All-Square so far for the New Year…
We start this report with news of two changes at Morecambe football club. Firstly, the man Derek Adams appointed as his talent spotter – Greg Strong – has departed for unknown Pastures New. Couldn’t possibly be North of the Border, could they?…
And – talking about pastures – Morecambe native and Head Groundsman Rob Davidson has also headed for a new one: the pitch at Fulham Football Club to be precise. He has been promoted to look after the grass at the Premiership club – lucky them. The surface at the Mazuma Mobile stadium is one of the best in the entire EFL and this is a tribute to Rob and his team. Good luck to him in West London.
Harrogate Town were the visitors to the Maz Mob today, New Year’s Day. The two clubs have met four times in the past with both winning two matches. The most recent of these was in Yorkshire last August, when Morecambe played poorly but were unlucky to have Farrend Rawson sent-off by utterly hopeless referee Ross Joyce.
Having said that they played poorly, the Shrimps were nothing like as useless as they were last Friday night in Nottingham, where Notts County beat them soundly by five goals to nil. The Magpies simply swept aside a team which is light years behind them in terms of personnel, tactics, commitment – and probably actually every aspect of football which is required to be successful.
Asked if he hoped that his team would be able to bounce-back from the annihilation they suffered on Friday night, Manager Ged Brannan said after the Notts County match:
“It’s exactly what I’ve said to the lads. We learned from the Wrexham game, we will learn from tonight’s game. We’re going to get back to where we were first half against Bradford, back to where we were against Doncaster. We’ve got to go straight at (Harrogate), and play the way we want to play with the pace and quality on the ball.”
Morecambe started tonight’s game in sixteenth place in League Two; a single place and point behind today’s visitors, who have played one game more. The Shrimps have won only one of their last six league games and lost three of them. Harrogate, on the other hand have won three of their last six League Two matches and lost two, most recently when they went down 0-2 at home last Friday to rapidly improving Tranmere Rovers.
I’ve been unable to discover what the visitors’ long-term Manager Simon Weaver said he was expecting in north Lancashire before the game.
But on-loan goalkeeper James Belshaw retained his place in the first team for the visitors as his sabbatical from Bristol Rovers was extended for a further short period. He played alongside former Shrimps’ Skipper Anthony O’Connor and fans’ favourite Liam Gibson. It is good to see them both doing well over in Yorkshire – although the presence of Gibbo in particular reminded all of us (just as Dan Crowley did last Friday) – how much better we could be doing if only Our Ged had any money to attract or keep good players such as these at our club.
The fag end of 2023 has been really stormy in our neck of the woods. The New Year started with blustery winds, really heavy rain and lots of flooded roads around and about Morecambe. But the game started off under almost bright skies with no rain even in the air and barely a breath of wind. The game was pretty scrappy throughout with the occasional half-decent move to illuminate the general tedium. After almost twenty minutes, Jordan Slew set-up JJ McKiernan for a shot which James Belshaw in the away goal held confidently enough. A minute later, George Thomson’s free-kick from about 25 yards for the visitors went close to the target – but not close enough. Just over half an hour had been played when a clearly struggling Michael Mellon took another shot which was easily held by the visiting goalkeeper. It was no surprise when he didn’t return for the second half – the sickness he has suffered from over Xmas and longer has clearly taken a real toll on his fitness. Adam Mayor was also clearly struggling for the hosts – and he had to go off as well after forty minutes. Then Old Boy Liam Gibson blotted his copy book with a crude lunge at McKiernan just prior to this. He didn’t get any of the ball – but he got a lot of our man. JJ was hurt and had to be helped from the field. So this is the second time in a row that our young Ulster international has been nobbled by the Sulphurites. First time in August, he was clearly dazed as he was helped back to the Dressing Rooms with a huge lump on his head. The perpetrator of this offence got away with it because neither useless Referee Joyce nor his equally seemingly myopic assistants spotted the guilty party. Today, though, the man at fault was obvious for everybody to see. Liam should have been sent off. But today’s Man in the Middle – Simon Mather – just wagged a finger at him: he wasn’t even booked. This was one of a number of perverse decisions made by the Referee this afternoon. Later, Gibbo later went down apparently injured and stayed down for some time as Mr Mather indulged him and the clock was counted-down. Then he got up, magically apparently completely recovered – and carried-on as if nothing had happened. He didn’t do this when he was a Shrimps player so it can be assumed – very sadly – that he has sold his soul to the Dark Side over in North Yorkshire. Whatever, Town took the lead right at the end of the half following an almost farcical imbroglio in the home goal mouth. Ex-Shrimps Skipper Anthony O’Connor was under no pressure whatsoever as he played an excellent long ball to Kayne Ramsay on the Town right. In turn, he played it right across the Morecambe goalmouth only for it to be retrieved on the Harrogate left near the Morecambe goal-line by Matty Foulds. He lobbed it back into the middle where one of the smaller men on the field – Sam Folarin – got his head to it; the ball fell to George Thomson on the edge of the home penalty area and his shot was blocked by a combination of Smith and Joel Senior. The ball fell to Folarin again; it sort of bounced off him sideways into the path of Jack Muldoon. He must have been barely able to believe his luck as he was able to bundle the loose ball over the line from no distance at all with the Morecambe defence all over the place. Goalkeeper Adam Smith yet again was probably culpable in the first place as he failed to deal decisively with Thomson’s shot. Then his defenders must take the blame for allowing the men in the dark blue strip to react fastest to every subsequent chance. It was an appalling goal to concede.
