Blackpool v Bolton Wanderers: 1953 FA Cup final – live!

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, there are 90 minutes of football to play after all, but in years to come, perhaps we’ll remember today’s match as the Joe Smith Final. Blackpool’s veteran boss is a big part of the story, you see. Back in the day, he used to bang them in for … of course he did … Bolton Wanderers. Relentlessly so: he’s their all-time leading scorer with 277 goals. As club captain, he lifted the FA Cup for the Trotters after the famous White Horse Final of 1923, and again three years later. Now having moved to the coast to manage Blackpool, he’s hoping to make it third time lucky with the Seasiders, having lost the finals of 1948 and 1951. If his team prevail this afternoon, against his old club, it’d surely be a story for the ages!

Having said all that, quite a lot of attention is being focused on Blackpool winger Stanley Matthews. Quite. A. Lot. The biggest star English football has produced to date is, at the age of 38, running out of time to win the FA Cup medal that’s eluded him all these years. Blackpool twice let the lead slip against Manchester United in the 1948 final, they were undone by Newcastle cup specialist Jackie Milburn three years later, and many felt that was the old boy’s last chance of a medal. Unexpectedly, here comes another. He really is boozing in the last-chance saloon this time. Is the idol of English football destined to end his career with nothing tangible to show for all his talent? It’s unthinkable, but this is where we are.

Problem for Matthews, Smith and Blackpool is, Bolton are currently three for three in FA Cup finals at Wembley. Admittedly all of these triumphs came in the 1920s – in addition to the aforementioned finals starring Smith, they also won in 1929 – but footballers can be a superstitious lot, and every little helps. They’ve also got a player of their own to rival the star power of Matthews: Nat Lofthouse, England’s Lion of Vienna. Lofthouse is the newly crowned Football Writers’ Player of the Year. And what a year! He scored 22 goals in the First Division, six in a challenge match between the Football League and the League of Ireland, and has found the net in every round of the cup so far. He’s knocking them in at a prodigious rate for both club and country. Who knows, he may one day threaten Joe Smith’s club record. Good luck stopping him today.

But y’know, good luck stopping both of these attacks. Matthews and Lofthouse are flanked by a top-class supporting cast: Bolton forwards Willie Moir, Harold Hassall and Bobby Langton are all internationals, while Blackpool striker Stan Mortensen has been matching Lofthouse goal for goal in an England shirt. Throw in the results of the two league encounters this season – a 3-0 win for Blackpool and a 4-0 win for Bolton – and this has the promise to be a lot of fun. Can Blackpool win their first cup, and with it that precious medal for Matthews? Or will Bolton Wanderers lift the famous pot for the fourth time and break the old boy’s heart? We’ll find out soon enough. It’s on!

Kick-off: 3pm.

Blackpool fans roam the streets of London before the game.

Blackpool fans roam the streets of London before the game. Photograph: PA
source: theguardian.com