LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 23rd SEPTEMBER 2023.

We Wuz Robbed by the Robbers – sorry – Robins: It’s Official…

One-time member of the Premiership Swindon Town arrived at the north Lancashire coast today looking for another win to keep up their Championship challenge in League Two. Prior to the game this afternoon, they were third in the table, three points behind leaders Gillingham but with a game in hand on both them and Notts County, who lay in second position. Town have won three of their last five league games and drawn two. They have yet to lose a League Two game so far this season so the task facing Derek Adams’ team today was always going to be formidable.

As far as previous meetings with the club from Wiltshire are concerned, the omens for a win for the Shrimps today were also not good: in seven attempts so far to do so, they have never beaten the Robins even once. Town have won six of their meetings in all competitions previously and drawn on the other occasion. In League Two so far, Morecambe have a perfectly even record: won three; lost three and drawn one. With overtones of last season’s form in League One, their home performances have been critical so far with only one point dropped from a potential twelve. Today, they would do well to continue this. Apart from their dire form in previous games against their latest opponents, the Shrimps would also be without leading scorer Michael Mellon as a result of his red card at Gillingham last Saturday.

Swindon, though, had relatively recent Premier League striker Charlie Austin in their squad this afternoon. I was personally surprised to see that Charlie has only scored two league goals so far this season. Seeing him play later on, however, I understand why: he plays a much more withdrawn role in Michael Flynn’s team than he once did for various previous clubs. Up-front, though, Bradford loanee Jake Young has scored more goals this term than anyone else in the division (nine) with team-mate Dan Kemp in sixth position in the scorers’ charts with five goals before today.

There has been bad blood between King Derek and the current Robins’ boss Michael Flynn stretching back to the season when Morecambe were promoted to League One. In the scheduled league games between Derek’s men and Mr Flynn’s then club – Newport County – Shrimps’ players were sent-off in both fixtures. Sweet revenge was later to be exacted when the King saw his club overcome the south Wales outfit by the only goal of the game at Wembley in the Play-Off Final. Asked how he felt about his Opposite Number after a match in which Newport were arguably unlucky to lose, Derek said he had `no sympathy’ for a man he blamed for the red cards his players had received earlier in the season. He added:

“Sometimes in life you get your comeuppance, and today was that, I’m afraid.”

As far as today’s match is concerned, he confirmed earlier this week that the very impressive Adam Mayor remained unavailable for selection with a bad ankle injury. He replied – when a member of the media asked him if he lacked attacking options up-front in the absence of the suspended Michael Mellon:

“Yeah – I would definitely say that. That’s one area where it is very difficult to try and get another striker in. We tried ever so hard to do that but unfortunately we weren’t able to. We have got players who can play there. I think it’s important that the likes of the wide players or the central midfield players score goals – and we have seen that they are capable of doing that. JJ and (Tom) Bloxham can score goals in training. Eli King can chip-in with a goal at times as well. We’ve got good options in the middle of the park that can score goals.”

As far as the opposition is concerned, he said:

“They’ve been really exciting games for them this season. They have scored a good number of goals – but they have also conceded goals as well. They’ve got good experience throughout their side; they have youthfulness as well. Jake Young has done exceptionally well for them. Austin up-front is a renowned striker. They have good energy throughout their side.”

Opposite Number Michael Flynn told the Swindon Town website before the game:

“It’s a long trip. We are playing against a Morecambe team who I think are a decent team. They are unbeaten at home in the league. They have only conceded eight goals. It is going to be a tough encounter. Every game’s a challenge. Morecambe (is) a hard-working team who has got some good players and they can hurt us. We have to earn victory. We have to out-work our opponents; out-play them and take our chances. It’s never an easy place to go.”

The weather has been truly autumnal in north Lancashire this week. Today, there were showers in the morning but this afternoon’s game was played under often blue skies as the rain stayed well away.

Things were fairly even in the opening minutes although Swindon stated their intent by forcing a corner almost from kick-off. Robins’ Skipper Charlie Austin seemed to have been given a wandering brief as he popped-up all over the pitch, prompting; intercepting and constantly trying to direct the play for the visitors. After twelve minutes, he found Jake Young with a superlative pass on the left of the home penalty area from Swindon’s point of view.  League Two’s leading scorer had the composure to lob a perfect pass towards strike partner Dan Kemp, who headed home from about six yards out – it was a really well-worked goal.

But almost immediately, the hosts could have been level. Tom Bloxham took a shot which was brilliantly stopped by Murphy Maloney in the away goal only for Yann Songo’o to smash the rebound against the post and see it bounce away to safety. Morecambe were applying a lot of pressure at this juncture and forced a succession of corner kicks as the half progressed. Captain Donald Love – who played really well this afternoon – took a fierce shot from distance after seventeen minutes which was deflected high into the air for a corner. Then JJ McKiernan walloped the ball just over the bar five minutes later.  At the other end, Austin fluffed a really good chance to increase Swindon’s lead with 24 minutes on the clock. He started and tried to finish a move from a long way out from the home goal but failed to control the final pass to him properly and ended-up chipping a shot wide of Stuart Moore’s left-hand post instead of burying it. The visitors came close again after half an hour as Young’s header from a Remeao Hutton cross was basically sat upon by a home stopper who didn’t know a lot about it – but he kept it out. But in the thirty-second minute, Morecambe were back in the game in truly spectacular style. Jordan Slew did well on the home right flank before Bloxham sent over a peach of a cross which Jake Taylor – appearing from nowhere – headed spectacularly into the top right-hand corner of a flat-footed Mahoney’s net at the far post. What a goal…

Kemp – who, to his considerable shame, spent a lot of the match play-acting and pretending to be injured – could have scored again for Town right at the death. But – presented with a golden opportunity with only the home stopper to beat – he shot straight at him.

