A famous victory in the melting snow: A look back at Blackpool's comprehensive victory against Chelsea

Chelsea 1-4 Blackpool – March 8, 1947

Nearly three inches of melting snow hid the frozen Stamford Bridge turf. Only on the lines and in the goal areas had the snow been cleared.

There were not 30,000 people in the ground when the teams appeared after mass snowball battles had been raging between a pack of boys on the greyhound track which encircles the field.

Blackpool only had to wait until the fifth minute to take the lead thanks to a fast and crisp advance.

Buchan accepted a forward pass as it reached him and put another forward pass into a wide open space. Into this space Dick raced and shot into the far corner of the net as Medhurst dived at his feet.

It was a goal made to look as simple as ABC and it was deserved - because in the first seven minutes the Chelsea forwards had crossed the halfway line only once and then had not reached the penalty area.

Nobody expected this. Blackpool were faster everywhere, direct with their passes which were made without hesitation.

So precise and ordered was this football that it might have been played on firm Wembley turf instead of on a couple of inches of snow which were churning into slime.

A second Blackpool goal came five minutes after the first - a goal as simple in construction as the opener.

This time Munro made it. He took another of those long passes, swerved past Steffen as if the Swiss were not there and crossed a high centre.

Winter lost the ball in the sun’s glare and down it fell beyond him, where Dick was left unmarked to pick out the back of the net.

Chelsea made an attack of sorts on the right wing and another on the left, but Blackpool stormed back with another raid which ended with Dick splitting the Chelsea defence wide open again with a centre which Medhurst punched almost off the face of the bar.

Barely a minute later, Dick again forced the goalkeeper into a mid-air clearance at the cost of the game’s first corner.

Afterwards, Chelsea’s frontline no longer merely held a watching brief.

On 20 minutes, they reduced the lead after half a dozen patch-work attacks had been repulsed. Machin lobbed a high ball into the area, where Goulden leaped at the flying ball only to head against the bar.

Down the ball cannoned and came to rest in the mud at Wallace’s feet, where it seemed to get trapped. But it was soon forced over the line by Williams, with the goalkeeper in the quagmire near the post.

That goal awakened the Chelsea forwards at last, yet when the Blackpool frontline raced into the match again Steffan had to hurl himself into the path of a thunderbolt shot by the non-stop Munro.

In the next minute, only the deceptive skid of the ball beat Mortensen as he chased down Buchan’s shrewd forward pass.

Yet with 25 minutes gone - 25 minutes of football faster and of higher quality than on such a day I had ever expected - Blackpool were no longer dictating the match and were often in retreat, with Chelsea launching tearaway raids on the Blackpool goal.

But before half-time, Dick nearly completed his hat-trick when his shot hit a full-back almost on the line and cannoned out to safety.

Mortensen stabbed wide before Johnston missed a brilliant one-man goal by inches after outwitting the Chelsea defence all on his own.

By the time the second-half opened, the centre line had become a shallow canal. Elsewhere, the mud was thickening every minute.

It was all Chelsea in the first two minutes, but Blackpool came close to scoring a third when Winter, in a panic, passed back to his goalkeeper a ball so fast that Medhurst had to fall all of his 5ft 11 inches to reach it.

Shimwell’s long clearances were repeatedly creating Blackpool raids and one built an attack in the fifth minute of the second half, which indirectly produced a goal.

Munro darted and crossed the ball towards Buchan, who swerved his full-back, ran half a dozen yards on his own and shot from an incredibly narrow angle which flew over Medhurst’s head and into the far corner.

Afterwards, in almost continuous Blackpool pressure, the only major incident was a swallow dive into one of the banks of snow behind the Chelsea goalline by the aggressive Munro.

I also noticed that Mortensen’s right hand was encased in thick bandage.

Eastham shot wide when a loose ball had skidded away from Chelsea’s battered defence. It was nearly 4-1 in the next minute too, as Mortensen headed backwards Munro’s centre, but Medhurst clutched it to his chest as it him him.

With 20 minutes remaining, Dick was obstructed deliberately in the penalty area as he cut inside after beating three men. Blackpool demanded a penalty, but Mr Hall awarded a free-kick instead which Farrow shot straight into Medhurt’s arms.

Blackpool’s defence stood resolute in the last 15 minutes before Mortensen scored a fourth in the final minute of the game following a brilliant raid half the length of the field from Johnston.

TEAMS

Chelsea: Medhurst, Winter, Steffen, Machin, Harris, Macauley, Spence, Walker, Williams, Goulden, Paton

Blackpool: Wallace, Shimwell, Sibley, Farrow, Hayward, Johnston, Munro, Buchan, Mortensen, Eastham, Dick