January 5, 1929
Match: Football League, First Division, at Anfield, kick-off: 14:30.
Liverpool – Aston Villa 4-0 (1-0).
Attendance: 31,146.
Liverpool (2-3-5): Arthur Riley, James Jackson, Robert Done, Tom Morrison, David Davidson, Jimmy McDougall, Dick Edmed, Bob Clark, Gordon Hodgson, Tommy Reid, William Salisbury.
Aston Villa (2-3-5): Tommy Jackson, Thomas Smart, Teddy Bowen, George Jakeman, Alec Talbot, Billy Kingdon, Dicky York, Joe Beresford, Tom Waring, Billy Walker, Reg Chester.
The goals: 1-0 Edmed (11 min., assist: Clark), 2-0 Clark (49 min.), 3-0 Edmed (70 min.), 4-0 Hodgson (80 min.).
The Liverpool goals:
* The game was eleven minutes old when the first goal was placed on the score sheet. EDMED was the scorer, with Clark the engineer. The latter’s pass to his partner was so well timed that some thought Edmed was offside. In fact, Bowen most probably thought so, too. In any case, the full-back seemed to stop playing, and Edmed simply went on and placed the ball well beyond the reach of Jackson.
* The Villa defenders were often harassed; so much so, that they frequently called the offside theory to their aid, but there was one occasion when CLARK, after five minutes in the second half, gave an object lesson on the art of how to defeat such methods and drove his point home to all and sundry. Obtaining the ball a few yards inside the Villa half, he twice defeated Talbot by clever ball control and resisted a challenge from Kingdon. Meanwhile the backs had moved forward, and it was plain that had Clark released the ball his colleagues would have been ruled out of play. Instead he went ahead, drew out Jackson, and scored as the result of the finest individual effort seen on the ground this season.
* Some wonderful goals have been scored in football, but none could surpass the one obtained by EDMED at the seventieth minute, for when the winger shot he was right on the goal-line, and it seemed an impossibility for him to find the net at such an angle. However, Edmed must have applied a terrific amount of screw to his shot, or the wind must have caught it in flight, for the ball sped past Jackson and hit the inside netting at the far side of the goal. Jackson could hardly believe his own eyes when he saw the ball resting in the back of the net, and the crowd simply went mad with delight and amazement.
* HODGSON completed the discomfiture of the visitors ten minutes later.
Jimmy McDougall, Liverpool F.C.
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