Garner Brace sinks Crawley Town.
We start again this week with an update on the Transfer Window, which closed on Wednesday night. I almost wrote `thankfully’ closed on Wednesday night – but could it be any worse for Morecambe FC if it had stayed open longer? I doubt it. The club’s ranks have been decimated since it opened at the start of January, with all the loan players Derek Adams was able to persuade to come to Morecambe returning to their parent clubs and one of them – James Connolly – returning to King Derek’s welcoming embrace up with him at Ross County. However, the news that the realists among us have seen as inevitable for some time now was also announced by the club at the Eleventh Hour of the transfer free-for-all: Adam Mayor has been sold to Championship outfit Millwall. My spies within the club tell me that the deal had actually been agreed prior to last Saturday’s game at the Maz against Colchester – which would explain why the young man was not named in Ged Brannan’s squad for that match.
Since he has gone, three elements of the Social Media age have predictably latched onto his departure. On Faceache and the other rumour-mongering sites which provide any Tom, Dick – or even bigger Dick – to have their say about anything in the Universe; the Usual Suspects were loudly saying Good Riddance to Adam; that he was the worst player this term in the team; his yellow card tally was a disgrace; we never wanted him anyway – yada, yada, Sour Grapes yada… Other pessimists were telling us that all the money received from the sale would be pocketed by our detested owner. Still others said he had been sold for peanuts. Yet more fantasists claimed that he would only play for Millwall if he was allowed to wear his large Chain of Office by the Referee. (This was based on their understanding of this headline with a typo in it: “Millwall sign Adam, Mayor of Morecambe”…)
So let’s have a voice of sanity to sort some of these false rumours out. “Freeze” is well-placed within our club and this is what he said about the deal (I hope David will forgive me for slightly editing his original draft for a wider audience):
“The money from Mayor cannot be touched by Jason (Whittingham of the Bond Group: the club’s owners). Any money leaving the club MUST be ratified by the Board, let’s get that straight. It isn’t in a series of payments: it’s cash – now – so it’s a good deal for the club and should see us ok for a few months. Should he make a success at Millwall, there is a built-in add-on should he be sold again plus extras for future International appearances etc. It’s more than the rumoured £300k, but less than £400k, that’s all I’ve been told. Caring is sharing.”
So now we know – more or less definitively – the circumstances of young Mr Mayor’s departure. Personally, I wish him every success in his new career. It won’t be easy pleasing a crowd as tribal and insular as that at the New Den and we must bear in mind what has happened to the last two outstanding players we sold to other EFL clubs. Carlos Mendes-Gomes couldn’t get into the first team at Luton; was farmed-out to Fleetwood on loan and now is ploughing a lonely furrow in Bolton Wanderers’ Reserve team. Equally, Sam Lavelle struggled to get into the Charlton Athletic First Eleven and when he did, injury saw him out of favour and soon playing on-loan at Burton. His time as a permanent Carlisle player since the beginning of this season has also been ravaged by injury – I believe he’s currently out with a broken ankle. So Adam’s path to fame and fortune won’t be easy. But if anyone can do it, I suspect he can. He’s shown tremendous maturity for a teenager over the last two seasons and he appears to be mentally tough into the bargain. My own personal memory of this outstanding talent was when he was introduced as a substitute last season at Barnsley, where a truly hopeless Shrimps were being far too easily walloped 5-0 by the Tykes. For the brief time he was on the field, Adam was the stand-out player by far of all twenty-two men on show. He had the lot – the skill; the strength and the vision which separates really special footballers from the mass ranks of ordinary ones. I’m surprised Barnsley didn’t make an offer for him there and then. Maybe they did… Whatever, I at least wish Adam Mayor all the best for the future – and I’m sure most Shrimps supporters would echo this sentiment.
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom as far as the Transfer Window was concerned. To add to the promising haul of full-time or loan players Our Ged has already added to his squad, two more arrived on deadline day to bolster the ranks. Our new Number Eleven is 22-year-old Julian Larsson. He has arrived on-loan from Nottingham Forest and can play in the conventional Centre Forward position. He is a proven striker with international experience at Swedish Under-14s and 17s in parallel with his Academy membership of top-flight Allsvenskan (Swedish Premier League) club AIK in Stockholm. Move over Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Freddie Ljungberg!…
Also signing on the dotted line at the last minute was Nelson Khumbeni. He is on-loan from Bolton Wanderers until the end of the season. The twenty-one year old Malawian is a midfielder who started his career with Norwich City and played fourteen times for AFC Fylde on a short-term loan earlier this season before his move to the north of Lancashire. This young man has a tremendous amount of potential and both he and Julian went straight into the first eleven at Crawley this afternoon.
