Barrow Boys upturned in Morecambe.
Barrow crossed Morecambe Bay today from the Furness Peninsula to play the Shrimps in a League Fixture in what remains north Lancashire for only the second time ever. (For our younger readers, I should explain that Barrow and places such as Ulverston were also part of Lancashire until the re-organisation of county boundaries in 1974, when Furness was absorbed by the brand-new county of Cumbria. That’s why the club still have a Red Rose as part of their badge.)
In recent times, Morecambe have beaten Barrow in three of the four games they have competed against each other this century. But on Halloween last year, the wheels fell off as the Cumbrians beat a woefully bad Morecambe on a ploughed field of a pitch at Holker Street by the only goal of a frankly dreadful match.
Since returning to the EFL after an absence of forty-eight years just four seasons ago, the Bluebirds have gradually consolidated their position in League Two; improved Holker Street as a venue fit for league football and are now in a position to at least think about promotion to League One. This afternoon, Barrer arrived in fifth position in the table, just six points adrift of Wrexham in the lowest of the automatic positions but with a game in hand. Their recent form has been four wins and no losses in their last six league outings. Instrumental in this has been our tarnished former star, Cole “The Incredible Sulk” Stockton. Cole has scored seven times in twelve games since joining Barrow on-loan from Burton Albion earlier this year. Two of these were netted against Grimsby last Saturday, when he won the Man of the Match award as Barrow beat Dave Artell’s struggling side by three goals to one at home. So today could be a tale of two strikers. As Stockton was changing his allegiance from the Brewers to the Bluebirds, Ged Garner arrived on-loan at Morecambe from across the Bay. Ged has not had the same sort of impact for the Shrimps as Cole has for his new club. We must still all hope that he might show some of the apparently tremendous form which persuaded Barrer to pay Fleetwood a club record fee for his services not too many moons ago. This would not happen today though: he was not allowed to play against his parent club this afternoon.
As for the hosts, Ged Brannan’s men started today’s match on the back of a tremendous – and very unusual – win at Accrington Stanley last Friday. They had lost all four of their league games prior to that but won the previous fixture of the last six. In tenth position, the Shrimps’ hopes of getting into the Play-Offs come the end of the campaign were weaker than Barrow’s but a victory over them today could change all that. This is what Our Ged said about this afternoon’s clash after the win against Stanley on Good Friday:
“Obviously, Barrow are flying this season – they’ve had a fantastic season no matter what. So we know it’s going to be a tough game. It’s going to be a big crowd. It’s going to be very noisy. So we will have to go out there and get the three points to keep us in the mix. They have a Game Plan now where they get every man behind the ball and catch you on the break; counter-attacking – what we were doing earlier on in the season. We will go into the game full of confidence. We will just try and do our normal game: passing the ball with tempo – get at them; get wide; get the crosses in. I said to the lads before the game on Friday, obviously it’s Make or Break time. If we win this game, we’re back in the mix; if we lose it we’re out of the Play-Offs. Two derbies; two wins: that’s the aim. Obviously, we just wanted to win against Accrington. We got that. Now we’ve got the at home to Barrow game. If we get the three points there, who knows what can happen?”
Opposite Number Pete Wild recorded his thoughts about today’s match yesterday, Easter Sunday:
“It’s not lost on us the importance of tomorrow and what the fans think of tomorrow and how much the fans want to win tomorrow. And that shows in the number of fans that are travelling to Morecambe tomorrow. We understand that; we get that. We understand that you want us to deliver tomorrow. We will be doing everything we can to deliver tomorrow. What we have to also focus on is that it’s another game of football against a team that’s done really well this year. We have to make sure that the euphoria of a derby doesn’t take over of what we need to do in terms of business.”
Spring had appeared briefly over the Easter weekend in north Lancashire but today dawned grey and wet. The roads into Morecambe from the north were unusually congested in the hour or so prior to kick-off as Barrovians were denied a train service to the resort today because of a train derailment caused by a sink-hole near the track at Grange-over-Sands over a week ago. So all Bluebirds supporters had to travel either by car or by coach – and there were loads of both today.
Although there were never any downpours of Biblical proportions such as those experienced at Accrington three days ago, the match was played in drizzly conditions throughout on a relatively heavy pitch. I say `relatively heavy’ because the playing surface was like a billiard table in comparison to the quagmire Barrow are used to not so many miles away across the Bay. Would this suit the visitors?
There was no sign of it early doors. Morecambe kicked-off and were soon on the attack. Only a smart save from today’s Barrow Captain – Paul Farman – stopped Charlie Brown opening the scoring with a smart shot which the Barrow goalkeeper did really well to keep out after three minutes at the cost of a corner kick. Charlie took it; the ball fell to David Tutonda and he reacted brilliantly by back-heeling the ball into the net to put the Shrimps one-nil up – and silence the massed ranks of Bluebirds fans watching on from the terrace behind the goal into the bargain.
