Pope is NOT infallible.

It really WAS Missionary Duty on Easter Monday at Gigg Lane. From the northern mists, hordes of Morecambe supporters in fancy dress dematerialised onto the sun-drenched terraces of a place which was enjoying a different season – in more ways than one. At home, it was like Autumn: cold, dismal and damp. In Bury, though, it was summer: barely a cloud in the sky and hot with it. At the start of the game, Bury were approaching the end of another sort of season with high hopes of promotion to League One. The Shrimps, on the other hand, probably need Divine Intervention if their campaign is to end in anything but mid-table mediocrity – largely due to their poor home form. But maybe Divine Intervention had a hand in the eventual result – who can tell?: there were certainly all the signs at the ground that such a thing might just be possible?

For the benefit of the Bury heathens, no lesser personages than Cardinal Richelieu and Jesus himself were to be spotted among the Morecambe crowd. Not to be left out, Bury continued the religious theme on the pitch. After all, they had a Pope playing in goal.

Bury are a physically big team. Morecambe aren`t. At the Globe Arena last November, the Shakers at times totally dominated play and it was only when smaller, nippier forwards were introduced by Jim Bentley towards the end of the match that the game slipped away from them: they had no means of dealing with Jack Redshaw and Blackpool loanee Tom Barkhuizen in particular. Barkhuizen has gone but today, Redshaw started from the off.

Gary Flitcroft`s team seemed to have learned their lesson from last year`s defeat, however: they snuffed him out right from the start. And although the visitors played some neat, accurate stuff particularly in midfield at times, they lacked any punch up front where the also usually reliable Kevin Ellison had a pretty ineffectual game.

Throughout the contest, Bury looked the most likely to score and it was no surprise when they did so after sixteen minutes when Tom Eaves shot home from close range following a corner. He looked suspiciously off-side from where I was sitting at least but the officials were unmoved by Morecambe`s lengthy protests and the goal stood. It could – and should – have got worse for the North Lancashire team as the match progressed as Bury contrived to miss chance after chance throughout the game, most notably when the ball seemed to stop in the middle of the penalty area after a corner during the second half and a succession of Bury forwards appeared to be mesmerised by it: the merest touch by any of them surely would have put the home side two goals up. In the meantime, Morecambe`s loanee goalkeeper Danny Ward played very confidently and caught a number of crosses which lesser mortals might not have even tried to advance towards.

As the noisy away following started to chant their impatience with the manager for not changing things, Mr Bentley pulled-off a master stroke. He withdrew Ellison after 76 minutes and replaced him with Padraig Amond, who equalised almost immediately having apparently completely eluded the Shakers` defence to bear down completely unmarked on goal after 79 minutes with a deft shot past the helpless Nick Pope. This was the cue to take Redshaw off. Substitute Paul Mullin`s possibly first touch of the ball was to steer it into an empty net after Pope had made an appalling blunder and played a back-pass straight into the path of Jamie Devitt, who played Mullin in. 85 minutes on the clock: nine more to play during which Bury appeared to be shell-shocked.

So it was Smash and Grab – and a double over their more illustrious ex-Lancashire rivals – for the Shrimps this season. The win consolidates Morecambe`s position as a mid-table team in twelfth position. The loss leaves Bury four points adrift of automatic promotion in fourth place in the League Two table.
Ref: Darren Bond