Lincoln City 2:1 Morecambe
Rub of the (Lincoln) Green for the Imps
After the draw against Portsmouth at the Maz last week, Morecambe Manager Derek Adams said the following:
“We haven’t had some decisions because we are the minnows. We’re playing against superpowers in the league and we’re not getting the big decisions when they come along. There’s no doubt about that.”
He has a point. But what worries me is what he went on to say:
“The big thing for me over the summer I’ve been disappointed because I’ve had to make changes and unfortunately I’ve not been backed enough in the summer to make the changes. If we had been backed in the summer then we’d have a far different team to what we’ve got now. That’s the big disappointment for me coming back to the football club. That’s my biggest disappointment over the summer – we haven’t been backed. The previous management were backed – and we haven’t been. We’re fighting every day just to compete in this league. We just haven’t been able to get enough revenue to help us. It’s hugely frustrating for me as a Manager of Morecambe Football Club. To get out of League Two; to stay in League One last season because we were down and buried. We had eight teams out of the top eleven to play; we had none of the bottom five to play and we were able to stay there. We’re going to have to do the same again this year. Fifth bottom- whatever it is – is a huge success. It’s like winning the lottery for Morecambe. People don’t understand. The supporters – some do, some don’t; they haven’t a clue, some of them. What happens in the inner sanctuary of the football club – they have no idea.”
It’s unusual – to put it mildly – for any football Manager to directly criticise the leadership of the club and stay in post. Most Managers in any walk of life who publicly criticise their Board get the sack. For Derek to speak out in such a forthright manner about what anybody with even half a brain cell can see is the dire reality at the club is obviously going out on a limb. Asked by our own Quinny what difference the Transfer Window re-opening in January would make, Derek interrupted – with obvious frustration bordering on actual anger that even the interviewer didn’t seem to fully appreciate the utterly grim financial situation at the club:
“January? We’re skint! We’re absolutely skint – we have no money! January doesn’t mean anything to me! What am I going to do?”
As I’ve said before, Derek Adams is the best thing ever to have happened to Morecambe Football Club. What he said about the Board backing Stephen Robinson last season is true. Robbo brought a lot of dead wood to the club and gave most of them long contracts. He then took the two best of these signings – Jonah Ayunga and loanee Trevor Carson – with him to St Mirren this season. Derek has been left to pick up the pieces and try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear both last season and this. Some of the better signings he made prior to the latest campaign have been injured subsequently and basically haven’t featured in the first team so far. It’s a tough gig and nobody could blame him if he simply chose to walk away from it.
One of the things I personally hope is that he is not going to do so. If he does, we will not only struggle to stay in League One but – with the continuing questions about the finances of a club which is up for sale without any guarantees for the future – potentially face a struggle to stay in the EFL at all. With the nagging fear of extinction as a football club altogether still a very real possibility always hovering in the background. It happened at Worcester Warriors under the same ownership that we have. Don’t think for one moment that it can’t happen to us as well…
For now though, King Derek has stayed. Today, the next hurdle he had to invent a means to cross on the unrelenting obstacle course which is League One survival was at Sincil Bank.
Hosts Lincoln City were lucky thirteenth in the table with 23 points on the board so far before the match. Morecambe were nine places below them with nine points fewer.
The Imps remain unbeaten at home this season and have won one and lost one of their last five league games. The Shrimps, despite their lowly position in the table, had exactly the same record.
City has the very dubious – and indelible – distinction of being the first football club ever to have been relegated from the Football League once promotion and relegation from the previously Closed Shop was very belatedly introduced in1987. I think they are also almost unique in having suffered this indignity twice. (Grimsby Town is the only other club I can think of which has suffered a similar fate. Macclesfield did too – but they, very sadly, never returned second time around. Any other offers?)
Last time City returned to the EFL, Morecambe was the first team they played in 2017. As a Lancaster Bomber buzzed the stadium before the match, Lincoln went behind to a goal by Aaron Wildig but finally drew the game one apiece.
