10 November 1951 Blackpool 6 Newcastle United 3
Nine-goal, punch-packed classic as Wembley is avenged
AND TEN MEN DO IT!
Blackpool 6, Newcastle United 3
By “Clifford Greenwood”
FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE A DAY LAST APRIL I HEARD “BLAYDON RACES,” HALF FOLK SONG, HALF WAR CHANT, SUNG ON A FOOTBALL FIELD TODAY.
The last time it was at Wembley in April, an exultant chorus, after Jack Milburn had scored the two goals which won Newcastle United the Cup against Blackpool.
This afternoon they were singing it again, thousands of them from the football-mad North-East, who had come to Blackpool for a match which reintroduced the two Wembley teams into combat.
In its prologue it was a Cup-tie before its time in the sunshine of early autumn.
Queues were massing at the turnstiles an hour before the kick-off. On the cinder track the mascots were out in full force.
Bugles continually called the Newcastle rattles into action, and the explosion of fireworks constantly punctuated the Bedlam.
CHANGED CAST
Seven months had so shuffled the teams that the United took the field with only six of the men who played at the Stadium, and Blackpool with seven.
And one of those seven was Ernest Taylor who at Wembley was one of Newcastle’s inside forwards.
The attendance approached 30,000 at the kick-off.
Teams:
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Garrett; Fenton, Hayward Robinson (C.); Matthews. Taylor, Mortensen, Brown, Perry.
NEWCASTLE UNITED: Simpson; Powell, McMichael; Harvey Brennan, Robledo (E), Foulkes, Davies, Milburn Robledo (G.), Cameron.
Referee: Mr. F. B Coultas (Hull).
THE GAME
First half
Eric Hayward won the toss, and the United defended the north goal - a goal in the sun’s glare.
The first two raids reaching shooting distance were both built by Blackpool against Newcastle half-backs and full-backs who skidded repeatedly on the wet turf.
Brown was twice fast into open spaces. The first time, the Scot’s unexpected pace on the ball gave him a shooting position - a shot which a full-back intercepted and passed back fast to his goalkeeper.
The second time Brown crossed from a wing position a flying centre to which Mortensen soared as high as big Frank Brennan as it crossed the face of the Newcastle goal.
Such were the game’s first four minutes - fast, aggressive football, but nothing else.
The next nine minutes had no fewer than three goals in them, with the game abruptly walking into such drama as the Blackpool public have not seen all season.
Came the fifth minute.
The United raided for the first time as a full-line force. Welshman Billy Foulkes chased a long and perfect downfield pass at such a pace that Garrett was content to settle for a corner.
The corner cost a goal, but how it cost it will always remain a riddle.
The ball was crossed from the right flag and came to rest on the other wing.
Hugh Cameron punted it back and with the Blackpool defence giving an impression of a group of statuary, JACK MILBURN leaped at the ball, and saw his header describe a gentle arc over the standing defence and pass inches underneath the bar.
Within a minute it could have been 2-0
EMPTY GOAL
Milburn went fast into a gap in an unsettled defence and hooked inside a ball which appeared to hit a post, cannon out to him, and leave him to square it back again in front of an empty goal, with no Newcastle forward to shoot it over the line.
For another minute it was all United against a Blackpool reeling backwards and almost completely out of order.
Then, within the next minute everything tumbled upside down with little Ernest Taylor playing for a time as a man inspired against his old team.
Twice in raids which split wide open the Newcastle full-back and half-back lines Stanley Mortensen was left to chase fast forward passes.
The first was lost as the ball bounced away from him, the second shot barely wide of the far post at a bullet’s pace.
Yet a goal was always on the cards, with the Newcastle defence buckling everywhere as it retreated.
HITTING BACK
It came in the ninth minute with this defence as completely at sea as if it had been out in an open boat.
Mortensen’s neat pass to his left created an open position.
Into it BILL PERRY moved, hesitated, half lost the skidding ball and shot it fast and low away from the falling Simpson to release a tumult of cheers which was still rising to the skies as Blackpool’s unexpected and whirlwind offensive continued.
