FGR – Ferguson’s Great Result.
Think about all the things we were threatened with if we misbehaved when we were young: The Bogey Man; Lucifer; Sandman; The Hobyahs….
All really terrifying concepts for very small children; maybe too terrifying in fact because The Hobyahs still freak me out even now – and I’m 68….
But when my own kids were very young, I told them that they would get a visit from someone slightly less scary but very, very real if they didn’t behave.
No, not Margaret Thatcher – I wanted to shock the little devils a bit, not damage them for life. But…
The Hobyahs chanted the following rhyme – according to my apparently abusively insane parents – when they came to put you in their smelly Hobyah sack and drag you away to be made into a casserole later on:
“Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Know what we’ll do? We’ll tear down your house; eat up your folks and carry you off to make stew!”
I thought this was a bit extreme to inflict on my own children, personally. So I used the following alternative – but suitably less Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-inducing rhyme on them instead. Then I encouraged both to stay up late to watch Match of the Day to see the personification of this if they ever doubted it. And failed. Because, as an Everton player, the subject of this rhyme was actually in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison at the time for head-butting an opponent during his Scottish football career. But here’s a nice little ditty (preferably accompanied by bagpipes) about this very scary creature:
“From Sterling; that club to Aberdeen; From Sterling; the best we’ve ever seen; From Sterling; he brought a big, big heart to Goodison – where do we even start? Duncan, Duncan Ferguson; Duncan, Duncan Ferguson; Duncan, Duncan Ferguson”(etc ad nauseum).
Not as good a rhyme as The Hobyahs admittedly – but you get the idea. It has to be said, however, that Duncan `Disorderly’ has not always been on the wrong side of the law. Scottish newspaper The Herald told us in 2001, for example:
“Inspector Steve Sansbury said officers attended a report of a burglary near Ormskirk at about 1.05am and found one alleged offender still on the premises, having been detained by the householder. He said: ”One of the alleged offenders was taken to hospital for treatment to injuries sustained in a scuffle with the householder. Another alleged offender fled the scene. Police inquiries are continuing to trace him.” He added: ”We are satisfied that the homeowner, who was also injured in the incident, acted both bravely and responsibly when encountering these intruders in his home.” Mr Sansbury said a 21-year-old man was arrested and has been detained at Ormskirk General District Hospital.”
(Seems a bit mean to me for the copper to say ”We are satisfied that the homeowner was also injured in the incident” – maybe he was a Liverpool supporter.)
But whose house had these idiots chosen to break into? One that a sign on the gate warns miscreants: “Forget about the effin’ dog – Beware of Big Dunc!”
Today, Duncan Ferguson brought his Forest Green Rovers team to the Mazuma Stadium to try and reverse the fortunes they have endured since he took over as Manager last month. In the two games they have played since, FGR lost 2-1 at Shrewsbury in injury time two weeks ago, having led for an hour and a half. Last Saturday, Rovers lost again at home – this time 0-2 to Peterborough. This meant that they have taken just one point from their last five games, having been defeated in all of the last four of them. So Forest Green remained seemingly marooned at the bottom of League One with just twenty-one points accrued from thirty games so far before kick-off this afternoon. They were thus six points behind their hosts, having played two games more. It doesn’t look good for the only Vegan football club on the planet: their first ever stint in League One could easily prove to be their last for a while at least.
As for Morecambe – well, let’s forget about what’s happened off the field recently as a flashy Sikh with a Rolls Royce and a bit of money is apparently about the buy the club. “A `bit’ of money” being, apparently `BitCoin’ money to be more accurate. Or maybe not. Who really knows? As ghosts of other recent `saviours’ hover in the background – Brazilian Diego Lamos and Italian Joseph Cala for example – you can’t help wondering if this latest development will further add to the farce which has been associated with ownership of the club far too often in recent times. Shall we move quickly on? I think we should…
Morecambe won the last meeting with FGR in Gloucestershire during September by two goals to one. This has been their only ever clash in League One until today. Previous meetings in the EFL (two wins out of seven; three losses) and the old Conference (seven wins; five defeats; three draws – plus a 0-3 away victory for the Shrimps in the FA Cup during 2000) thus became irrelevant as far as their latest clash is concerned.
