Sheffield United’s June victory handed Liverpool the title - sporting bygones

On Wednesday, the modern-day Blades, seventh in the top division and FA Cup quarter-finalists, travel to Aston Villa two days before England were due to play the second game in their European Championships campaign, as Liverpool close in on their first Premier League title.

Seventy-three years ago yesterday they were sixth in the top-flight, having reached the last eight of the FA Cup, and completed their season with a home match against Stoke City which would send the first post-War title to Anfield. It was a dramatic end to what until now had been the longest season in the history of English league football.

Coronavirus has wreaked havoc with 2019-20 but the country’s first campaign after World War Two was strung out by something more mundane – the unpredictable British weather.

For the Blades, it had started in a monsoon at Bramall Lane on August 31, 1946.

Liverpool were the visitors, and although they claimed a 1-0 victory under dark thunder clouds, it was anything but convincing.

Debutant Len Carney’s ‘gliding header’ snatched the two points, but the Liverpool Echo complained “No-one, least of all the board, is going to be satisfied until the front line show more punch.”

Although Carney, an amateur, would only make one more, scoreless appearance for them, Liverpool would settle down after an erratic first four games of the season. So would the Blades, winning three of their six matches in an unbeaten September. The weather, though, would not.

September, 1946 was an Indian summer, yet soon the country was hit by freezing fog and gale-force winds.

That turned to snowstorms which threatened to grind the country to a halt as it struggled to recover from a ruinously expensive World War.

After so long without football, gates boomed at the start of the season, but in the winter the Government ordered a widespread industrial shutdown as rail and road travel became increasingly difficult and many factories were forced to close, adding millions to the ranks of the unemployed.

Football programmes became one-sheet affairs because of paper shortages. At one stage, the Government even tried to stop midweek football because with no floodlights, matches were played in the afternoons, and blamed for absenteeism at work.

February was the coldest on record in 37 years, and for 55 days between January and March, 1947 it snowed somewhere in the UK every day.

The worst day was February 22, when more than half the day’s scheduled games were called off. The game at Bramall Lane went ahead, although the Blades might have wished it had not, their 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers the first of six in seven games.

In all, over 100 league matches were postponed that season.

Eventually, the Football League agreed to extend the season by six weeks. For Liverpool, it concluded with a trip to Wolverhampton Wanderers on May 31. On the hottest day of the year so far, the match officials dropped their usually all-black kits for white jerseys.

Not that Liverpool were complaining, they won 2-1 to go top of the league. It took them a point above Manchester United, who had signed off with a 6-2 win over the Blades on May 26 which ensured they finished above third-placed Wolves on goal average.

Now Liverpool faced a wait to find out if they would be champions.

Stoke would stop them, but would have to wait for Sheffield United who had a home game against Arsenal – who they host in the Cup at the end of this month – to get out of the way first, delaying the title-decider until June 14.

The Blades beat the Gunners 2-1 in front of a crowd of 14,939, setting them up for the final match of the season, 10 months after the start and seven weeks after the FA Cup final.

A win would hand Stoke, fourth at the start of play, their first title on goal average. With the table so tight, nothing else would suffice.

Stoke wore a new change strip of white shirts and black shorts, as opposed to their usual alternative of Wednesday-style blue-and-white stripes. Their estimated 10,000 travelling fans pushed the crowd up to the 30,000 mark, and caused local bus companies to run out of vehicles.

A month earlier, the Potters sold Stanley Matthews – regarded by many as the world’s best player – to Blackpool for £11,500. Frank Mountford handed in a transfer request when he learnt on the Tuesday before the Bramall Lane game he had lost his place to England international Neil Franklin – not that the Blades were without problems, too.

“Sheffield, beset by injuries and other worries, can scarcely be expected to hold City, who have won seven games in succession,” read a pre-match preview. “Sheffield are without right-back (Fred) Furniss, who has fractured a collar-bone, and inside-forwards (Jimmy) Hagan and (Harold) Brook, both injured.

“The former club captain (Jack) Pickering has been recalled to take Hagan’s place at inside-left, and (Dick) Young, a pre-war full-back, deputies for Furniss.”

Barnsley-born inside-left Pickering was making his first appearance of the season. He was an England international but his only cap came at Hampden Park less than three months after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. He was now 38.

It took just three minutes for him to score, putting the hosts in front from a bobbling cross-shot. “It took me months to smile again,” said Dennis Herod after diving over it.

Alec Ormston equalised after five minutes, and at half-time the title was still in the balance.

When Stoke’s John McCue slipped attempting to clear Pickering’s pass, Walter Rickett put the hosts back in front.

A goalbound shot from Freddie Steele got stuck in the mud in front of the Sheffield United goal, which had earlier been spared when George Mountford hit the bar.

Not that Stoke were only blaming the Bramall Lane pitch. Manager-secretary Bob McGrory gave Lincoln referee WH Dixon a mark of nought out of four, and Stoke have never come as close to the title. The Blades finished sixth, with Liverpool champions.

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