Well Done Archie! Morecambe win at Accrington Stanley – at last!
Well – the end of the season is beckoning. Morecambe Manager Ged Brannan has gone on record to tell everyone that his men need to win six of their remaining games to get into the League Two Play-Offs. He first did this when there were ten matches left to play. His team responded by losing the next four fixtures on the spin. So there are only seven games left now – and who should be up next? Yes – it just had to be Morecambe’s one-and-only all-time Bogey Team – Accrington Stanley. Shall we repeat the Shrimps’ absolutely dire statistics against their closest Lancashire rival over the years? Well, if we must…
The last time they met – in a game ruined by hopeless referee Keith Stroud – Derek Adams’ side drew 1-1 in north Lancashire last October. Since 2007, it has been twenty-eight matches played altogether; nine draws; a massive fifteen wins for Stanley – and a pathetically small four victories altogether for the Shrimps.
Our Ged has had a big say in some of these defeats. Until King Derek persuaded him to abandon them earlier this season, Ged had been a key part of John Coleman and Jimmy Bell’s coaching staff for years as the Accrington Under 23s Manager. This will be the first time he will face them as Morecambe boss but opposite number John Doolan will be in the Stanley Hot Seat for only the second time since the sacking of Messrs Coleman and Bell earlier this month.
There has been `trouble at t’mill’ at the Crown Ground ever since long-serving “Coley” and right-hand man ”Ding-Dong” took the club down from League One last season. Chairman – and benefactor to the club for ages – Andy Holt has waged a war of words with his former bosom pals ever since.
Mr Holt has form as far as controversy is concerned. Almost literally four years ago, he told the EFL; the Football Association, the Premier League and incumbent Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he did not approve of their plans to tackle the developing Covid-19 pandemic. He said he would not do anything to put particularly pensioners’ lives at risk by potentially playing football matches in front of a live audience when the virus was spreading rapidly; there was no vaccine to counter it and older people were already dying in their droves because of it. He said that he would do whatever he deemed necessary to attempt to thwart the spread of Coronavirus, even if that meant Accrington Stanley not playing games at the Crown Ground or elsewhere. He expressed his dismay that none of the four named recipients of his email was prepared to help in this regard by saying this in part of his email to all of them: “But f**k you.” I think we can all applaud him for the sentiment – given our government’s utterly chaotic response to the crisis at the time – even though we might not necessarily have expressed it in the way he did.
However, it’s never a good idea to wash your dirty washing in public. But that’s exactly what the key player in the recent Accrington Stanley melodrama has chosen to do. On 7th March, Mr Holt went as far as to publish a statement on the club website explaining his decision to sack the men who guided the club into the EFL in the first place and then achieved League One status for them. You can read it here:
Although there’s loads more to say, we will now bring down the curtain on this rather sordid little soap opera at this point. Will it have a happy ending? Time will tell. As I have written on these pages previously, Coley has been famous for making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear year-in, year-out at Accrington. Season after season, the former Morecambe marksman was faced with a situation where limited resources alone forced him to meld together a completely new side of loanees, youngsters and players often looking for a re-start to failing careers into an effective unit. And he usually succeeded. History will show if sacking the most successful pairing who took Stanley out of the non-league wilderness and kept them in the EFL for years despite underfunding for most of this time turns out to be a sensible move…
Accrington started today’s match in sixteenth position in League Two on the back of four defeats and just a single victory in their last six league games. Their latest reverse – Mr Doolan’s first game in charge – ended in a 3-1 loss at rock bottom club Sutton United last Saturday.
Morecambe – despite only winning two of their last six matches – are still in touch with the Play-Off pack at the top of the table in twelfth place, just five points shy of Crawley in seventh place, albeit having played a game more. Realistically, nothing less than a win would do today for Our Ged and his men if they are to stand any genuine chance of challenging for a place in League One next season. This is what he said prior to the match, starting with his relationship with the new Stanley Manager:
“I know John really, really well; we speak all the time; more or less every day. It’s going to be interesting being up against him. He knows his football so I’ll have to be me toes. We will speak after the game tomorrow. We haven’t spoke this week. He is a top fellah; a great football person.”
As far as the game itself is concerned, he added:
“It’s going to be a hundred mile an hour. They will be on top of us; they will be all over us. We’ll be ready for that. He’s seen our weaknesses in our team; I’ve seen the weaknesses in his team. It will be interesting going up against each other.”
