space.
He squandered the first with a half-hit shot, but nearly converted the second with a fast low drive which Farm punched away from a post as he fell full length at it.
There was no comparable ferocity or aggression in the Blackpool front line, which for minutes afterwards, with its two inside men seldom in possession of the ball, built only one breakaway which ended in Mortensen stabbing a shot slowly at Burnley’s goalkeeper.
Stanley Matthews seemed able to leave his full-back standing whenever he felt inclined.
Twice within a minute he corkscrewed into an open space, and squared inside a ball which no Blackpool forward could reach.
Yet it was full-back Garrett who was again in the move which was nearer to a goal.
MORTENSEN HEADER
Again it eluded Burnley’s massed defence. Up to it leaped Stanley Mortensen and glided it sideways off the top of his head.
He was falling as the alert Strong rose to it and held it.
George Farm, who had been on overtime and had revealed himself as a goalkeeper of class, and was twice in action as Burnley ended the half in all-out pressure.
Once he beat out a fast, deliberate shot by the unmarked Stephenson. Again a minute later he was there to palm out a centre crossing his goal from the other flank.
A minute after that, he was racing out to make a full-back’s clearance almost from the edge of the penalty area.
Half-time: Burnley 0, Blackpool 0.
Second half
The first move of the second half was a carbon copy of such a lot that had happened earlier.
A pass by Hugh Kelly gave Matthews the ball. The wing forward juggled with it, moved to go one way, went another, veered out and in again, and after all that steered wide of Bill Slater a pass which could have found the amateur in a shooting position.
There was such a lot of promise and so little maturing from it, even if it was only a fast, neat interception by Cummings which took away from Mortensen a ball which a fast downfield run by Brown, plus a squared pass by Matthews, had given him.
It was, however, all Blackpool for a time, and Blackpool playing football which may have had little punch in it but had still plenty of poise and self-assurance.
WINGER’S SHOT
The first time Burnley raided directly - and Burnley at least were direct - young Stephenson took a pass from his inside man before shooting barely over the bar before a Blackpool half-back or full-back had crossed his path.
Within another minute, too, Elliott wandering out on the left wing, where he is in familiar territory, put over a ball which Stephenson shot fast and low at Farm.
That was nearly a goal.
There should have been one immediately at the other end.
There was another raid on Blackpool’s right. Matthews gave his full-back a couple of yards’ start and beat him, reached an open space, and crossed a bouncing ball which Mortensen lashed at and missed.
That was in the sixth minute of the half.
THE LEAD
In the seventh minute Burnley were in front with one of these snap raids which obviously were not in Blackpool’s repertoire today.
There was a raid on the left wing and a crisp pass inside by Chew.
SHANNON moved on to it, pivoted on his right foot, hit it with his left foot, leaped high in the air in jubilation as the ball, rising and spinning, almost brushed the inside of the far post before crossing the line.
Within three minutes Blackpool should have made it 1 - 1.
This was another left-wing raid. It split the Burnley defence for once. Over came the ball with Strong far away from home, leaping at it and missing it, and leaving wide open a goal over which Mortensen headed the flying ball.
Can’t a Blackpool forward score at Turf Moor? It began to look like it.
AND No. 2 -
In the 16th minute Burnley scored a grand second goal.
The Blackpool defence conceded a free-kick. It was never cleared. A loose ball rolled out on to the right wing. Stephenson darted on to it, ran it to the line, and crossed it fast.
Up to meet it close to the near post rose MORRIS and headed it so fast and so far away from Farm that no goalkeeper on this earth could have done anything about it.
Two goals in eight minutes and the game for all practical purposes appeared to be won for Burnley.
Blackpool were not outplayed afterwards, but still there was not a shot in the line and still the football was unproductive even of positions where a shot could be made.
50-YARD RUN
Once Mortensen ran 50 yards almost unchallenged before stabbing forward a pass direct to Burnley’s crouching goalkeeper, with Perry racing ahead of him and calling for the pass.
Again a minute later Brown made a lot of ground, delayed his shot that extra fraction of a second too long, and shot with the full-back crossing him.
That was happening all the time and had been happening all the match.
Always the last pass, the last move, was wrong, and always, too, Blackpool’s game seemed too close in direct contrast to Burnley’s hit-or-miss but still open football.
Still the chances were there or at least half-chances.
WHIPPED AWAY
Twice inside a minute Mortensen and Slater had a bouncing ball whipped away off their feet as they moved it to inside range of the Burnley goalkeeper.