Repeatedly the zig-zagging of Taylor cut a path through the United’s defence.
It cut one, and then another, and then a third, and the third time MORTENSEN was there to take this pass, veer with it to the right, where a shooting position offered itself, and shoot a second goal which put Blackpool in front only nine minutes after Blackpool had gone into arrears.
Yes, this was drama - such drama as Bloomfield-road has not staged since these teams met in the Cup Final rehearsal.
PENALTY MISS
After taking the lead Blackpool, for a time, appeared content to hold what had been so abruptly won.
Newcastle made several raids, but not one on the right wing again until little Foulkes, the new recruit from Chester, was given another downfield pass to chase.
Again he was so fast that Garrett, close on his heels, could halt him only by a tackle such as the rule book forbids.
It was a penalty. Mr. Coultas had no alternative but to award it, and Blackpool could scarcely protest about it.
Jack Milburn took it, and in the next half-minute had a little gilt taken off his Wembley glamour.
For this man who beat George Farm with his wonder shot from 30 yards at the Stadium could not beat him this time from the infinitely closer range of a penalty spot.
Instead, he shot a ball which hit the goalkeeper’s knees, fell off at the goalkeeper’s feet, and was scooped up almost in slow motion, with Milburn standing disconsolate.
FURTHER AHEAD
That missed penalty was expensive, too, for within four minutes, in the 24th minute of this punch-packed half, Blackpool went further in front.
This was a goal with class all over it..
Stan Mortensen made it by taking a throw-in so fast and so unexpectedly that it gave Stanley Matthews the first open path he had had all the afternoon.
He went down to it fast, cut inside, eluded the first man to cross him, and the second, before squaring it centre.
Brown moved fast on to it and squared it another two yards for inside-right TAYLOR to tear on to it and shoot his first goal for Blackpool.
What football it was that Blackpool - and in flashes the United, too - played in the succeeding minutes. What football Ernest Taylor played!
DEFENCE RIDDLED
Not for months, even for seasons, I should think, has a Newcastle defence been as often ripped apart, almost as if it were a hoop of tissue paper in a circus ring.
Again Mortensen was left pursuing passes into wide open spaces.
Nothing came of the first two except shots which scattered the Kop.
The third time the shot was so fast, hit at such a venomous pace, that as the deserted Ronnie Simpson in the Newcastle goal jerked out a leg instinctively the ball rose off it, brushed across the face of the bar, and fell off it inches outside the line of an empty goal.
There was an incident a minute, no cessation in the traffic of raids cutting both defences open.
Cyril Robinson, who had never been out of the game, made a great headed clearance after Newcastle’s all-Welsh wing had made an open position for itself again.
HALF TO REMEMBER
And every time Blackpool raided, Taylor was almost impudently deceiving the men with whom he had played for years.
This was a half to remember.
Twice before half-time Milburn had Farm in action with shots which made his penalty shot seem incredible, and a third time headed far away from the goalkeeper a ball which skidded out by the far post.
Newcastle were not yet out of the game as the teams left the field at half-time to an ovation from a crowd which must have been thinking it would not see such football as this again for a long time.
Half-time: Blackpool 3, Newcastle United I.
Second half
Eric Hayward halted raid of the Newcastle half, half-halted the second, and left Shimwell to repulse a third.
Except for one lone raid out on Blackpool’s left wing, it was all the United in the opening minutes of the half. For a time, in fact, Blackpool’s football was a little too close.
Yet Newcastle were not allowed ever to command the game for long, and, in fact, might have lost a fourth goal with only six minutes of the half gone while Matthews was over the line for attention and the attack reduced to four men.
Then Mortensen went fast after a pass out on an open left wing, and, with Newcastle waiting for an offside whistle which never went, was allowed to cut inside before shooting.
CANNONED OUT
The ball hit Simpson and cannoned out, with Perry waiting all alone almost under the bar for a pass, Stanley Matthews was soon back on the right wing but for a time was nearly a spectator on it.