In all other previous encounters, the two clubs have met sixteen times altogether in various competitions. Lincoln have won half of these and lost only three. In League One, Stephen Robinson’s Shrimps beat the Imps two-nil at the Maz last September but lost the return fixture in February this year by the odd goal in three. These statistics will change markedly – one way or another – during the next three days. Strangely enough, both teams will reconvene at this venue next Tuesday night, when the Shrimps will take on the Imps in the Papa John’s Trophy.
King Derek said the following about his hopes for more goals from his men in the future prior to the game:
“We’ve played on the front foot to try and get that advantage in games. We know we can defend well at times as well, and we can go forward (too). We’ve got players now coming back into the team who enable us to have that extra dimension going forward. If you look at Caleb Watts and Mayor, they’ve come into the side after one was injured and one making his way from the academy: that’s enabled us as well to have different propositions up front. We’ve got the likes of Gnahoua who can come into the squad and Connolly at times, Stockton and Phillips. It’s really helping us now.”
As far as the job he had to tackle today was concerned, he added:
“Lincoln is a big club in this division. They’ve got average gates of eight or nine thousand. They’ve taken some very good income from that point of view, and they’ve been in League One for a number of years now. They moved up from the National League to League Two, and straight up to League One, and they’re a club who is well supported. It’s up to us to go there and try to win because they’ve drawn seven games at home this season. We understand that but they’ve come off a very good draw at home to Plymouth Argyle themselves.”
With Dylan Connolly suspended, Derek was able to put Jake Taylor – just returned from a long-term injury – straight back into the starting eleven.
For the Imps, their Irish Manager Mark Kennedy was asked how he feels about the prospect of playing Morecambe twice in the next few days:
“I’ve not spoken to Derek but I imagine that we both probably would have both wanted something different. But it is what it is. So I’ll stop talking now. We’re expecting a really tough game; both games: one league; one cup. Not ideal in terms of three days after each other. But it would have been nice to have somebody different.”
Morecambe kicked-off after all the Lincoln and some Shrimps’ players Took the Knee before Referee Martin Coy blew his whistle. The hosts had the first half-chance of the game when Sunderland loanee Jack Diamond played-in Charles Verman on the Imps’ left only for Ryan Cooney to block the move at the cost of a corner within the first minute. With seven minutes played, Cooney then cleverly played-in Kieran Phillips on the Morecambe right but the young centre forward’s effort went just wide of Carl Rushworth’s right-hand post. At the other end a minute later, Vernam was given too much space to run into before unleashing a shot from a long way off which hit Jensen Weir and forced Connor Ripley in the away goal to make an excellent save as he pushed the ball over his bar. In the eleventh minute, Diamond wasted an excellent chance when he blasted Jamie Robson’s fine pass from the City left over the bar when well-placed. The game was flowing from one end to the other but the first goal arrived with just over a quarter of an hour on the clock. The Referee penalised the visitors on the edge of their penalty area. Max Sanders’ shot seemed to go straight through the wall but in trying to clear it, Jake Taylor only managed to deflect if past his own totally stranded goalkeeper. Morecambe immediately pushed back up the field and Weir’s shot was blocked for a corner kick which was cleared. Calbe Watts showed some fancy footwork on the right flank after nineteen minutes and played in Kieran Phillips for a shot from the right hand side of the penalty area which went just wide of the target. Within sixty seconds, Caleb re-created the trick on the Morecambe left and got the ball to Liam Shaw this time. His instant shot bounced back off Rushworth’s right-hand post with the goalkeeper a mere bystander. Morecambe were shading the play with some slick inter-passing at this stage of the match with the home team playing on the break. From one of these, Vernam received a fantastic pass on the City left from Skipper Poole miles away on the right wing but made a complete hash of his attempted finish. With just over five minutes remaining, another cross from the left wing this time was headed down to Timothy Evoma by Poole but Ripley pulled off a literally miraculous save to keep out his point-blank effort.