This afternoon, Morecambe went into the game on the back of four wins in a row at the Mazuma Stadium. During 2023, they have won the maximum nine points available at this venue and scored twelve goals and conceded just two in doing so. This is the form of Champions. (Let’s just conveniently forget Derek Adams’ men’s dismal away record altogether…)
Since their September defeat to the north Lancashire club, FGR’s team has radically changed. Goalkeeper on the day – Luke McGee – was warming the Derby County bench last Saturday as the Rams hammered the Shrimps by five goals to nil. Regan Hendry has also departed – for Tranmere Rovers. Injured Christian Fernandes-Marques has returned to his parent club, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Connor Wickham has packed-up playing altogether.
So what did Forest Green’s new Head Coach have to say about today’s match? Speaking earlier in the week, Mr Ferguson explained how he personally deals with his club’s parlous position in League One:
“I don’t even look at the league (table); that is the absolute truth. We’ve just got to concentrate on the next game and there’s no point in looking at the league. We are where we are. I knew the job that I was coming into; I knew it was going to be incredibly difficult. But I’ve enjoyed it believe it or not because I think we’ve had two good performances. We’ve always been in the game, particularly last week with Shrewsbury. This week we were always in the game – it was never a two-nil game. We want to pick up a point, don’t we? We’re desperate for the lads to get a point. We’ll just keep on working, keep in good shape, keep getting into attacking thirds and score some goals and hopefully we can get a good result. This one’s going to be a big match for us. But they’re all big matches for us – we’re at the bottom of the league, aren’t we? So at the end of the day, every team above us is better than us. So we’ve going to have to close that gap and we’ve got a chance on Saturday to do that. We’ve worked really hard this week and we’re looking forward to the match.”
King Derek’s pre-match thoughts were these:
“We have to take our home form on board. We’ve gone eight games undefeated at home and we’ve been able to score a lot of goals. We’ve got players that are in form and we want to take that into this game and try and do the same on Saturday.”
The day was dry with watery sunshine in north Lancashire before and throughout the match. Everyone in the stadium stood for a perfectly respected one minute’s silence to commemorate all the thousands of poor people who have suffered and died in the recent earthquake which has affected Syria and Turkey. Then the game started.
Right from the off, it was obvious what Forest Green hoped for – the single point their Manager had talked about during the week. They set up to press and play on the break. Their message – loud and clear – to Morecambe was: Go on then – break us down!
And Morecambe basically couldn’t. The ball was constantly passed across the back line of the men in the red strip but all the way through a truly soporific match, they were unable to prise apart the massed ranks of green in front of them open; attack down the flanks or offer any threat at all more often than not. It was dire to watch and the atmosphere in the ground – silence most of the time – perfectly reflected this. It seemed to me that – as was the case earlier in the season before he was injured – Ash Hunter was given the role of playmaker. It didn’t work. However, he produced the only shot on goal for the home side during the first half after two minutes. This barely troubled visiting goalkeeper Ross Doohan – who had nothing else to do for the rest of the period. At the other end, Tyler Onyango hit the side netting with a shot after almost twenty minutes. He was clearly in distress after this and had to leave the field injured as a result. After forty minutes, Rovers were awarded a free-kick in a threatening position just outside the penalty area. From this, Corey O’Keeffe put in a tremendous shot which home custodian Connor Ripley did really well to push away from his top corner with a full-stretch save. And that was basically the sum total of the first half’s action. It was dreadful fare. But FGR were undoubtedly the better, seemingly better motivated team and – but for Connor’s reflexes late on – they could have gone back to the Dressing Rooms in a winning position.
The second period followed a similar pattern. Forest Green used all the tricks in the book to save time and weak referee Martin Coy basically indulged them. Every corner they were awarded took at least three minutes to take and Captain Dylan McGeouch should have been booked for the delaying tactics he deliberately and apparently unashamedly indulged in time after time when this happened. And still Morecambe were unable to break-down a well-organised unit which resolutely pursued their Manager’s overall ambition: to escape with a point. Their hearts would have been in their mouths after an hour, when Doohan could not hold on to Liam Shaw’s long-range strike. Cole Stockton slammed home the loose ball – but was immediately flagged by the linesman for being in an off-side position. So the dreary spectacle seemed to be drifting inevitably for the bore draw which Mr Disorderly had clearly set-up for. With only ten minutes scheduled to play, though, substitute Jahmari Clarke received the ball in a clearly off-side position but continued to play, slipped the ball to Brandon Cooper who, in turn, played it back to Clarke – who had continued his run – to turn the ball home to put the away side into the lead.