Yet even with a four-man front line ''Blackpool raided a lot, and, as Matthews at last walked over the line and hobbled away to the dressing room, still raided.
The United defence was only a shadow of the force I saw at Wembley. Young Simpson, the understudy goalkeeper, was still being too often left unprotected.
Yet, with a quarter of an hour gone and Newcastle pressing constantly on a defence rocking backwards, the United made it 3-2.
UNITED SCORE
It was not at all unexpected when it happened. Raid had followed raid until the United’s left wing escaped.
From this wing a centre was crossed. A swarm of men milled for it. It ran loose at last to GEORGE ROBLEDO, and the Chilian, his first shot repelled, rocketed the second high into the roof of the net.
The tide had been flowing against Blackpool’s ten men before this goal, and it continued to flow against them afterwards, the United celebrating the goal with a three-man move which won a corner and had all the old Newcastle precision about it.
Bill Perry’s pace in one lone raid lifted this siege in a raid which ended in Mortensen losing the ball as Simpson cast himself at the centre-forward’s feet.
REARGUARD ACTION
Another breakaway immediately afterwards halted the Newcastle pressure - and twice two grand tackles by Robinson halted it too, but nearly all the time, minute after minute, the game was moving on the Blackpool goal, the Blackpool defence being committed to a rearguard action.
Farm made one superb clearance with a big leap under the bar of his oppressed goal after Newcastle’s right wing had again escaped its full-back.
The retreat continued. Blackpool’s depleted forward line was seldom given a pass by a defence content to stand firm and to clear anywhere.
Yet, with nearly half an hour of the half gone, singularly few shooting positions were being made by the Newcastle forwards and when one came exactly 15 minutes from time Milburn could only hook his shot high over the bar from a position where definitely he should have made it 3-3.
ROBINSON’S JOY
Again a high price was exacted for this error, for inside another minute it was 4-2.
Blackpool broke away on one wing and won a corner from a Newcastle defence which still seemed a little inclined to lose position even against the random attacks of four men.
The corner was half cleared.
The ball ran loose.
Young CYRIL ROBINSON, who three weeks ago had never been in a First Division match took it, ran half a dozen yards with it, and hooked it inside.
The next second he leaped high in the air in jubilation as the flying ball escaped a massed defence, and the goalkeeper’s late frantic dive at it, and hit the far wall of the net.
Afterwards, in this topsy-turvy half, 10 men began actually to outplay 11.
The 11, I think, had at last decided that this was not their day.
STILL THEY COME
No, this was not Newcastle’s day. A fifth goal was lost with eight minutes left.
A long pass to Perry, a raid downfield, a crossed centre, and it was all over.
MORTENSEN raced fast to the ball reached it as it skidded near the far post, and hooked it inside a narrow gap.
Nor was that the end, for with three minutes only left ALLAN BROWN made it 6-2 with the goal of the match.
Taking a pass out on the left, he cut in with it fast down the line, and after losing the ball once retrieved it and shot it past Simpson from an incredibly narrow angle.
And that was not the end either, for with another minute gone the United’s right wing escaped and crossed a high falling ball which GEORGE ROBLEDO headed down over an empty line.
Result:
BLACPOOL 6, (Perry 9 mins, Mortensen 13, 82 mins, Taylor 24 mins, Robinson 76 mins, Brown 87 mins)
NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Milburn 5 mins, Robledo 60, 88 mins)
COMMENTS ON THE GAME
IT has come at last. After nearly two and a half barren months Blackpool have won a home game.
What a game it was to win - a classic in goals and nearly all the time in football.
The Blackpool front line’s game in the first half deserved to win any game.
Little Ernest Taylor was great in these 45 minutes, and in partnership with Allan Brown constantly tore Newcastle’s defence wide open down the centre.
One’s only criticism at half-time was that the score was not nearer 6-1 than 3-1.
One had not a word of criticism left at the end. For with 10 men in the second half Blackpool not only held this lead but actually increased it.
Newcastle were not so completely outplayed as a 6-3 score might indicate. Their right wing was never, in fact, held.
