ELEVEN young fighting footballers from England made a terrific storming finish here tonight to thrill 25,000 Danish fans and provide the clear-cut win we all expected. In fact if the game had lasted a split second longer that victory margin would have been even greater. A terrific shot from right half Ron Clayton was already zooming towards goal as referee Helgesen of Norway was lifting the whistle to his lips.
No one in the stadium, certainly not Clayton, even more certainly Danish 'keeper, Eric Larsen, hopelessly beaten on the ground, knew whether it had actually crossed the line before the finishing blast.
   It was only when the referee raced across to console Clayton that we realised that a split second had separated England from a fourth goal.
At the end of the first half it looked all Copenhagen to a piece of Danish cheese against a win for England.
   The man who saved England in the first half was goalkeeper Alan Hodgkinson.
This 5ft. 6in. soldier who most people feared would be too 12pt for international football flung himself desperately across the goal in a back-wrenching arc to turn a terrific shot from outside-left Gregor Nielsen inches wide in the fifteenth minute. England were sadly off target at this stage with their shooting. Centre forward Gerry Hitchens, inside left Alick Jeffrey, inside right Jimmy Bloomfield and outside right Brian Douglas all missed chances. But very slowly the superior stamina of the English team started to reveal itself. In the fifty-first minute outside left Frank Blunstone went chasing after a ball that looked certain to go out of touch. He pulled it back inches from the line, slid it forward to Jeffrey and raced inside to crack the return pass low and hard into the corner of the net. For fully fifteen minutes the Danes, dredging up the last reserves of their energy, flung everything at England's defence. It stood the test—with Clayton in particular playing like a real captain. He knocked himself out in the seventieth minute with a desperate late tackle to steal the ball from Ove Andersen's feet only two yards from goal.
The came England's glorious second goal. Man behind it was Arsenal inside right Jimmy Bloomfield, who until that moment in the 81st minute had failed in his role as schemer. He worked the ball past two defenders, slipped it across the goal to Jeffrey, and then positioned himself coolly on the edge of the penalty area in case there was any slip-up. There was. Hitchens hit Jeffrey's pass straight against the goalkeeper—but coolly Bloomfield took one pace forward and hit it into the roof of the net. Two minutes from the end Bloomfield again sent through a long ball for Hitchens to smash into the net.
If only England had Johnny Haynes here tonight we would surely have won twice as easily and by twice as many goals.
  

IN the first match of the season, before 20,000 against Denmark at Copenhagen Young England took a long time to settle down but after the interval there was no denying their superiority. Hodgkinson made a number of fine saves in the first half when the Danes were striving to take the lead, but gradually the stamina and skill of the English team - forwards in particular - began to reveal itself. Good goals by Blunstone, Bloomfield, and Hitchens ultimately gave England a comfortable victory, and Jeffrey - only 17 years old - Douglas, Clayton, and Smith all played well in the second half when eleven individuals really became a team.