John Doolan himself said the following about today’s match:
“It’s a derby; one that I’m looking forward to. They’re always tight affairs. Form goes out of the window. Coming up against Ged now and his team – it’s going to be surreal really. It’s mad to think: six months ago, we were in the same car travelling together. Ged’s a good lad. We’ll have a good little chat afterwards.”
The afternoon started brightly in more ways than one. Accrington Market Hall is closed for renovation, so the café my partners in crime and myself usually visit pre-match was not available. A very helpful and friendly young local woman pointed us towards an alternative: Micki Morgan’s Café and Coffee Bar. The food was really good but extraordinarily cheap with it. The service was exceptional too so a great big thank you again to the two lovely ladies responsible for this.
At the Crown Ground, we sat at the back of the away stand almost on the half way line as sunshine hot enough to burn you blazed down from a predominantly blue sky. A really nice touch then ensued before kick-off: the Easter Bunny arrived to give even the kids from Morecambe good quality Easter eggs and a chance to be photographed with the creature responsible for this sweet treat. Well done to the club for making this very thoughtful gesture – two little lads near to us were obviously absolutely thrilled by it…
Then the match started. The visitors kicked-off in their white away strip and probably just about edged the opening exchanges. As Our Ged had predicted, the game was played at a hundred miles an hour to start off with. We noted, though, that Man in the Middle Alex Chilowicz just let the game flow for the first little while – including some crude fouls by both teams which went completely unpunished until he belatedly started to actually referee the game, presumably when ten minutes exactly was up according to the watch on his wrist. Charlie Brown created a chance for himself early doors when he worked his way into the Stanley penalty area down the Morecambe right following a move initiated by Skipper Jacob Bedeau right from the back. He did everything right but then placed a looping shot just over the bar and the far post instead of hitting the target. He then had a cast-iron chance for the visitors to score after just eleven minutes. Coming in on the right of the Stanley penalty area from his point of view again, he struck a shot from close range which seemed to be destined for the back of the net. But last-ditch defending saw his effort deflected over the bar for a corner kick. Seven minutes later, Jake Taylor took a corner from the Morecambe left and an unmarked Nelson Khumbeni managed to head the ball over the bar when it seemed far easier for him to find the back of the net. He then warmed home stopper Radek Vitek’s hands with a shot after half an hour. With thirty-two minutes on the clock, Ged Garner then tried an audacious lob of the goalkeeper from a long way out and only just missed the frame of the goal.
But there were scares at the other end too. That said, the nearest Accy came to scoring was in the twenty-second minute. Stanley won a corner; the ball fell to centre-half Brad Hills and he instinctively back-heeled a shot which forced Archie Mair to pull-off a tremendous save high to his left to stop it going into the top corner of the net. Jack Nolan then dragged a shot wide of the post after half an hour.
As the half had worn on, the weather changed from Spring back to Autumn. Dark clouds gathered over the Crown Ground from which freezing rain soon cascaded over the Morecambe fans on the open end terrace. Even those of us taking shelter in the away stand by the side of the pitch got wet as powerful Pennine gusts blew the deluge across the field almost horizontally towards us.
On the way home after the match, we had the dubious pleasure of listening to a Radio Lankyshite pundit repeatedly having a go at our former player Kelvin Mellor (what is that all about?) as he whinged that the game had been awful to watch. I disagree. Given the atrocious conditions, I for one thought that both teams played some decent stuff at times. Having said that, there was not a lot of goalmouth action to report during the first half. But things were about to change in the second…
Neither manager made any changes at half time. The Shrimps’ defence was at sixes and sevens early doors when, in trying to clear a Stanley corner, Jake Taylor instead headed the ball into the danger area and his team-mates had real trouble clearing it. With just ten minutes of the re-start played, though, Morecambe took the lead. Gwion Edwards showed some typically fancy footwork to take the ball up the Shrimps’ right from deep in defence. His initial attempt to pass the ball forwards was blocked. But when the ball luckily bounced back to him, he played a superb pass forwards which forced the Stanley defence to turn en masse as Garner latched onto it. The Barrow loanee made good progress up his right flank and might have taken a shot himself. Instead, he looked up, saw Nelson Khumbeni keeping pace with him, cleverly turned inside a defender and unselfishly laid-off a perfect pass for him to score his first goal for the club with an emphatic finish. Almost immediately though, Mair was again forced to earn his corn with another excellent save to keep his side in the game.
As the visitors called all the shots, there was controversy in the sixty-second minute. Edwards seemed to be fouled by Joe Gubbins on the right hand side of the home penalty area. Referee Alex Chilowicz disagreed though and despite the mass protests of the Morecambe team, only awarded a free kick to the Shrimps. Charlie Brown took it, striking the ball hard and low into the area towards Vitek’s near post. And in it went. Exactly who scored it wasn’t clear but the record books give it to Chris Stokes at the moment although I personally suspect Charlie’s shot went straight into the back on the net.
So it was Nirvana for Morecambe fans at this point: nil-two up against Stanley in Accrington: can this really be happening?
The Stanley Manager shook things up – as another monsoon swept across the ground – with a quarter of an hour still scheduled to play. He sent on no less than four substitutes. As a result – and for the first time in the match – the home team started to cause the visitors real problems. This was made all the difficult for the Shrimps when Stokes was hurt and had to leave the field after 76 minutes. Even without their key central defender though, it looked as if Morecambe were going to hold out until Accrington reduced the arrears in the 89th minute. Very impressive replacement Lewis Shipley headed home a cross from Nolan after good approach play by Stanley up their right hand side.
By this time, the momentum which the visitors had built up throughout the second half had been well and truly lost and our lot were basically just trying to hold onto their very rare lead against the men in the all-red strip. The referee then added on nine minutes of injury time.
So it was Squeaky Bum time for us all of a Morecambe persuasion. Our side stopped attacking. On the rare moments the ball was in the Accrington half, we tried – and failed – to play out time by holding on to it. But the totally rejuvenated home team created enough chances to pull the game out of the fire. During injury time, Stanley Skipper Shaun Whalley cleverly worked his way into a shooting position in the opposition penalty area but his shot from the Accy left was cleared off the line by outstanding Morecambe Captain Jacob Bedeau. Then, with no less than four players lining-up to take a shot as Stanley again marauded down their right, the one who actually did so wasted an absolutely golden chance to equalise with a wild shot which went well wide of the target. The match ended, however, with the visitors on the attack, having managed to weather the storm both on and off the field.
So Morecambe did what they needed to do today – win. With rivals Crawley losing at home to Doncaster 0-2 and AFC Wimbledon and Harrogate drawing, the three precious points saw the Shrimps in tenth place in League Two this evening. They are just three points shy of Gillingham in seventh place with a game in hand. Stanley, meanwhile, slipped to eighteenth position. This is what Our Ged made of this famous victory over his previous employers:
“Stokesey was very good today so when he come off, it buckled us a little bit. But in the end we dug in deep. We got a few blocks. They could have nicked it at the end. It is what it is. We got away with it in the end.”
Asked specifically about goalkeeper Archie Mair, he replied:
“People go on about last week. You know what – you look at his performances since he’s come here. He’s a young lad. He’s not played in the league before. He’s been absolutely brilliant for us. Obviously, he had a blip last week. But Hey Ho!: lots of other players have had blips. But they don’t get the finger pointed at them. Today he showed big character. It looks like he has a broken nose. So welcome to football – well done Archie!”
Accrington Stanley: 21 Radek Vitek; 4 Kelvin Mellor (2 Lewis Shipley (Y) 74’); 5 Brad Hills; 7 Shaun Whalley (C); 10 Joe Pritchard (30 Alex Henderson 74’); 16 Joe Gubbins (Y); 17 Jack Nolan; 18 Tommy Leigh (Y) (8 Ben Woods 74’); 19 Jake Bickerstaff (39 Josh Woods 74’); 22 Dan Martin; 38 Connor O’Brien (Y).
Substitutes not used: 61 Jack Cameron McIntyre; 28 Seamus Conneely; 55 Korede Adedoyin.
Morecambe: 30 Archie Mair; 3 David Tutonda (Y); 4 Jacob Bedeau (C); 9 Ged Garner; 12 Joel Senior; 14 Jordan Slew; 15 Chris Stokes (6 Yann Songo’o 76’); 18 Jake Taylor; 19 Gwion Edwards (8 Joe Adams 86’); 20 Charlie Brown (11 Julian Larsson 86’); 38 Nelson Khumbeni (Y).
Substitutes not used: 21 Adam Smith; 10 JJ McKiernan; 17 Cammy Smith; 39 Jordy Hiwula
Ref: Alex Chilowicz.
Att: 3,420 (946 from Morecambe.)
