Bradford Bore is Cure for Insomnia
Morecambe made the trip to the recently frozen east tonight to the White Rose County to take-on Bradford City. This is a club against which they have a relatively poor record: they have lost eight of seventeen previous fixtures and won only four. City’s recent record has improved on the time when club legend Stuart McCall was in charge earlier in the season. Two wins and two draws in their last five League Two games have seen them reach twentieth position in the table. In doing this, fears of relegation have receded somewhat. Bradford, however, have not been able to fulfil their last two fixtures. Their game at Valley Parade three days ago was postponed due to a frozen pitch and their match at Scunthorpe the previous Tuesday had to be abandoned as a blizzard hit Lincolnshire and the fixture was rendered unplayable beyond half time. At the same moment – on the other side of the Pennines – the Shrimps were coming from one-nil down to draw their own fixture at Bolton; the team’s second draw in a row. Derek Adams’ team arrived in West Yorkshire in sixth position in League Two. As well as their two most recent draws, his team had lost one league game prior to them and won the previous two. Morecambe also couldn’t compete against Scunthorpe last Saturday because of a frozen pitch at the Mazuma Stadium. One of Morecambe’s regular defenders – Nathaniel Knight-Percival – commented about this situation prior to the game:
“Having the game off on Saturday was a bit of a rarity especially at the moment. We have so many fixtures to play and the break could benefit us in a way because we have a lot of Saturday/Tuesday games coming up in the near future so I think having the rest won’t do us any harm.”
The opposition’s `Interim’ Manager, Mark Trueman, assessed the task of his own men in these terms:
“We have to take confidence from games we have played against sides towards the top end of the league. Against the likes of Cambridge United and Tranmere Rovers, we have shown our strengths and given a good account of ourselves, while managing to pick up points. Morecambe are a well-organised side who cause a lot of problems. They absorb pressure and counter well, and can hurt a lot of teams. We have to try and nullify them as much as possible and apply our game to them. It will be a challenge – as they are up at the right end of the table for the right reasons – but it is a game we are looking forward to.”
Derek Adams called on the services of Yann Songo’o tonight: the FA’s punishment for foul and abusive homophobic language two games ago has only been a two-match ban so far. His actual hearing is next week where he could potentially receive a further six to twelve game suspension under FA Rule E3.
There were wet patches clearly visible on a mud-heap of a pitch as the game kicked-off late at five past seven. The visitors immediately went onto the front foot and you could see things clearly rehearsed from the training ground paying-off immediately. Kyle Letheren took a massive goal-kick in the first minute, for instance, which Carlos Mendes-Gomes controlled beautifully on the Morecambe left. Sadly, there was no end product. Bradford conjured the first shot of the night after three minutes when Charles Vernam missed the target after decent approach play on the Bradford left flank. A minute later, John O’Sullivan made equally good progress on the Shrimps’ right at the other end of the pitch only to see his low cross crudely cleared by the home defence. An interchange between Toumani Diagouraga and Cold Stockton in the hosts’ penalty area after seven minutes saw Cole play the ball to Carlos at the far post and his effort appeared to hit the near one before bouncing harmlessly back into play. Just a minute later, though, and another probing Sully cross from the right seemed to me to be very generously headed past his own goalkeeper by rapidly back-pedalling Bradford Skipper Paudie O’Connor. The score-card suggests that the cross went straight in, however. A minute later, Stockton received the ball with his back to goal and spun and shot in a single movement – straight at Sam Hornby in the City goal. Twelve minutes had been played when Toums and Carlos linked-up well again in a dangerous area on the Bradford right but the resulting cross was booted clear. The home team had offered little up to this point and Elliot Watt’s wild strike after eighteen minutes seemed indicative of their general play: scrappy with little penetration. But the Bantams started to have noticeably more possession from about twenty minutes in. As Morecambe increasingly backed-off, you feared again that the tactic of trying to play exclusively on the break was asking for trouble. The inevitable duly arrived after twenty-six minutes when Levi Sutton passed to Anthony O’Connor from the Bradford right and the Bantams’ defender duly scored with a low shot. After that, there’s not a lot more to say.
This was a game of exceptionally poor quality. Carlos Mendes-Gomes ploughed a lone furrow as Morecambe’s only attacker of any note throughout the game. In the second half, Sully’s pin-point pass found him unmarked and bearing down on goal after 54 minutes. But City’s goal scorer from the first half tackled him from behind and clearly got the ball before the man and Referee Alan Young rightly gave nothing. Both teams huffed and puffed. Both teams over-hit the ball regularly. Kick and Run was practiced by both sides and the paucity of the general play was summed-up in one move by what turned-out to be the winning goal after an hour. Bradford were attacking down their right; the ball was hoofed into the middle where a suspiciously off-side looking Charles Vernam took a swing at it only to see it hit his knee and spin past a flat-footed Letheren into the net. It was a fluke in keeping with a game where too many Shrimps players were not at the races. Aaron Wildig was uncharacteristically poor tonight; Sully went off the boil after a promising beginning and Cole Stockton contributed little apart from some truly appalling marksmanship. Derek Adams sent on all his substitutes eventually but only Brad Lyons ever looked like troubling the scorers – his tremendous volley after eighty-one minutes whistled just over the bar. As far as the hosts were concerned, Bradford weren’t much better and the one thing you can say about empty stadiums is that at least nobody had to pay to sit through this utter rubbish tonight.
The loss meant that Morecambe fell out of the Play-Off positions into eighth place in League Two as their dismal form against the Yorkshire club continued. Bradford ended–up sixteenth.
Bradford City: 13 Sam Hornby; 4 Paudie O’Connor (C); 5 Niall Canavan; 6 Anthony O’Connor; 8 Callum Cooke; 15 Charles Vernam (12 Jordan Stevens 86’); 17 Gareth Evans (31 Ollie Crankshaw 82’); 18 Elliot Watt; 22 Levi Sutton; 23 Connor Wood; 29 Andy Cook (28 Danny Rowe (Y) 61’).
Subs not used: 1 Richard O’Donnell; 7 Harry Pritchard; 10 Clayton Donaldson; 24 Finn Cousin-Dawson.
Morecambe: 1 Kyle Letheren; 2 Kelvin Mellor (21 Ryan Cooney 73’); 4 Nathaniel Knight-Percival; 5 Sam Lavelle (C); 8 Toumani Diagouraga; 9 Cole Stockton; 10 Aaron Wildig (Y) (15 Brad Lyons 73’); 11 Carlos Mendes-Gomes; 16 John O’Sullivan (Y) (19 Liam McAlinden 77’); 22 Liam Gibson (Y) (3 Stephen Hendrie 73’); 24 Yann Songo’o (7 Jordan Slew 81’).
Ref: Alan Young.
Subs not used: 12 Mark Halstead; 20 Alex Denny.