That’s because Ged Brannan’s Shrimps travelled even further than Millwall geographically today to complete their next fixture in the post-Mayor era. They made the longest journey of their league programme to Surrey to face Scott Lindsey’s Crawley Town in a search for more League Two points on the road. Morecambe have played `Creepy’ Crawley thirteen times in the past; the last occasion being almost three years ago. The Shrimps have won five of these and drawn four.
The Creepies haven’t played for two games: their last fixture at Wrexham was postponed because of the Welsh side’s involvement in the FA Cup; the one at Wimbledon the week before was called-off because of a frozen pitch. Despite this, the Red Devils found themselves in twelfth place in the table on the back of three wins and three losses in their last six league outings.
Morecambe, by contrast, arrived in the Home Counties in fifteenth place in League Two. They have won only one of their last six league games and lost two of them, most recently in a truly feeble display against Colchester United last Saturday in north Lancashire. They lost this game by the only goal of the match and contrived to miss a penalty against a team struggling near the bottom of the division. If they were to play like this again today, only one team was going to win – and it wasn’t ours…
Crawley Manager Scott Lindsey had the following to say about the upcoming match with Morecambe:
“We’re raring to go. (It’s) another tricky game because (in) their last away game, they beat a strong MK Dons team two-one. So we know that no matter what their form looks like, they have got that potential to win a game away from home. So we know it’s going to be a tricky game. We feel as if we’re in a really good place; I’m expecting it to be a really good performance on Saturday. There’s no easy games at this level. They have won some games where they have played some tough opposition away from home. They’ve got some real threat. We know we need to be on our mettle and we’ve got to be at our very best to get anything from of the game.”
Ged Brannan said that there was a possibility that any one of three recently injured players – Joel Senior; David Tutonda and Gwion Edwards – could be available for selection against the Red Devils. As it turned-out, the former two started today and the latter was named on the bench. Long-term casualties JJ McKiernan and Stuart Moore are far from being ready to return and Donald Love has suffered a relapse in his recovery from a nasty foot injury and will be missing for the foreseeable future. As far as this afternoon’s opponents were concerned, Ged added:
“We’ve got to go there and obviously get the three points. It’s going to be a tough place to go – they’re doing really well. But, as it happens, I’ve been saying all day long – we’re a top team; when we’re on it, we’re good enough for anyone in the league. Our away form has been quite good. So hopefully we can go there and get a little bit of an upset and get the three points.”
It was cloudy but relatively warm for the time of year as the game kicked-off at the Broadfield Stadium. Not a lot happened for the first quarter of an hour or so. Harry Forster missed for the home team with a shot after six minutes. Then Morecambe forced the first corner of the game when David Tutonda’s fierce shot was turned aside by Corey Addai in the home goal with twelve minutes on the clock. In the absence of Adam Mayor – and with Jake Taylor sitting on the bench – it was interesting to see Charlie Brown sling the ball over, only to see Yann Songo’o head it wide of the target. But five minutes later – and out of nothing – the Red Devils were ahead. Klaidi Lolos combined well with ex-Shrimp Adam Campbell to play-in Forster, whose low shot eluded the outstretched arm of Archie Mair in the away goal.
Ged Garner had a decent chance to open his account for the Shrimps after twenty minutes when played-in by a superb pass from the half way line but was denied by a good stop from Addai when one-on-one with him. Then Town came close again as a long-range rocket from Liam Kelly narrowly missed the target after 22 minutes. Forster was unmarked after 26 minutes when he had a free header in the heart of the Morecambe penalty area. Fortunately, though, he headed the ball straight into the grateful arms of Mair. Crawley came close again after thirty-three minutes as Nicholas Tsaroulla twisted and turned his way through the away defence and unleashed a shot which was only just wide. But the men in the white shirts made the game all-square in the thirty-sixth minute after Joel Senior’s cross from the right found its way to Tutonda on the left and he sent in a perfect low pass for Garner to open his Morecambe account with an assured side-footed finish.
