LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 16th DECEMBER 2023.

Red Sky at Night: Morecambe’s Delight.

We start this report with the very welcome news that a resolution has been found as far an un-named man who was charged with a racially-aggravated offence during the Barrow game at Holker Street on Halloween is concerned. Our local independent radio station tells us that the controversy caused has been settled by the issuing of something called a Community Resolution:

“In a statement to Beyond Radio, a spokesperson for Cumbria Police said:

’’The matter has been dealt with like this as it was deemed a proportionate response once all factors have been weighed up. Community Resolutions are another way of dealing with matters as an alternative to a charge, in the same way as cautions may be used as an alternative also – or you may receive a speeding fine instead of a court appearance, as it was more proportionate to deal with matters in this way.’’

Community Resolutions do not constitute a criminal record but can be taken into consideration in future conduct.”

It was also announced by the club this week that Ged Brannan would be alone on the Bench at Doncaster as long-term assistant John McMahon would be recovering from surgery undergone earlier in the week. The man who doesn’t seem to possess a pair of long trousers will be recuperating for the next little while. Manager Ged said John would be badly missed but he expected long-term Goalkeeping Coach Barry Roche to step into the breach for the month that his assistant Manager expected to be incapacitated. Good luck to them both.

Also good luck to Grant Bruce – the supporter I mentioned on these pages who was taken away on a stretcher during the storm-hit Stockport game last Saturday having suffered a seizure on the Berlin Wall. Grant is epileptic and we must all hope that he receives the care he needs to stop such a profoundly upsetting thing for himself, his loved ones and everyone else involved from ever happening again. Let’s hope he will be back at the Maz sooner rather than later.

Back to the football now. According to the Doncaster Rovers’ website, Morecambe have:

“Met Rovers 12 times during our exile from the Football League between 1998 and 2003. The first meeting came at Morecambe’s Christie Park on September 22, 1998. Rovers won 2-1 with goals from Glenn Kirkwood and Mark Hume. The teams met at Belle Vue in January 1999 and Rovers again won 2-1 with Dave Penney scoring both goals. Rovers also beat Morecambe 2-1 away and 1-0 at home in the Conference League cup semi-final, but thereafter the Lancastrians had the edge, limiting Rovers to one win from the next eight meetings. The clubs first met in the Football League on September 10, 2016 with Rovers winning 5-1 at the Globe Arena in what was James Coppinger’s 500th game for the club. Overall, from 16 meetings, Rovers have won seven times to Morecambe’s six.”

Four of these meetings were EFL games. The Shrimps have lost two and only been victorious in one of these encounters (which was last year in January, when they came from 0-3 down at half time to win by the odd goal in seven in League One’s tremendous north Lancashire clash). So today, they crossed the Pennines to God’s Own Country to see if they could improve on this record at the Keepmoat Stadium against a team which was relegated in a lower position along with the Shrimps at the end of last season’s campaign.

Doncaster have had a very chequered record in recent years. During 2002, they were a Football Conference club after decades of enjoying the luxury of being a part of the Closed Shop which was the Football League for much of that time. Just six years later, though, they were promoted to the Championship. Ten years ago, having been relegated back to League One, they won the title and found themselves again in the second highest tier of the English football pyramid. But the last decade has been a story of gradual decline and they started today’s game in seventeenth position in League Two; five places lower and four points worse off than their visitors, who have played one game fewer. Their current record is three games lost; two won and a single draw in their last six matches. This draw occurred in the pouring rain at Accrington last Saturday as neither side could muster a goal. Critically though, the single point they earned in east Lancashire a week ago was the first one the club sometimes known as `the Vikings’ have collected away from home all season.

Morecambe, on the other hand, have collected nine points from their away games so far this season: three wins. Add to this two recent FC Cup away victories against League One opponents during the last few weeks and there was some cause for optimism that Ged Brannan’s men would take home at least a single point this afternoon.

This is what Ged said prior to the match:

“We’ve got a game in hand on the league leaders which gets us a couple of points off the Play-Offs. We could go there Saturday and get a win easily; yeah; definitely! We believe in ourselves. We know they’re a good team but we think we can go there and play the way we can: pass the ball; move it about; we could get something out of the game.”

Ged Brannan’s Opposite Number Grant McCann had the following thoughts about the clash at the Keepmoat:

“We know that we’re not far away from being a really good team in this division. I think we are a good team but I mean a team that can challenge at the top end of the division. We may be a couple of players coming back from injury away from that or we may be two or three bodies coming in in January away from that. But all the time we’re looking to progress, not stand still. Looking to get better and hopefully we can be really competitive come the second half of the season. We want to be more consistent. I know we can beat anyone in this division but I also know we can be beaten by anyone in this division if we’re not at it.”

As far as Morecambe  specifically are concerned, he added:

“They’ve got a centre forward that can score goals at any given moment and who is really strong. They drew with Stockport at home in their last game and, watching the game back, they did well to get the point. Like any game in this division, they’ll all tough and we don’t approach it any differently. Over recent weeks we’ve been really good at home but that doesn’t mean we just have to roll up and beat Morecambe. We’ll have to work very hard and make sure we get our plan right to get the win.”

History of a sort was made as the game started today as Kirsty Dowle took charge of an EFL match for the very first time. Woman referees are gradually making inroads at the top of professional male football and all I can say is that Kirsty can hardly be any worse than some of the male incompetents she will have to compete with in her forthcoming career. Good luck to her. (On today’s showing, however, she isn’t going to need any: she was terrific.)

In contrast to north Lancashire – where it was dull and misty – the weather was unseasonably sunny and quite warm (about 12˚C) in West Yorkshire as the Ref blew her whistle to start the game. My correspondent Neil has asked me to add that Donny emerged from the tunnel to the strains of “No Nay Never” (Why? The words include “I’ve been a wild Rover for many a year”) sung by the recently late Shane McGowan.

Things started fairly evenly with the visitors possibly shading the possession. They won the first corner of the match after seven minutes. Adam Mayor took it; the ball was cleared but David Tutonda got on the end of the loose ball before anyone else. He cleverly played it to Eli King, who walloped a daisy-cutter through a crowd of players past a probably unsighted Louis Jones in the home goal from the edge of the penalty area straight into the net. Nil-one to the Shrimps; eight minutes gone.

If this early reverse might have been expected to wake Donny up, they showed no sign of it. In front of a noticeably quiet Keepmoat crowd, Morecambe continued to look the more assured of the two teams and Adam Smith in the away goal had virtually nothing to do for the first twenty minutes and longer. However, Rovers won their first corner with exactly twenty minutes on the clock and Smith pulled-off a tremendous stop from Owen Bailey from point-blank range. As the ball was scrambled away, Mo Faal had an effort blocked almost on the Morecambe goal-line by away Skipper Jacob Bedeau but then wasted a golden opportunity to equalise by wildly blasting the rebound into Row Z of the stand behind the goal when it seemed easier to bulge the net only ten yards away from him.

Doncaster forced another corner in the twenty-fifth minute. They played it short before an eventual cross was easily caught by Smith, who immediately set-up his team for a quick counter-attack. