Joe Biden: “Rotter-Damned United!” (even though he didn’t mean it that way…)
With just a single game played this season, Rotherham United found themselves at the dizzying heights of the top of the League One Table. But they arrived in North Lancashire tonight having lost their last two matches. They were dumped out of the League Cup at home last week when they lost by the odd goal in three to Accrington Stanley. Then they lost again on Saturday at our other nearish-neighbours Wigan to the only goal of the game. They were thus tenth in the league standings at tea time this evening and Manager Paul Warne – the loser who took them down last season – even though I don’t mean it that way (see below) would be looking for a quick end to the losing sequence. He said prior to the match:
“I’m surprised – and I know that sounds like a very insulting thing to say, I don’t mean it that way. They had a really hard start and have done amazingly well. They have pulled a team together and got some really good experience in there as well. Here are two players that I have been linked to sign in the past with Greg Leigh and Toumani Diagouraga. I’ve always really liked the latter as a midfielder. I think Stockton has done really well and they’re a real physical force. I think they have had the shock result of the season so far, when they were leading at Ipswich and then ended up drawing. I have watched that game and they performed really well. Then they did well at Blackburn and beat a brand new Shrewsbury side, who have invested well in the summer. I think they have been the surprise package of the league as we speak. In pre-season, everyone was talking about the Ipswichs and the Sunderlands as always and Morecambe have arguably had the best start out of all the clubs from what people expected. Fair play to them, there’s no reason why they can’t continue.”
But could they continue tonight? Morecambe boss Stephen Robinson saw no reason why not:
“It is another difficult game on Tuesday night against a team who has come down from the Championship, they are a very good side. They are big, strong, physical – I have worked with a few of their players, Freddie Ladapo up front and they have a real strong athletic side that we will have to match. We have to do that to allow us to play our football, our performance in the second-half (against) Shrewsbury shows that we take the game to people, we are a very good side but we have to start well and match their physicality. Rotherham will bring a few fans as well, the atmosphere at the Mazuma was fantastic at the weekend, the Shrimps fans really got behind the boys and it is another game to look forward to. People are starting to notice us and that is down to the work that was done by the board and the players last season. We have to be realistic but we have made a great start.”
The Millers have played Morecambe on fifteen previous occasions. The first time was at old Christie Park in an FA Cup tie way back in November 1979. Morecambe drew and what sticks in my mind is the massed ranks of Millers’ supporters in the Umbro or South stand chanting – almost to a man:
“There’s Only One Yorkshire Ripper!”
This was at a time when the lunatic Peter Sutcliffe was still at large – and still attacking and murdering women at random in his personal reign of terror as the Boys In Blue over in Yarksheer did virtually nothing about it. The local Constabulary did something on the day though: in the light of this traditional Greeting from God’s Own Country, they brought dogs into the Stadium. Which proceeded to bite virtually anything that moved.
In the Morecambe end. Well done lads. What happened next? The Shrimps’ team went on strike and demanded more money for contesting the replay at Millmoor. The club capitulated at an emergency meeting at the M62’s Birch Services on the way to the game. Sadly, so did the team later on when they lost two-nil.
In total, Rotherham have won six of their previous fifteen contests with the Shrimps but lost five. Tonight’s task would be made easier for them with the loss of exceptionally promising Shrimps’ talent Jonah Ayunga with a long-term x injury. So, with fewer than four games played, Morecambe have already lost four of their squad (Jonathan Obika, Liam Gibson and Ryan Delaney had already been relegated to the Treatment Table due to serious injury). So, to repeat what I wrote in my recent Blackburn report: let’s hope the bad luck stops here: at this rate of attrition, Morecambe will have no players left by October.
A quick look at the team sheet made my heart sink. No Greg Leigh. No Aaron Wildig. But when I saw that the referee for tonight’s game was David `Tangled’ Webb, it sank even further. He’s fussy; he’s officious; he’s too large for a man of his diminutive size and his little legs and generous belly make it a challenge for him to keep up with play. So he doesn’t. I’ve moaned about him on these pages before: there are lot of poor officials on the EFL list but this man must be one of the worst. And he didn’t fail to disappoint tonight: he was absolutely hopeless throughout.
It was dry but cold for the time of year and quite windy with it as the game kicked-off. The visitors must have won the toss because they immediately insisted on a change of ends. All players on the pitch Took The Knee as –just as was the case last Saturday – the home crowd enthusiastically applauded.
Right from the start, the visitors in their all-black strip made it clear they had not come here for a draw: they attacked straight from the off. Chiedozie Ogbene immediately caught the eye: this nimble, tricky winger gave the Shrimps’ defence problems all night and if his final ball was better, United would certainly score many more goals.
Morecambe had the first chance though: a short corner routine saw Shane McLaughlin set-up Josh McPake for a shot which was blocked by the United defence.
The visitors constantly showed their appreciation of their boss’ admiration of Cole Stockton by constantly catching him in a Rotherham Sandwich as the two defenders allotted to deal with him regularly tugged his shirt; hung onto his arms; repeatedly pushed or pulled him back him and basically did whatever they could to stop him getting the ball. This happened throughout the contest. Whilst Mr Webb looked on and did absolutely nothing to stop it.
The referee and his officials were all wearing shirts identical in colour to the one sported by home goalkeeper Jökull Andrésson. A referee worth his salt would have noticed this before the game and done something about it. But his sole alternative would probably be a black one. That would clash with Rotherham’s colours. Blimey – wot a dilemma…
So why not simply ask the home goalie to change before the game? Because that would need a modicum of thought and even foresight – and it’s simply easier to book the man in the Morecambe net after just twenty minutes for `time wasting’.
How does that work, exactly? Twenty minutes gone. Nil-nil. Time wasting? What? How about all the time wasted later on – when corner-takers regularly ambled from the middle of the pitch to take United corners? No – seemingly that’s ok. As is constantly infringing on home free-kicks and kicking the ball away. But that’s Dave the Webb for you…
As I say, the first half was a pretty even and entertaining contest occasionally spoiled by regular bad decisions by the incompetent with the whistle. Arthur Gnahoua was a constant threat for the hosts and McPake was a handful early on before fading towards half time. There were chances for both sides – for Gnahoua for example after Ferguson managed to block his effort after 28 minutes and – for the opposition – when Ben Wiles’ shot was also blocked after 32 minutes and when huge, nippy and aggressive striker Michael Smith’s fierce shot was blocked by Shrimps’ Skipper Sam Lavelle.But – in all truth – it has to be said that Andrésson was by far the busier goalkeeper.
Rotherham came out in the second period and immediately went onto the front foot – and stayed there until precisely an hour had been played. Wiles missed with a wild effort shortly after the re-start. In the fiftieth minute, substitute Richard Wood’s header from a free-kick was brilliantly saved by the home goalie but it was virtually one-way traffic for the first fifteen minutes. Morecambe were just a smidgeon too slow or inaccurate with their play – and they kept giving the ball way into the bargain. They were on the attack again in the fifty-ninth minute when they again lost possession to see the Millers immediately counter quickly and effectively as men poured forward down the wings and through the centre. There, 40 yards out and with no apparent danger, the tall tough guy who is Michael Smith received the ball, turned with it and then unleashed an absolute peach of a shot which swept past a despairing Andrésson as he leapt high to his left and smashed into the back of the net. It was a gem of a strike. And it won the game. After that, Rotherham shut-up shop. And that was that.
At the end of the game, Morecambe fell to eleventh in League Two. At least they tried to play positively throughout, which is more than can be said of their opposition. At the end of their exercise in negativity for the last half an hour, Rotherham found themselves sixth in the table. Their Manager Paul Warne would probably see this as success but I disagree. With more ambition, his team could and probably would have won more convincingly tonight. Throughout, they had a little more nous that their opponents in the red shirts. You could see that a lot of this team have Championship experience.