FAST, DIRECT
Yet of the football, open, fast and direct, which wins games Blackpool, except for a 15-minute retreat in the second half, had a monopoly.
And for football with resolution in it the Blackpool defence graded with honours - yes, this criticised defence - this afternoon with wing half-backs Robinson and Fenton playing as such understudies are not expected to play.
Eddie Shimwell, too, had his best game for weeks. That could be said of nearly every Blackpool man.
It’s been a long time coming, but it was worth waiting for.
Attendance 23,611
By Clifford Greenwood
BACK to the scene of their manager’s early triumphs at Burnden Park go Blackpool next week, writes Clifford Greenwood.
Now and again in the past the Blackpool forwards have done at Burnden what seemed to come so naturally to Mr. Joe Smith in the long ago, shooting sufficient goals to win quite a few points.
Last season - it was on Easter Monday, a day of rain and tempest, with the turf trodden to slime and standing pools everywhere - the result was twilight robbery.
For in the last dying minutes of an afternoon deepening rapidly into gloom Stanley Mortensen was allowed to run through from a position which appeared yards offside to score the winning goal in a 2-1 game.
That was the first time Blackpool had won at Burnden Park since the war, but the records reveal that in the four other games played there by these Lancashire rivals, the Wanderers won only one.
The other three ended in draws, among them the 1948 game which introduced George Farm to English football and launched him on his present non-stop succession of appearances.
There is no reason, therefore, in spite of the Wanderers’ present eminence, why Blackpool should go to the Park next weekend as martyrs resigned to the stake.
Yet it will I think, be a bigger test for Blackpool on this ground than it has ever been, with Nat Lofthouse leading a forward line which has at last found itself, with Bob Langton at outside-left, and the new England centre-half, Matt Barrass, in the defence.
Portsmouth won by three goals at Burnden last week the first visiting team to win there this season - and by such a definite score as 3-0, too. That showed at least that the Wanderers are not invincible at home, but as few teams ever are that was scarcely news.
What is certain is that if Blackpool are to maintain their present remarkable away record something will have to be pulled out of the bag next Saturday.
TIME THE KOP LET ITSELF GO
Cheers can be victory factor
BY "CLIFFORD GREENWOOD" 10 November 1951
WEST BROMWICH ALBION won a point from Blackpool in a late storming assault at the Hawthorns last Saturday afternoon. That was in all the reports, and it was a correct version of the game’s closing quarter of an hour. But it would have been no less correct to report that West Bromwich Albion and 40,000 others forced this 1-1 draw at a time when Blackpool seemed destined to go home with both points.
‘‘We’ve had a good 12th man today,” I was told by a West| Bromwich director in the boardroom after the match.
The 12th man, he said, was his name for those 40,000 loyalists, who, for 15 tempestuous minutes, had roared the Albion home to the retrieving of the game and nearly to the winning of it.
Had they made such a lot of difference? I realised in retrospect that they had, recalled Andy McCall, the former Blackpool forward, who was with me in the Press box, saying amid all the tumult, “This’d set any team alight!” It went on and on and on, with fireworks exploding so frequently that in a half-minute of comparative silence while the game was at a standstill a stern voice on the loudspeaker warned that the practice was dangerous in packed terraces and demanded that it should cease.
Anfield roar
NO, come to think of it, I have not heard a greater hullabaloo on a football ground since I was last at Anfield, where the “Kop” is at times in such a pandemonium that the chorus borders on mass intimidation of whoever shall dispute Liverpool’s right to conquer the football kingdom.
It is said that no football match was ever won anywhere except on a football field-or lost anywhere else, either. Not in a boardroom, not on a blackboard in one of those midweek conferences which are a recent introduction-only, in the last resort, out in the arena are games decided.
Yet I have seen too many teams inspired by cheers and depressed by jeers not to realise that the public can exercise a big influence on a game’s course.
