McGowan Cleans Up for Morecambe.

Morecambe made the long journey to Devon on Saturday having already lost at home to Paul Tisdale`s Exeter City this season during October. Their Jekyll and Hyde form of recent times continued, however, as they managed to come home with a point, albeit after leading the contest for much of the match. Morecambe took the lead after sixteen minutes when eighteen year old Aaron McGowan scored his first ever goal for the Shrimps in only his third appearance. McGowan appeared as a Michael Owen body double in a Persil advert as a seven year old and today`s strike was as clean as the former England striker – or the detergent manufacturers for that matter – could wish.

In a half of few chances, 0-1 was the score at the end of the first period. Exeter enjoyed the bulk of the possession during the second half but – with the home crowd growing restive – the ball was put into the back of the visitors` net after Tom Nichols was the fastest to react to a shot which bounced back off the Morecambe bar after 77 minutes. Luckily for the visitors, it was ruled-out by the officials who judged Nichols to be in an offside position. A couple of minutes later, however, the Grecian striker was not to be denied again: after woeful defending by the Shrimps, he swept the ball past Andreas Arestidou to level-up the scores. Literally just before the end of the match, Nichols blotted his copybook when – following a needless kick at Andrew Wright – he was shown an inevitable straight red card by referee Michael Bull. It was an act of indescribable stupidity by a player whose team still have an outside chance of the play-offs: his Manager must be furious with him. City slip to eleventh position as a result of dropping a point. Jim Bentley`s team move up to thirteenth, five points behind their opponents but the Manager will be pleased with Morecambe`s recent away form at least.