But the minutes were going, and every minute made more remote the prospect of Blackpool, in spite of almost continuous pressure, snatching even a point out of the game.
One corner was won and then another, making Blackpool’s total of corners six against Burnley’s one. But corners never won a match, and they were not winning this one.
And as the sixth was cleared, in fact, anything out of this match for Blackpool receded even further as Johnston, who had been in the wars a couple of minutes earlier, limped out on to the left wing, with Allan Brown among the half-backs.
OFFSIDE GOAL
With 15 minutes left, Stephenson crossed another high centre which Morris headed away into the net for an offside goal, which I think Mr. Plinston had allowed until a linesman signaled.
Result:
BURNLEY 2 (Shannon 52, Morris 60)
BLACKPOOL 0
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
THE truth has to be told, Blackpool were guilty of another game which never promised to win even a point at Turf Moor this afternoon.
There was one “if” in it. But only one. If Stanley Mortensen had taken his two clear chances immediately before Burnley went in front there might have been a different result.
There might have been, but I take leave to question it. For again the forward line played to no visible plan, its inside forwards mastered, one forward alone of the five, Stanley Matthews, making the sort of positions from which goals are scored, and even he was not guiltless of all errors.
GOAL FAMINE
The Blackpool forwards have now been playing seven and a half hours at Burnley since the war without scoring a goal.
That is a sufficient commentary on this latest Turf Moor eclipse.
The chief difference between two indifferent teams was that Burnley played to an open plan which at least achieved results.
The Blackpool defence made heavy weather of it at times, but with the ball constantly coming back on it one was not inclined to blame it such a lot.
But definitely, the game played by Blackpool today was by last season’s standards incredibly inconclusive.
The return of Allan Brown and Harry Johnston - and the wing-half finished the match as if he were out of the game for another week or two - worked no miracles.
By Clifford Greenwood
THERE are teams that seldom seem to hit the jackpot at Blackpool. They can be, and often are tolerably good teams, but at Bloomfield-road whatever glamour they possess often seems to be shed, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Such a team are Charlton Athletic, who, on their last visit to Bloomfield-road where they play again next weekend, were dismissed by 3-0 from the Cup in the Third Round replay last season. A goalless draw was played in last season’s League match, but the London team lost 0-2 in 1949-50, snatched the points by the only goal in the only game they have won at Blackpool since the war a year earlier, but were beaten 3-1 in 1948 after another 0-0 match in 1947.
Scarcely a distinguished record for a team who have only once beaten Blackpool in London in postwar football, and that was in a game on the eve of the 1948 Final when Blackpool were thinking a lot less about Charlton than about Manchester United.
Yet the Athletic these days are playing football which has given them a higher position in the First Division table than has been their experience during recent years, and with such personalities in the team as Frank Lock, a full-back on the verge of England class, Sam Bartram in goal, and Charlie Vaughan, now off the transfer list, scoring goals at centre-forward. Blackpool must not expect a walk-over next weekend.
Blackpool have not won a home game since September 1, which is in fact the only game Blackpool have won at home this season.
It would be appropriate if for the last of the “Lights” matches the Blackpool football lights began, however belatedly, to sparkle again.
THEY’RE FEW BUT SO NOISY
Critics who give crowd had name
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 6 October 1951
A VISITING newspaper man from London, watching Blackpool for the first time this season at the Manchester City match last weekend, walked to my desk in the Press box and asked “Do you know what’s wrong with this team?”
“ It’s not the team that’s wrong, it’s the crowd,” he said. And “It’s no wonder they only win away from home,” he observed. “Listen to ’em!” he invited.
I cocked an ear, and, admittedly, I heard a lot of caustic comments.
If there was not weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth - both those supplied by Nature and those by the Welfare State - there was something approaching it.
The Blackpool public, in common with the football public almost everywhere else, refuses suffer in silence. And why, it may want to know, should it?
I hate barrackers, the minorities who select one man as their prey and hound him without mercy. They even made Jimmy Hampson’s last days on the field such a misery to him at times that once, shedding his shy reserve, he said to me “Don’t they soon forget?”
Pitiful words
THOSE were, I think, the most pitiful words I ever heard a professional footballer say. And they were said, too, by a man who had not a shred of self-pity or resentment in him.
The fate of Jimmy McIntosh, another Blackpool forward, is as familiar as it was scandalous.
So has been the fate of one or two others, too many others, who have become the target of the spiteful and the malicious who infest every football* ground and are not peculiar to Bloomfield-road.
But they are only a minority, noisy as all minorities contrive to be and yet insignificant.