Virtually the entire team celebrated in the left-hand corner from their point of view right in front of the home fans after they had scored. They might as well have taken a table and chairs out so they could have a proper party as Referee Coy again indulged them in this shameless display of time-wasting. Four minutes this time – perhaps longer? You can’t blame FGR for trying it on but the man in charge simply shouldn’t have allowed them to. That looked like it – not just a first point for Duncan Ferguson but all three of them. But – in a rare moment of genuine quality in a truly dreadful game – Cole Stockton smashed home a tremendous shot with only one minute left when the ball was played into his path by substitute Michael Mellon following a long clearance from his goalkeeper. Belatedly, the home team came out of its stupor. Mellon hit a shot agonisingly wide of the target in the first minute of injury time and if Mr Coy had added-on even half the amount of time he had allowed the visitors to waste during the second half, who knows what might have happened as FGR’s fragile confidence might well have unravelled again. But the Man in Black stopped the game after precisely four minutes of extra time. What a farce…
To be fair though, Forest Green departed with exactly what they had come for: one very precious point. I think they were the better team today into the bargain. Morecambe were hopeless and just didn’t seem to know what to do with the ball most of the time. Rovers, on the other hand, arrived with a plan – and stuck to it. They had a lot of luck – their goal should not have been allowed, for a start – but nobody can begrudge them their determination to carry-out the plan their boss had clearly worked out for them before the game. The best thing we can say about Morecambe tonight is – at least they didn’t lose.
As far as the league table is concerned, the single point each didn’t really help either of the protagonists today. Forest Green remain rock bottom of League One; seven points from safety and with more games played than nearly all the other clubs in the division. Cambridge lost 2-0 at Barnsley; the team from Milton Keynes drew at home against Oxford, 1-1; Cheltenham and Accrington were involved in a goal-less draw but Burton beat Exeter 1-0. So the Shrimps remain in twenty-first position. It could have been worse. Alarmingly, though – it might well be a lot worse at the end of Tuesday night next week. Morecambe travel to high-flying Sheffield Wednesday – a club which has already beaten then twice this season so far, home and away with no goals scored by Derek Adams’ men and five conceded. But let’s not give into pessimism and despondency. King Derek never does. He was booked again for remonstrating with the man with the golden whistle when youngster Mellon was wiped-out by the visiting defence during injury time and only the Referee didn’t see it. The boss’ verdict at the end of today’s draw was typically succinct and honest:
“Credit to them. I thought their shape was very good. The structure that they played to frustrated us.”
P.S. Hobyah HQ issued this Press Release earlier in the week:
“Inspired by Duncan Ferguson and his commitment to become Vegan as a result of taking the helm at Forest Green Rovers, we have decided to follow his example and do the same thing. Grown humans thus have no fear anymore of being eaten alive by us. Small children – from this day forth – will no longer be made into stew. Instead, they will both be subjected to repeated readings from the shortest book ever written: `The Collected Wisdom of Liz Truss’. That, we have decided, is punishment enough for anybody.”
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley; 2 Donald Love (C) (21 Ryan Cooney 20’; 25 Adam Mayor 45’); 4 Liam Gibson; 5 Farrend Rawson; 8 Daniel Crowley; 9 Cole Stockton; 10 Ash Hunter (22 Josh Austerfield); 15 Jensen Weir; 16 Jacob Bedeau; 20 Liam Shaw (11 Michael Mellon 73’); 29 Dynel Simeu.
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 6 Ryan Delaney; 14 Arthur Gnahoua.
Forest Green Rovers: 31 Ross Doohan; 2 Corey O’Keeffe (17 Kyle McCallister 58’); 3 Dominic Bernard; 4 Dylan McGeouch (C); 5 Oliver Casey; 11 Jordon Garrick (30 Tyrese Omotoye (Y) 67’); 12 Jamie Robson; 21 Amadou Bakayoko (39 Jahmari Clarke 67’); 23 Brandon Cooper; 25 Myles Peart-Harris; 33 Tyler Onyango (7 Ben Stevenson 20’).
Subs not used: 24 Lewis Thomas; 6 Baily Cargill; 14 Charlie McCann.
Ref: Martin Coy.
Att: 4,563 (211 Forest Green fans).
