Manchester United Crush Blackpool

Sir Matt Busby

Matt Busby took over the mana­gerial reins at Manchester United in Octo­ber 1945, although his con­tract with the club had already been signed the pre­vi­ous Feb­ru­ary. The exper­i­enced com­pany ser­geant major imme­di­ately went on to trans­form the sleep­ing giant and dur­ing his first three cam­paigns in charge as man­ager of the club Manchester United fin­ished First Divi­sion runners-up three times in a row as well as win­ning the FA Cup in 1948.

The 1948 FA Cup Final between Black­pool and Manchester United is widely regarded as one of the best ever played at Wemb­ley. The first goal came after fif­teen minutes when Eddie Shim­well con­ver­ted from the pen­alty spot after Stan Mortensen had been brought down inside the box by Manchester United defender Allenby Chilton. Five minutes later Jack Row­ley equal­ised after a mis­un­der­stand­ing in the pen­alty area between goal­keeper Joe Robin­son and centre half Eric Hay­ward. The Sea­siders then scored their second goal of the match when the power­ful Stan Morten­son beat Jack Cromp­ton with a superb shot ten minutes before the break. With less than 20 minutes remain­ing, a skill­fully worked free kick from Johnny Mor­ris was met by Jack Row­ley who headed Manchester United level. The rest of the final saw Black­pool firmly on the defens­ive, as Stan Pear­son fired Manchester United into the lead with a blis­ter­ing shot on in the 80th minute of the match before John Ander­son even­tu­ally made the final score read 4‑2 two minutes later.

Manchester United Books