The Blackpool football public, as a public, is, I think - and I have been in close contact with it for 20 to 25 years, and so I ought to know - no better and not such a lot worse than the public everywhere else.
Cosmopolitan
IT is not as pronouncedly “Blackpool - my team, right or wrong,” as at Anfield, for instance, it is “Liverpool - our team, right or wrong.” It is not, I think, as strictly impartial as the cosmopolitan public at Stamford Bridge, and, in a lesser degree, at Portsmouth’s Fratton Park.
It is, of course, cosmopolitan itself. In it every week are thousands who still give their first allegiance to the teams of the cities and towns of their birth, and, as a consequence, are probably a little less inclined to accept a Blackpool team entirely on trust as are those who have known and cheered no other.
But up on the Kop and under the roof of the “scratching shed” and in the stands and the paddocks, even if they are not as demonstrative as are a few crowds elsewhere, their loyalty cannot, I think, be seriously questioned.
The reason
HOW is it then that visitors to the Blackpool Press box so often think Bloomfield-road is inhabited almost exclusively every Saturday afternoon by between 25,000 to 30,000 moaning malcontents?
It is, I think, precisely because they sit in the Press box, which is unfortunately close to a hotbed of critics both in the centre stand and in the paddock fronting it.
And those critics would not, I think, be content if Blackpool won every match and were the equivalent of Superman multiplied by eleven.
These people pay in the comparative sense a lot to watch their football. But how sadly they take their pleasures, how soon are they cast into the depths of depression, how brief are their joys, how black their sorrows.
Paying such prices merely to be made miserable seems the ultimate folly.
So vocal
THERE are not, again, many of them, and, admittedly, there has not been a lot in Blackpool’s football this season to give the least exacting patron a song in his heart.
But these folk - few of them but so vocal - rend the air so often with such woe the lamentation that it is not surprising that the stranger in their midst soon persuades himself that so it is everywhere else.
And, frankly, it isn’t.
One has not a great deal of time for these tormented mortals. Their comments can scarcely be encouraging to the players on the field. That may be of no great consequence.
What is of consequence is, that they are giving a Blackpool crowd an unenviable reputation which is undeserved.
Even if this crowd might profitably reflect in these present times that an encouraging cheer or two for a team on the floor is worth a positive hullabaloo of jubilation when that team is winning.
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BEHIND-THE-SCENES news in Blackpool football this week discloses that the club were not so disinterested in the Sammy Smyth transfer as a few of the critics seem to think.
I learn, in fact, that Blackpool were one of two Lancashire clubs - the other was Liverpool - who had a priority on the Irish international’s signature before he signed for Stoke City.
Mr. Stanley Cullis, the Wolves manager, informed Blackpool that his club were open to accept often with such woe and lamentably prepared to go to the £20,000 which at least would have been asked for the sort of big strong inside forward the front line requires.
But Smyth himself insisted on retaining the salesman’s post he holds in the Midlands, and, as a consequence, chose to go to Stoke.
Stalemate
AND as, in any event, it is improbable that Blackpool would have consented to pay £20,000 for a player who would have wanted to spend the greater part of every week working outside the town a stalemate was inevitable. That also would presumably have applied in the case of Ivor Broadis.
The fact, however, that Blackpool were as close as that to a big transfer is a sufficient indication of the club’s serious intentions in the market.
Or, at least, it ought to be.
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Only one
Gordon Kaile started the new season as the only player who has been with two newly-promoted clubs since last campaign.
He helped Nottingham Forest to win the Southern Section championship and during the summer was transferred to Preston North End, who have returned to the First Division.
By Clifford Greenwood
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First-goal myth
HOW often I am told after Blackpool have lost a match or a point “If only we’d have scored first we’d have won.” It is not working out that way this season.
Blackpool scored first against Chelsea in the season’s opening day and lost. Blackpool scored first at Deepdale and lost again.
And in successive matches the first goal has been scored against Derby County and Manchester City and yet a point has been forfeited.
To complete the paradox Blackpool won at Huddersfield and Sunderland after losing the first goal.
Moral of it all?
There just isn’t one. Unless it is that football is governed by no comprehensible laws.
FOOTNOTE. - No team in the First Division has scored fewer home goals than Blackpool this season and only one other, Manchester City, has scored as few as Blackpool’s six.
Yet only three forward lines, the attacks of the ’Spurs, Wolves and Preston had before today scored more goals away from home than Blackpool’s XI. Crazy? You bet it’s crazy.
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