So the teams went back to the Dressing Rooms All-Square after a thoroughly entertaining and intriguing half.

The second half, if anything, was an even better spectacle.

The visitors came out on the front foot in and if it was not for a tremendous full-length save by Stuart Moore from Tariq Uwakwe following a corner in the 48^th minute, they would have almost immediately re-taken the lead.

Critically, Songo’o was booked after a foul on the half-way line on Udoka Godwin–Malife after 54 minutes. Just a minute later, he was sent-off. Very erratic Referee Scott Tallis – who tolerated shameless play-acting and time wasting all afternoon from the men in the black strip – adjudged him to have brought-down Swindon centre-half Frazer Blake-Tracy in the penalty area.

I’m hopelessly biased of course but it seemed like a fair(ish) challenge to me and I thought it occurred outside the danger zone in any case.

But what do I know?

Mr Tallis sent Yann off and Austin scored emphatically from the spot.

So that seemed as if that was going to be it. With ten men, what chance did Morecambe have to get back on terms with the potential leaders of the Division?

However, even before Derek shook things up with about a quarter of an hour left with four substitutions, the Shrimps were generally the better team. At times, Town took advantage of their extra man to stretch the thin red line facing them to extremes – but they never really looked like scoring again.

The home Manger threw caution to the wind with a quarter of an hour left to play. With Slew and the very impressive Matt Taylor obviously flagging, the King played a Master Stroke. Jordan’s replacement Ethan Walker scored an absolutely phenomenal equaliser after the men in the red strip had attacked in a seemingly unstoppable wave in the eighty-first minute. The way he buried a pass from Love past a clearly excellent goalkeeper totally unable to stop it made you wonder if the Blackburn Rovers loanee might actually start next time out.

After this, there was only one team going to win – but the game ended as a stalemate.

The excellent draw with ten men saw Morecambe go up two places to fourteenth place in League Two. Swindon, meanwhile, dropped two places to fifth.

I don’t think anyone could blame Michael Flynn this time for being in charge of a team which saw a third red card in a row in scheduled league games against Morecambe. So would King Derek?

Of course he wouldn’t. Instead, he blamed the Referee for today’s result.

“We should have scored three or four in that first half. Second half, the Referee made an error. I’m disappointed for him – he’s a young official. It’s only his sixth game in League Two today and he’s just made a huge error. It’s outside the box. He doesn’t get help from his linesman. He doesn’t get help from his Fourth Official.  He’ll probably get marked down today for that. He has cost us a penalty kick and a goal in a game where we were well on top. Mike Jones – the Referees’ Supervisor; the man in charge – was here again today.  He’ll probably have to sit down with his officials and look at it; get them back to the drawing board and teach them the laws of the game. You can’t get these major decisions wrong. It’s another one they have got hugely wrong for us today.”

But – more alarmingly for anyone with half a brain cell who has even a slight idea of what pressure the best Manager Morecambe Football Club has ever had is under is the fact that he was clearly furiously angry once more about things that have happened off the field this season. He complained:

“We are up for sale. We’ve got no money. Days in and days out, we don’t have a clue what’s going on behind the scenes (Fans don’t know) what I’ve had to put up with; what the football club has to put up with on a daily basis. They’ve got the cheapest season tickets in the land The problems we have here – and they are huge – need to be sorted out as soon as possible.  We’ve got a really good team here. We could have stayed in League One with a wee bit of forthrightness and togetherness off the field. We would have stayed in League One if we’d got a wee helping hand. We have the bottom budget in the league.  The players keep me going – they are the only people who keep me going at this football club; the only people – nobody else does.”

The last sentence should worry all true Morecambe fans. I know better than most that many of us are in denial about lots of issues which threaten the very existence of our football club and get furiously angry with anyone who has the temerity to even mention these things. They clearly would prefer to tell themselves that everything is absolutely hunky-dory in the Morecambe Garden.

But where will we all be without Derek Adams if he finally tires of the invidious position he has been in for most of the time he has taken-on the arguably poisoned chalice of being in charge of Morecambe FC?

Morecambe: 1 Stuart Moore; 2 Donald Love; 4 Jacob Bedeau; 6 Yann Songo’o (R); 7 Tom Bloxham (17 Cammy Smith 75’); 8 Eli King; 10 JJ McKiernan; 12 Joel Senior (3 David Tutonda 75’); 14 Jordan Slew (19 Ethan Walker 75’); 18 Jake Taylor (16 Jacob Davenport 75’); 22 James Connolly (Y) (5 Farrend Rawson 75’).

Substitutes not used: 21 Adam Smith; 15 Chris Stokes.

Swindon Town: 1 Murphy Mahoney; 2 Remeao Hutton; 5 Frazer Blake-Tracy; 6 George McEachran (16 Jake Cain 94’); 7 Jake Young (11 Rushian Hepburn-Murphy 63’); 8 Saidou Khan (Y); 10 Daniel Kemp (Y); 12 Tom Brewitt; 19 Tariq Uwakwe (28 Tyrese Shade 63’); 22 Udoka Godwin–Malife; 32 Charlie Austin.

Substitutes not used: 44 Lewis Ward; 14 Brooklyn Genesini; 23 Liam Kinsella; 31 Harrison Minturn.

Ref: Scott Tallis.

Att: 3,737 (over 200 from Swindon).