Match of the Round
By J. P. W. MALLALIEU
IT was a difficult decision. As I can never stay neutral at a soccer match, I usually back the most northerly of the two teams, and you can't get much further north than Sunderland and stay in England. Sunderland, too, had swamped Huddersfield in the previous round, which made my pride hope that they would do at least as much to others in this round. Further, Sunderland are captained by a Huddersfield boy, Willie Watson, whose aunt fusses pleasantly over my material comfort whenever I am in my constituency. Finally, there were all those eager-faced men and women, festooned with Sunderland's red and white, who had spilled from coach and train into London's chilly streets and warmed us all with their friendliness and the sing-song lilt of their voices. No one could want them to face both another frozen night on the road and defeat as well.
Yet, as the trolley-bus moved spasmodically towards White Hart Lane, I was in doubt. Nowadays any team in the top half of the Second Division is probably better than any team in the bottom half of the First. But, because Spurs are Second Division and Sunderland First, the Spurs in this match were technically the under- dogs, and any neutral backs the under-dog. Far more weighty, however, was my devotion to the Spurs' crowd, that unshakable army which stands firm-footed and full-throated behind its team in defeat as well as in victory. Some things in the football of recent years have been unpleasant—boards of directors who promote and deal in football's black market, managers who allow their great office to be degraded to baggage-carrier and transport-clerk, players who bicker all afternoon long with their team-mates or who chop and change their clubs without a thought to loyalty, crowds who boo their own players the moment things go wrong. Through all the twists and changes, the Spurs' crowd have remained steadfast. So my heart was with them. _ But when I got into the stand, an hour before the kick-off, I wondered at first if, for this match, the Spurs' crowd had decided to stay at home. The ground even now was packed, but it seemed as though it was packed with Sunderland. Everywhere there was red and white—red and white bonnets, red and white umbrellas, red and white bowler hats, red and white suits. In the air, red balloons floated. On the ground, even the running track was red, and round it coons in red and white pyjamas danced ahead of ten briskly marching stalwarts, each carrying a red and white letter of Sunderland's name. They had spelled the name the wrong way round, but nobody minded. There they were, turning White"Hart Lane into Roker Park, while the rattles roared.
For the whole of that hour's wait few people bothered to take their seats. We stood and watched the display, watched a stately police-inspector suddenly drawn irresistibly out of his dignity to kick at a passing balloon, groaned and then roared as the balloon burst, watched the Sunderland fervour fan itself to white heat. We watched ? The Spurs' crowd watched, with good-humoured toler- ance, steadily, soberly. Not for them the pre-kick-off exuberance of their rivals, not for them the breath wasted on the empty air. For them there was serious work ahead. Till that moment, they were ready to be amused.
And soon, now, the moment came. On to the grass, which was white with frost where it was not yellow with sand, came red jerseyed Sunderland, prancing almost delicately on the frozen turf, folding their arms across their bodies to hold their dressing-room warmth. The red bonnets hailed them deliriously. Then came the Spurs, pallid in their white jerseys, but purposeful and fearless as they sprinted towards their goal. At first it seemed that they were greeted by silence. But in seconds I realised that the shout of welcome was so complete, so solid, so without rise or fall, that it filled the whole stadium. It was so even, so all-pervading, that one's ears were deadened.
For all their gingerly entrance, Sunderland controlled the game at first. While the Spurs' forwards ran swiftly over the ground, Sunderland let the ball do the running. Their right-half, Watson, turned and pirouetted like a skating-master cutting neat figures on the ice, and sent lazy, purposeful ground passes to his wings. In the thirteenth minute one of these wings centred the ball low to the edge of the penalty area, where a Spurs' back trapped it, and then, for double refinement, steadied himself before clearing. In a flash, Davis, the Sunderland centre-forward, slammed his foot at the ball and Ditchburn in the Spurs' goal dived too late.
At once the Spurs' crowd came into action.' A goal against will damp some crowds, but the Spurs' crowd took it as a challenge. Straight from the kick-off they threw up that wall of sound, and within three minutes then Spurs had equalised. There was, I am afraid, no question that on its path to goal the ball was handled by a Spurs' player. But there was, equally, no question that for the rest of the half the Spurs were the better of two good teams, who both played astonishingly ' good and clean football in trying conditions.
Spurs began the second half with a 2-1 lead, but within a minute came one of those might-have-beens which happen in so many matches. The Spurs' goal was opened, the ball came slowly across it to the foot of an unmarked Sunderland forward and Thence went flying—outside a post. An equaliser then might have changed the game, for, as in the first half, so in the second, Sunderland began as though they would win easily. But gradually their pressure weakened, and a rising tide of sound drove the Spurs forward, until in the last twenty minutes they surged right through the Sunderland defence and scored three more goals.
'The Sunderland fans were forlornly gay as they left the ground. To a little cockney boy who heard their accent and asked if they came from Wales, one lot said: "Yes, lad. We just bought these Sunderland colours because they were the , cheapest."
The Spurs' crowd might have left exultingly, vaunting their remarkable triumph. But they did not, They came through the exits in solid phalanxes, almost without individual movement as though they were riding on an escalator. They 'came out majestically, their faces showing that a good job had been done and that they were glad of it. But already their minds were turning from this game to the next one and to all the possibilities now opening up the broad avenue to Wembley Stadium. I watched them go, heard the roar subside into an excited buzz, subside again into a steady hum, subside again until the ground was empty and the only sound came from the rustle of torn papers blown by the cold wind.
Then I, too, turned my back on the game, turned my back for three weeks on football, and' prepared for more serious things.
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