It’s Six Nations time again but Crawley Captain Dion Conroy was perhaps lucky to escape with only a yellow card when he rugby–tackled Ged as the Shrimps’ striker was about to get away from him in the forty-third minute. But that was basically that for the first half and the two sides returned to the Dressing Rooms – probably fairly – all-square.
Morecambe had the first chance of the second half after just two minutes. Debutant Julian Larsson got away from the Town rearguard and found Garner with an excellent pass which Ged might – and probably should – have done better with. Instead, with the whole of the goal to aim at, the Barrow loanee allowed Addai to make a relatively comfortable save. Jacob Bedeau then netted with a header from a Senior free-kick after 54 minutes but his strike was ruled out for off-side. Town’s most threatening forward and scorer Harry Forster then had to go off after an hour – and with him, as things turned-out – went any chance of the hosts winning this game.
Larsson then missed narrowly following a corner with sixty-four minutes played. The Red Devils then looked suspiciously off-side as Campbell was able to force a save from Mair just a minute later. With Charlie Brown substituted, David Tutonda sent over possibly his first corner ever for the Shrimps in the seventieth minute. Garner then had two more efforts in quick succession. His header after 73 minutes was comfortably saved by the home goalkeeper and then he walloped a shot way over the bar two minutes later. Senior then took a free-kick in the eightieth minute which substitute Jake Taylor blasted just over the bar. Morecambe had been making most of the running and it was no surprise when they took the lead after 85 minutes. It was that man Garner again as he played his way through the home defence until he finally worked a shooting position for himself and fairly blasted the ball past Addai into the back of the net. And that was that – Game Over.
Crawley didn’t force even one tricky save from Archie Mair during the second half and showed no signs of hitting back once they fell behind. For Morecambe, Our Ged would be delighted to see namesake Garner constantly in the right place at the right time and scoring not just his first goal for the club but a brace. New boys Larsson and Khumbeni did nothing wrong and altogether, a new-look team both gelled quite well and deservedly took all three points this afternoon. The win propelled the Shrimps into the twelfth place in League Two this evening which Crawley had occupied before the match. The Creepies, meanwhile, slipped to fourteenth.
This is what Our Ged thought about it all:
“Absolutely buzzing; absolutely made-up with the performance especially after the first twenty-five minutes: we couldn’t get to grips with the way they were playing. After that – second half – we were outstanding. We passed the ball well; we sucked them in; took the ball off them in dangerous positions; we created a lot of chances; scored a great goal – they give off-side. There’s nowt worse than when you’ve done a set piece and you’ve worked on it all week and it comes off and the linesman gives off-side and it’s two or three yards on: I’ve just looked at it in the Changing Rooms. We went on to win the game so it doesn’t really matter. The new lads who started today were brilliant, both of them: Nelson and Julian were outstanding. Julian going up and down – you see the pace he’s got – he’s going to cause loads of problems in this league. We’ve got to go forward with this now and hopefully put a run together.”
Crawley Town: 1 Corey Addai; 3 Dion Conroy (C) (Y); 4 Liam Kelly; 5 Harry Ransom; 6 Laurence Maguire; 8 Kliadi Lolos; 9 Danilo Orsi; 14 Harry Forster (2 Khellan Gordon 60’); 25 Nicholas Tsaroulla; 28 Adam Campbell (11 Jack Roles 85’); 30 Will Wright (Y).
Substitutes not used: 90 Ryan Sandford; 10 Ronan Darcy; 20 Joy Mukena; 22 Ade Adeyemo; 50 Mustapha Olagunju.
Morecambe: 30 Archie Mair; 3 David Tutonda (Y) (23 Max Melbourne 85’); 4 Jacob Bedeau; 5 Farrend Rawson (C); 6 Yann Songo’o (14 Jordan Slew 85’); 8 Joe Adams; 9 Ged Garner; 11 Julian Larsson (22 Kayden Harrack (Y) 88’); 12 Joel Senior; 20 Charlie Brown (19 Gwion Edwards 68’); 38 Nelson Khumbeni (18 Jake Taylor 68’).
Substitutes not used: 21 Adam Smith; 17 Cammy Smith.
Ref: Dean Whitestone.
Att: 2000+ (134 from Morecambe.)
