How Good Is This Buckle
How Good Is This Buckle August 21, 1950.
The Liverpool Daily Post
Everton 3, Huddersfield Town 2
By Leslie Edwards
A good start, they say, is everything, and Everton had everything they could hope for in the first minute of the engaging meeting of clubs with a new lease of Division 1 life. The ball had barely moved from centre after a false start kick-off, when little Grant, coming up eagerly and with his usual purposefulness, drove the ball, left foot, into the further most crevice from Mills’ reach. But, Everton, suffered many apprehensive moments (not to mention those in which they deserved to score) before they nailed their men, by three goals to two. Huddersfield having countered leading goals twice and having near missed getting a third equalizer were “no” without credit and the margin was just –but only. The attendance numbered 51,000. “It was a game over which few could find fault, having all the qualities one hardly expects from a season-opening fixture. Speed, pattered attacking some stern and intelligent defence and goalkeepers who shook us (and themselves) in a mixture of good bad and right down indifferent. Mills who seemed so hazy about anything crossing him in the air, not only caught but held the Buckle cannon-shot which did everything but elude his grasp, he had further good fortune to find the convenient last line defender twice aiding him well all seemed lost.

Centre Slip
Grant’s goal having been wiped out by Taylor’s (and this was in part due to Burnett not dealing adequately with McKenna’s centre). It was left to the long and leggy Buckle to give his side the lead again and, after Taylor had scored again, to put Everton on top. His first goal was ordinary; the second came as the sequel to a left foot shot hit so hard that even Mills in touch with it with both hands, could not prevent its power from taking full effect. I wonder whether the general view of Buckle’s value and his intelligence in taking up position matches my own which has at least been consistently that here, but for the accident of a somewhat meagre physique is a player almost in the Matthews class. Buckle packs into his shots a greater punch than most other forwards, and his peculiar methods of “feeling” his way round or through the ranks of a defence creates havoc. Nevertheless I fear the Everton crowd is sometimes apt to treat him as their Jack Balmer. That we have arrived at the stage what many youthful buds are bursting on the football world was confirmed by the work of such players as Moore of Everton and Gallogly and Battye of Huddersfield. Moore, did nobly against that tantalizing and completely equipped ensnarer of full backs. Metcalfe and what Battye lacked in finesse when compared with the Irish man. Gallogly, he more than made up by his continuous action. He may, that is true have inclined to over-earnestness, a term some Everton forwards would probably decry as too lenient.

Busy Trio
Everton moved sweetly and with unusual fire in many of their opening forward ventures and though Huddersfield wore then down a little Everton later reasserted themselves, with Fielding, Wainwright, and Catterick all doing well enough to earn goals for themselves or for others. Fielding’s knowledgeable nudging of the ball to all quarters of the field contrasts sharply with Wainwright’s flair for the darting, quick-silver run, but Huddersfield scarcely knew which to fear most. Captain Peter Farrell in a day of near-inspiration and Grant (not so dominant as usual after his goal) usually took care of the Huddersfield inside men below the class partners McKenna and Metcalfe. McKenna’s speed is his best weapon but Saunders tackled him well, though he could not match the speed Gallogly put into his races against the enlivened Eglington. The Eglington it must be put on record who has conjured up from somewhere an almost startling accuracy and power of right foot shot. Are Huddersfield Town a far better side than they were. I think so. Time will show whether Everton’s victory will be followed by many others.