So why so many Dark Arts? Why the shameless time wasting at every opportunity? Why the play-acting and diving? Shane Ferguson actually screamed like a stuck pig when he received an ankle tap from behind during the second half and then rolled about in apparent agony as he craftily pulled one boot off so as to waste even more precious seconds of a match his team were winning putting it back on again. When he saw his number come up on the Substitutes’ Board on the touchline near to him later on, he quickly tried to cross to the other side of the pitch to drag-out the tedium even more by leaving the field at a snail’s pace. He should change the `n’ in his first name to `m’ – this kind of stuff is pathetic. His Manager obviously encourages this sort of stuff. Shame on him too – why spend almost all of injury time trying to keep the ball in the corner of the pitch and make no attempt even to move your forwards up the field? What sort of plot is that? I suspect the Millers were relegated last season because of this utterly negative approach to the Beautiful Game. If they had played to their obvious strengths, I bet they would have stayed up. I don’t get it personally – if your team can play – then do so, for goodness sake…
But there’s me indulging in Sour Grapes. The real reason for my moaning is that I had a dream last night that Morecambe beat the Millers four-nil and the team from Yarksheer have now gone and ruined it.
In my imagination, the screen of the international press hub in the corner of my living room started to flash. What did the red letters on it say? They said: CAUTION – POLITICAL SATIRE ALERT!
I wondered what that might mean… So please bear with me for a moment or two. Please also remember that Rotherham United had just lost 4-0 in my dream. I saw a message download from the wire onto my hub. It read:
`Associated Press can confirm that a packed international Press Briefing was held in New York this evening. The event had been hastily transferred from the White House to the site of the 9/11 attacks which prompted the US invasion of Afghanistan precisely twenty years ago. Close to the place where so many people had lost their lives, the United States’ President – ashen-faced Joe Biden, 78 – addressed the assembled members of the world’s media. This followed intense all-day sessions between the USA’s Chief Executive and America’s Best foreign policy analysts at the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Pentagon. We can report that President Biden announced:
“I would personally like to salute Saul Warner and his tremendous Rotterdam United soccer team tonight for their outstanding performance at a stadium where – from the sounds of it – far more fans than were expected actually turned-up. Yes: More Came. I can only describe the exceptional efforts of Saul and his team as almost as heroic as our own on the World Stage in Kabul during the last couple of days. Well done everybody! God Bless America! God Bless New York! And – most of all – God Bless the New York Stadium!”’
Morecambe: 20 Jökull Andrésson (Y); 2 Kelvin Mellor; 4 Anthony O’Connor; 5 Sam Lavelle (C); 8 Toumani Diagouraga; 9 Cole Stockton; 11 Josh McPake (27 Shayon Harrison 75’); 19 Shane McLaughlin (18 Adam Phillips 65’); 24 Arthur Gnahoua (7 Wes McDonald 67’); 25 Alfie McCalmont; 21 Ryan Cooney (Y).
Subs Not Used: 6 Callum Jones; 31 Scott Wootten; 16 Jacob Mensah; 26 Connor Pye.
Rotherham United: 1 Viktor Johansson; 20 Michael Ihiekwe; 23 Rarmani Edmonds-Green (6 Richard Wood 45’); 2 Wes Harding; 18 Ollie Rathbone; 11 Chiedozie Ogbene; 16 Jamie Lindsay; 8 Ben Wiles; 24 Michael Smith (Y); 17 Shane Ferguson (3 Joe Mattock (Y) 71’); 19 Joshua Kayode (7 Kieran Sadlier 77’).
Subs not used: 30 Joshua Chapman 22 Hakeem Odoffin; 4 Dan Barlaser; 14 Mickel Miller.
Ref: David Webb.
Att: 4004 (617 from Yorkshire.)
