Unhappy New Year for Humiliated Shrimps
No Thieving Required by Magpies Tonight…
Morecambe played their second League Two game in a row away from home during Christmas Week when they visited Notts County’s Meadow Lane this evening for the final fixture of 2023.
County were in the Play-Off positions prior to the game, in fifth place in the table. By contrast, the Shrimps were in lucky thirteenth position, seven points behind them. But the Lancashire club, crucially, had two games in hand.
Morecambe, however, have lost three of their last five league games and won only one. Yet if past meetings can actually be taken as any guide to future success, the odds would slightly favour Ged Brannan’s men this evening. The Magpies had won four of fifteen previous League Two encounters altogether: the Shrimps had just edged it with five. In their most recent meeting at the Maz last August, though, the match ended in a pretty tedious goal-less draw.
Some of the other meetings between Morecambe and County have not been similarly forgettable. For example, ex-England Manager Sven Goren Eriksson was apparently about to lead the Magpies to the Promised Land of the Premiership from League Two way back when in 2009. Then Morecambe icon Jim Bentley scored with a header in a 2-1 victory at Christie Park and was immortalised by numerous images of him trying to put his arms around much bigger ex-England defender Sol Campbell. Sol sulked and left after this – his only game for the club. Sven followed at the end of the season, claiming he had been sold a pup. Then County were relegated four years ago from a Football League of which they had been a founder member after they had first been formed way back in 1888 as the self-styled `oldest football club in the world’.
Things like this are simply not meant to happen – but they did.
They got back into the EFL last year as a result of the Play-Offs. This season, they have been one of the Bookies’ favourites to go straight up into League One.
Notts’ recent form has not been good, though. They beat currently hopeless Doncaster 3-0 at Nottingham last Saturday but the Magpies have lost four of their last six league games.
I haven’t been able to unearth any thoughts that Magpies’ boss Luke Williams might have had about the forthcoming fixture but I can share with you what Opposite Number Ged Brannan had to say about it:
“They’re a good footballing team – same as us – so it will be a really entertaining game: (I’m) looking forward to it. It’s going to be another tough game for us. They will pass the ball really quickly and they play similar to us really – so it will be a counter-attacking game I think. We’re going to go there with our game plan and hopefully we’ll catch them half asleep.”
“Half asleep”? There was only one team well and truly in the Land of Nod tonight as things turned-out…
It was windy but dry by the side of the River Trent as the game kicked-off, although there were pools of water by the side of the pitch after recent storms.
My heart sank as I saw the man who would be in charge of proceedings tonight.
There are some really bad Referees in League Two but Robert `Bobby’ Madley has few fellow contenders to be one of the absolute worst.
And – true to form – he gifted County the first goal of the evening. After eight minutes, Aaron Nemane moved past David Totonda on the right of the away penalty area from his point of view. David wasn’t even looking his way but Nemane made sure there was the slightest of contacts – and went down with arms flailing as if he had been pole-axed.
The official with the whistle and the physique and gait of a middle-aged man duly pointed to the spot.
It was a ridiculous decision that gave the home team the lead on a plate because Macaulay Langstaff scored very confidently from the spot. It was a travesty for two reasons:
Firstly, it wasn’t a penalty kick.
Secondly, the Magpies didn’t need any help from a third party tonight – however hopeless he might be.
Already, they had completely dominated possession of the ball. As Morecambe failed to press, they took their time and probed with intelligent, accurate passing. Every time the ball was at the feet of a player with a white and black striped shirt on, you could see he was confident with it and knew what to do next. On the rare occasions that a man in a red shirt found himself in possession, the overwhelming impression you got was one of sheer relief: at least the home team didn’t have it for however brief a period.
County scored again just two minutes after the first goal went in. I know it’s Xmas and the season to be generous but Shrimps’ goalkeeper Adam Smith should have kept his largesse at home. Notts had been having a lot of success so far marauding up their left flank with the evergreen David McGoldrick usually instrumental in all that happened. He set-up an exchange of passes before County Skipper Kyle Cameron slung a low cross into the middle which Adam should have held onto. Instead, he pushed it back out into the danger area and Langstaff gratefully accepted the belated Xmas present.
