Parkside Of The Moon

A Morecambe XI kicked-off against Kendal Town on Tuesday night at 7.30pm. Two hours or so later, as the Moon began to rise over Parkside Road, the strong Shrimps` Eleven – including such worthies as Andy Parrish, Andy Fleming, and Alex Kenyon – had won 0-5. Those of us old enough to remember Kendal`s club as Netherfield and recall watching Morecambe lose 1:2 to them on an equal footing as members of the Northern Premier League at Christie Park in the Lancashire Challenge Cup 2nd Round on Tuesday 30th September 1969 and then lose again at the same venue 0:1 in the Lancashire F.A. Floodlit Cup less than two months later must wonder at the fact that the clubs` fortunes since then have gone in such diametrically opposed directions. I certainly do. League Two Morecambe were simply too strong for their Evo-Stik League opponents. In a game of many scrappy periods, the visitors took the lead after 23 minutes, were awarded a penalty early in the game and rubbed it in when Kevin Ellison was fouled in the last minute for Tom Barkhuizen to score from the penalty spot again. It was a good run out for the Lancashire team but against opposition of this calibre, it was little more than that.