Derek Adams withdrew Watts and replaced him with Cole Stockton during the half time break. Morecambe played during the second half towards the Stacey West stand, named in memory of Bill Stacey and Jim West, Lincoln fans who both died along with 54 supporters of Bradford City in the Valley Parade fire of 11th May 1985.
Right from the start, the away team took the game to Lincoln and looked by far the better side most of the time. Phillips was played-in on the right after just two minutes of the restart but his close-range effort was blocked for a corner by Robson. As the men in the all-blue strip constantly tried to play the ball forwards, Weir’s long range shot was well-saved at full stretch to his right by the home custodian at the cost of a corner after almost fifty minutes. In the fifty-sixth minute, Taylor and Adam Major combined well on the left and set-up Phillips for another chance which was well saved by Rushworth. But the home team hit the visitors on the break again in the sixty-second minute. Matty Virtue played in Diamond for a low shot which the visiting goalkeeper clearly pushed away for a corner. But Referee Coy – who otherwise had an excellent game today – awarded a goal kick. Stockton lost possession of the ball just beyond the centre circle in the sixty-fifth minute and the Imps hared up the field in the shape of substitute Tashan Oakley-Boothe and Ben House. House swept the ball home when the sub’s first effort had been well-saved by Ripley. It was a sucker punch but the Shrimps didn’t let their heads drop after it.
Cole took a trademark long-range hoof with his back to goal after 68 minutes after a mistake by the City defence. This beat Rushworth all ends up but agonisingly bounced back into safety from the goalkeeper’s right-hand post once again. But all the Shrimps’ hard work this afternoon was finally rewarded in the eighty-first minute. A deep cross from the Morecambe left was headed away from the Lincoln penalty area by Robson only for Weir to wallop it back low to Rushworth’s left into the corner of the net from thirty yards or so out. The visitors threw the kitchen sink at the thin red line of the City defence after this. Weir walloped another volley over the stand roof in injury time after Phillips had headed a cross straight at the goalkeeper who was able to clutch it but that was as close as they came to pulling back Lincoln’s slight advantage.
Another loss saw the Shrimps slip back one place to twenty-fourth in League One tonight. All four of the bottom clubs – MK Frauds; Burton and FGR – have fourteen points, just four points adrift of Accrington and Cambridge in the lowest positions of safety. All is definitely not lost though. Morecambe played the better football today. The only difference is that Lincoln took their chances – and we didn’t. Derek Adams was typically positive after the game:
“We had a number of really good opportunities. Over the piece, I’m delighted with the way we played; to pass the ball the way we did; to create the openings we did – we shouldn’t be coming away here with no points today. To be fair to Lincoln, they defended deep; they defended well as they have done this season – and they came out with the points.”
Lincoln City: 1 Carl Rushworth; 2 Regan Poole (C); 6 Max Sanders (21 Lassse Sǿrensen (Y) 79’); 7 Charles Vernam (8 Tashan Oakley-Boothe (Y) 61’); 15 Paudie O’Connor; 16 Joe `Rocky Mountain High’ Walsh; 17 Jamie Robson (Y) (24 Seán Roughlan 87’); 18 Ben House (9 Tom Hopper (Y) 87’); 22 Timothy Eyoma; 26 Matty Virtue; 27 Jack Diamond.
Subs not used: 25 Jacob Davenport; 29 Jordan Wright; 38 Elicha Ahui.
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley; 2 Donald Love (C); 7 Jake Taylor (14 Arthur Gnahoua 63’); 15 Jensen Weir (Y); 16 Jacob Bedeau; 17 Caleb Watts (9 Cole Stockton 45’); 20 Liam Shaw; 21 Ryan Cooney (3 Max Melbourne 79’); 22 Anthony O’Connor; 23 Kieran Phillips; 25 Adam Mayor.
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 5 Farrend Rawson; 6 Ryan Delaney; 8 Ousmane Fané.
Ref: Martin Coy.
Att: 8,3254 (176 from Morecambe.)