There were just twenty-four minutes on the clock at this point – and the game was already obviously well and truly lost.
As the visitors offered absolutely nothing offensively, it was already a question of how many the Nottingham club would score tonight. A third goal arrived as the smallest man on the field – ex-Shrimp Dan Crowley – headed home via the post as he was allowed the freedom of the away penalty area and Cameron was again not challenged out on the Morecambe right as he was granted all the time in the world to send over another perfect cross.
Thirty-six minutes were on the clock as Macaulay Langstaff scored his first ever EFL hat-trick. Again, Morecambe failed to clear their lines as another cross from the Nottingham left caused total panic in their rearguard; Eli King was far too easily beaten for the ball on the edge of their penalty area and County’s Number Nine was allowed time and space to direct a truly sumptuous strike way up into the net to a despairing Smith’s left hand side.
So it was four-nil to the hosts at half time. Poor old Ged had already sent-on Yann Songo’o and Jake Taylor to replace the wholly ineffectual Tom Bloxham and even worse Jacob Davenport to try and steady the ship. But the damage was already done – and it could have been worse in all truth.
Morecambe kept giving the ball away in numerous situations of which just one was when Tutonda actually played-in McGoldrick on goal with an unintended pass after 33 minutes which Notts’ Number 17 for once wasted. I apologise to our David – his team-mates were equally culpable throughout this mis-match of a game – but this glaring error particularly sticks in my mind. The only even vaguely feasible chance for the visitors came right at the end of the half – Jordan Slew’s effort hit Cameron, beat Aidan Stone in the away goal and came back into play off his crossbar.
For the Shrimps, the very clear message at half time must have been: just try and keep the score down.
They managed to do so for a whole forty seconds following the re-start. Jodi Jones found himself with the freedom of the Morecambe penalty area as yet again, County attacked down their left hand side. He took a shot from a long way out which I’m afraid I thought Smith should have saved. But he didn’t. To be fair to him though, the goalkeeper did brilliantly to rush off his line as an unmarked David McGoldrick threatened from the right for a change after 54 minutes: he did enough to ensure that the Nottingham forward’s shot could be cleared just short of the goal-line by substitute Taylor. He then denied the same player with a superb save in the seventy-second minute. Later, Tutonda clearly blocked another attempt by the ex-Derby player with his arm in what was a far more obvious offence than the one which Mr Madley had literally penalised him for during the first half. But he got away with it this time.
At the other end, Stone made his first actual save of the night from Morecambe sub Michael Mellon after a whole seventy-two minutes. The home stopper was then lucky in the eightieth minute when our young leading scorer lobbed him from the Shrimps’ left only to see the ball bounce into touch from the base of his near post. Other than that, chances for the visitors were at a premium tonight. County had long since taken their feet off the gas – and their best players off with it. For them, this was like a training game this evening: they will not have many easier victories – ever.
I think it would be actually cruel to expect Our Ged to make any sort of sense of this total humiliation tonight. So – for once – I’m not going to quote what he came out with after the game other than to note that he said he would have rested players such as a barely fit Yann Songo’o tonight but had to send him on because his squad is so short of numbers that he had no option otherwise.
Instead – on the virtual eve of 2024 – I am going to reflect on this year.
In terms of bald facts, it has been the worst one ever in the history of Morecambe football club. Never before in one hundred and three years have the Shrimps ever been relegated. But they were last summer.
(Again, it’s a seasonal question of Glass Half Full – or Glass Half Empty? I can remember us hardly setting the Lancashire Combination on fire – and struggling to even stay in the Northern Premier League in times long past. Even being in what was then the Fourth Division was an unattainable dream at that time. But now it is a reality: and that – for me at least – puts everything else including the relegation into true perspective.)
But…
2024 could be a really pivotal year in the history of our club. It will start with us comfortably out of the relegation zone – we are still sixteenth in League Two despite tonight’s humiliation as the calendar is about to change. Clubs like Sutton and Forest Green Rovers are currently in far worse trouble than we are. But this could change if the EFL chooses to punish us with points deductions for misdemeanours off the field which none of us has any control over.