They exercised it at the Hawthorns a week ago. There was once an occasion at Blackpool when the home team battled for an hour with depleted forces in a ferocious rearguard action when on their own admission they might have surrendered if a few thousand folk on the embankment behind the north goal had not willed them to hold fast by intensity of their encouragement.
Crowd did it
THAT was a demonstrative exhibition by a singularly undemonstrative public.
And when it was all over, and the smoke of battle had cleared from the field, Harry Johnston, the Blackpool captain, telephoned my home and said, “The lads would never have won today if they hadn’t had the crowd with ’em. Tell them that. We’ve often complained about them. But they gave us a break today.” The day was Wednesday, February 15, 1950. It was the day Wolverhampton Wanderers lost the famous Cup replay at Bloomfield-road.
At Blackpool they still say they would not have won it without the Kop’s aid.
So there is something in it, as apparently there seemed to be at West Bromwich as recently as a week ago.
Now this is - or is supposed to be - a free country. Heaven forbid that I should presume to give orders to the people who week by week go to watch the Blackpool team.
Special occasion
THE fact, nevertheless, remains that it has to be a special occasion for the Blackpool public to lash itself into the sort of frenzy which converted Bloomfield - road into Bedlam on that February afternoon last year.
I am not all that convinced chat it would be to the ultimate benefit of Blackpool football if it happened every week.
Yet there are times when, I think, this Blackpool public might let itself go a little and make a “Mafeking” of it now and again.
That, I know, would be for the good of the team who at the present time have persuaded themselves - or, to be correct, a few of them have - that the people who profess to be their greatest friends are also their greatest critics.
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Disappointment
THE team itself may have invited this treatment. When the season opened too many folk were talking as if Blackpool would continue the victorious progress of last season.
I warned at the time that was folly in such an unpredictable game as football.
All that has happened since at Bloomfield-road has caused disillusionment.
The team lost the first home match which everybody said Blackpool would win. It was dismissed as an accident - just one of those things. So it seemed when Blackpool went away and won at Portsmouth and Huddersfield.
Everybody was set again for a peal on the victory bells when Portsmouth came to town. A goalless draw was another anticlimax which a defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers five days later almost, but not quite, redeemed.
Vicious circle
MOT once since nave Blackpool won a home game.
Preston, the Villa and Charlton have taken both points, Manchester City and Middlesbrough one each, and today, on the eve of the Newcastle match, Blackpool have the questionable distinction of being the only team in the First Division who, with the season nearly three months old, have won only one home game.
Such a record scarcely encourages the public always to greet the team with jubilation.
Yet it is a fact that a vicious circle has been created as a result of Blackpool’s constant failures at home - and if the team cannot break it the public may have to.
For while the people who watch are in such a melancholy state about the men who are playing, the worse a few of those men will probably play and the greater will become the discdntent of the people who watch. And so on, and so on until the cows come home.
On the floor
I REMEMBER Manager Joe Smith saying a week or two ago when we were on this subject “It’s all very fine cheering a winning team, but it’s when a team’s on the floor that the cheers make the difference.” You should have seen the Albion come up off the floor when those 40,000 began cheering them a week ago. There was, I suppose, a moral in it, and the Blackpool football public should not need to be told what exactly it was.
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GOOD YOUNG 'UNS
By Clifford Greenwood
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IT’S so easy to work out.
A West Bromwich Albion go to Liverpool one week and win 5-2. A week later Blackpool play a 1-1 draw at West Bromwich while Liverpool are holding Newcastle to a similar score at St. James’s Park.
This afternoon Blackpool met Newcastle - and it should obviously have been merely a case of counting the Blackpool goals.
That’s the logic of it - Q.E.D. But what’s the football of it ?
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Now Dennis Moulton, another Highfield product, is on trial, played against Burnley “B” in a midweek match I saw last week, and, as I wrote at the time, scored one of his team’s five goals chiefly because he was so often moving into scoring positions.
Whether Moulton is destined to make a name in the big Leagues cannot yet be anything except speculative, but he is fast, and he is fearless, and he can shoot - three qualities which go a long way towards making the present-day wing forward.
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