So the visitors reached the break one-nil up. They barely deserved it but Morecambe were at fault simply for failing to clear their lines effectively.
With three substitutions already made, the Shrimps faced an uphill struggle in the second half. However, Yann Songo’o at least had other ideas. He led by example this afternoon and had an outstanding match. To their considerable credit, the men in the red shirts took the game to the visitors for most of the second period which soon fell into a pattern of the Shrimps attacking and the Sulphurites constantly trying to hit back on the break. Thomson tried his luck for them after 53 minutes but Smith fielded his effort easily enough. Only a minute later, Jordan Slew hit a shot from a long way out on the Morecambe left which was blocked for a corner which came to nothing. In the 57th minute, though, the Shrimps equalised thanks to the same player. Jacob Bedeau and substitute Jake Taylor exchanged passes in the middle of the park before Jacob slipped the ball forward to Jordan. He looked up and, from the left flank just on the edge of the away penalty area from his point of view, found the corner of the net to Belshaw’s right with a powerful low shot: it was an excellent goal. Harrogate were on the back foot for a while after that without looking seriously as if they would ever concede a further goal in all truth. In a couple of lightning counter-attacks, they were caught off-side. But they went further ahead against the run of play in the eighty-third minute and there was an element of farce about this one as well. Morecambe had been on the attack again but the ball was cleared and Muldoon brilliantly sold Farrend Rawson a dummy and was past him as if he wasn’t there before motoring towards the home goal just to the left of centre. He slipped the ball to Levi Sutton in the middle of the pitch from the Town left. Sutton exchanged passes with little Abraham Odoh; was far too strong for Senior as he played a pass forward to Folarin, who set-up Odoh for a perfect strike on goal. Sadly for him, the diminutive forward completely missed the ball as it went between his legs and he ended up a comical heap on the ground. But the ball continued its trajectory to an unmarked Thomson, who walloped it home. It was another extraordinarily bad goal to concede from Ged Brannan’s men’s point of view but if you don’t defend properly, you don’t deserve any better.
Harrogate had already been shamelessly playing for time for ages before regaining the lead. With only minutes left, they redoubled these efforts and the Referee was again at fault for not either dealing with nor punishing these blatant – and repeated – attempts at gamesmanship. Mr Mather only added six minutes on at the end when ten would have been a conservative estimate. And Morecambe deservedly equalised during the third of these. Eli King took a corner from the Morecambe left and found Captain Rawson at the far post. He headed it back whence if had come and Bedeau bundled it over the line.
Harrogate came close again with virtually the last kick of the match when Muldoon was unlucky to see his tremendous strike hit the angle of post and bar to the left of a static Adam Smith and then loop up into the air to fall only just beyond the crossbar onto the top of the net. If it had gone in, it would have been very harsh on Morecambe.
The draw saw them fall further down the League Two table tonight to seventeenth. Harrogate also slipped to fourteenth but you have a feeling that if they had spent as much time trying to waste time this afternoon actually playing football, they might have nicked it. So – in a sense – they got more than they actually deserved.
This is what Our Ged had to say about it all at the end of the game:
“You can see the lads are dead on their feet to be honest – obviously we’ve got a small squad. If you look at the stats, it’s a great effort from them – that’s all I ask for. Yann was the perfect example of that today: he was chasing; closed the keeper down; giving the crowd a lift. We take a point and move on after last week. We could have taken three points there. Michael has not still recovered from sickness as you can see. Adam Mayor pulled his thigh but he should be ok. JJ – we don’t know; we’ve got to send him for a scan – he’s in a boot downstairs. When it rains; it pours. Charlie Brown made a difference. I’m made-up for him: he got a standing ovation from the lads in the changing room. I’m delighted for him.”
Morecambe: 21 Adam Smith; 3 David Tutonda; 4 Jacob Bedeau; 5 Farrend Rawson (C); 6 Yann Songo’o (Y) (17 Cammy Smith 95’); 8 Eli King; 9 Michael Mellon (20 Charlie Brown); 10 JJ McKiernan (18 Jake Taylor 40’); 11 Adam Mayor (7 Tom Bloxham 40’); 12 Joel Senior; 14 Jordan Slew (Y).
Substitutes not used: 26 George Pedley; 15 Chris Stokes; 16 Jacob Davenport.
Harrogate Town: 31 James Belshaw (Y); 4 Josh Falkingham (C) (17 Levi Sutton 80’); 7 George Thomson; 8 Dean Cornelius (6 Warren Burrell (Y) 85’); 9 Abraham Odoh; 12 Sam Folarin (24 Josh March 84’); 15 Anthony O’Connor; 18 Jack Muldoon; 20 Kayne Ramsay; 23 Matthew Foulds; 30 Liam Gibson.
Substitutes not used: 13 Lewis Thomas; 11 James Daly; 19 Jeremy Sivi; 37 Finn O’Boyle; 38 Alex Mooney.
Ref: Simon Mather.
Att: 3,776 (161 from Harrogate.)