We saw what the lack of any sort of recent investment might have meant for the future of our club tonight. Outstanding midfielder of last season Dan Crowley was imperious for Notts throughout the game. County and a lot of other clubs in League Two will be planning new signings in the January Transfer Window to improve their squads for promotion pushes. But poor old Ged Brannan – as Derek Adams did before him – will be fervently hoping his phone won’t ring. He called us `paupers’ after the game tonight – and he’s right. We aren’t going to be signing anyone new – we never do. Instead, we are all collectively hoping or praying that other clubs won’t either recall or pick-off our better players.
And why is this? It is – plainly and simply – that no funds to underscore any improvements in the playing staff will be forthcoming from above. There weren’t last year and a very forthright and absolutely furious King Derek called the holder of the purse strings out for this at the time. Later – rightly – our abdicated monarch blamed the ownership for the club’s only ever relegation last summer for failing to fund signings which our then Manager had lined-up this time last year.
My resolutions for the new year are what they are but the one real hope I personally have for 2024 is that the inertia and complacency which clearly exists among most of my fellow supporters in terms of the ownership situation currently will radically change. Our Board have had the collective courage to put on the public record their desire to have the owner removed from all association with our club. Good for them. But what support have they got from us as Morecambe fans?
None whatsoever that I am aware of.
My hope is that we will at least express our unhappiness together both loudly and publicly about the position of the ownership at our club and the drain this is now having in terms of points reductions in the league standings. These – on their own – could effectively see us relegated back to the Outer Darkness of non-league football: worse still, they could put an end to Morecambe Football Club altogether.
The Bond Group saw the dismantling of Premiership Rugby Union club Worcester Warriors last year as assets such as car parks and eventually the Sixfield Stadium itself at which they once played were sold off. Loads of people lost their jobs. Do the Bond Group care any more about the situation we now find ourselves in? Of course they don’t.
I profoundly hope that we aren’t collectively just going to continue to ignore this reality and fail to do anything constructive whatsoever as our beloved Shrimps follow the Warriors and potentially go down the tubes altogether.
I’ve no doubt that all Morecambe fans reading this think the same.
We stand on the edge of a precipice. We have a choice: meekly fall into it – or at least try to move away from this potential drop into oblivion by doing something; whatever it is.
Fans such as Exeter’s, Charlton’s and Blackpool’s have done so in the past– successfully. Others – most notably Reading’s at this moment in time – have mobilised and are at least making a stand at this very moment to change the ownership situation at their club. Good luck to them.
So what is it about us collectively that we don’t – or – even worse – won’t?
I leave you with this conundrum because I, for one, simply do not understand it – and never have.
Whatever else happens on or off the field, though, I would like to wish all my loyal readers in particular – and even those people who have never agreed with the contentious things I have sometimes written on these pages this year – Good Luck for 2024.
I fear that we are going to need it…
Notts County: 26 Aidan Stone; 2 Richard Brindley (Y) (28 Lewis Macari 79’); 4 Kyle Cameron (C); 7 Daniel Crowley; 8 Sam Austin (21 Tobi Adebayo-Rowling 73’); 9 Macaulay Langstaff (6 Jim O’Brien62’); 10 Jodi Jones; 11 Aaron Nemane; 15 Aden Baldwin; 16 John Bostock (32 Dan Gosling 62’); 5 Connell Rawlinson 79’); 17 David McGoldrick.
Substitutes not used: 25 Lucien Mahovo; 43 James Sanderson.
Morecambe: 21 Adam Smith; 3 David Tutonda; 4 Jacob Bedeau (C); 7 Tom Bloxham; 8 Eli King; 10 JJ McKiernan; 11 Adam Mayor; 12 Joel Senior; 14 Jordan Slew ; 16 Jacob Davenport (6 Yann Songo’o 28’); 22 James Connolly (5 Farrend Rawson 45’).
Substitutes not used: 26 George Pedley; 9 Michael Mellon; 17 Cammy Smith; 18 Jake Taylor; 23 Max Melbourne.
Ref: Robert Madley.
Att: 5,786 (including 179 very long-suffering Morecambe fans – safe journey home and a very Happy New Year to each and every one of you.)