There was still a shell-shocked silence hovering over the away end when Morecambe went further ahead just eight minutes later. Gwion Edwards did brilliantly to rob James Chester of possession, take the ball around an advancing Farman and slip it home from an acute angle from the left of the goal from his point of view. It was a great strike by Gwion but the Barrow contingent must have wondered what on earth was going through Chester’s head to get caught so easily in such a dangerous position.
In truth, things didn’t really improve for the visitors from that point on during the first half. They saw quite a lot of the ball but didn’t do a lot with it. Cole Stockton – roundly booed by the home fans every time he got the ball – had their only meaningful effort on goal after just over half an hour but a tremendous reaction save from Archie Mair with his legs kept him out. At the other end, Farman had much more to do as Morecambe forced a number of corners and came close again through efforts by Edwards in particular which went wide of the target.
At Half Time, Pete Wild withdrew Dom Telford and replaced him with Elliot Newby. Whether this was the reason or not, the men in the yellow shirts looked sharper and more determined throughout the second period. They passed the ball nicely between themselves at times but looked pretty toothless up front. To his undoubted chagrin, The Incredible Sulk was withdrawn by the Barrow Manager with still over ten minutes left to play. He had produced very little apart from the instant shot in the first half and Chris Stokes more or less had him in his pocket for most of the game. The Long Walk to the touch-line gave the opportunity for fans that once idolised Cole Stockton to make their feelings known about his shamefully lazy and uncommitted attitude throughout most of his final season for the Shrimps last term.
Morecambe defended valiantly as Barrow began to dominate the game as time wore on. They seemed to be heading for a rare Clean Sheet but – just as was the case at Accrington last week – it was Squeaky Bum time for all Shrimps’ supporters right at the end of the game. Just as was the case last time out, the opposition reduced the arrears in the eighty-ninth minute. Substitute Newby played a ball into the danger area and Morecambe’s resilience was at last broken as Sam Foley’s shot was saved by Archie but Ben Whitfield belted the rebound home. There were six minutes – as opposed to nine last Friday – added-on today and Barrow unquestionably dominated these. But – just as had been the case three days ago at Accrington, they could not find an equaliser. So – despite a bit of a scare at the end – Morecambe finally emerged worthy winners for their overall performance. Although a few Barrow supporters I spoke to after the match said – in the only words that are repeatable here – that their team was `rubbish’ today, they didn’t play badly in my opinion. But the game was won in the first quarter of an hour, when Bluebirds defenders’ minds seemed to be still on the team bus.
The win saw Morecambe pull ahead of Gillingham (who were hammered 5-1 at Harrogate this afternoon) on goal difference alone into eight position in League Two. AFC Wimbledon also lost 1-0 at leaders Stockport but seventh-placed Crawley won well at Newport by four goals to nil. So they remain two games ahead of the Shrimps in seventh position with a game in hand and a much better goal difference. But with five games still to play, it’s still all to play for as far as Play-Off places are concerned. This is what Our Ged had to say at the end of the match:
“Two derbies – we got two wins out of it. You can’t fault the lads who were absolutely brilliant today – great hearts. The lads showed great character. The league is nuts; absolutely nuts – everyone beats everyone. We’ve just got to keep going and see what happens.”
Morecambe: 30 Archie Mair; 3 David Tutonda (Y); 4 Jacob Bedeau (C); 8 Joe Adams (6 Yann Songo’o 81’); 12 Joel Senior; 14 Jordan Slew; 15 Chris Stokes (Y); 18 Jake Taylor; 19 Gwion Edwards; 20 Charlie Brown (39 Jordy Hiwula 85’); 38 Nelson Khumbeni.
Substitutes not used: 21 Adam Smith; 10 JJ McKiernan; 11 Julian Larsson; 17 Cammy Smith; 28 Oscar Threlkeld.
Barrow: 1 Paul Farman(C); 4 Dean Campbell (Y); 5 George Ray (Y); 8 Kian Spence; 15 Robbie Gotts (7 David Worrall 72’); 17 James Chester (20 Emile Acquah 72’); 18 Luca Stephenson; 19 Dominic Telford (11 Elliot Newby 45’); 23 Cole Stockton (9 Jamie Proctor 79’); 24 Rory Feely; 34 Ben Whitfield.
Substitutes not used: 16 Sam Foley;
12 Josh Lillis; 3 Mazeed Ogungbo 13 Tom White 14 Courtney Duffus
Ref: Marc Edwards.
Att: 4,878 (1,645 from Barrer.)
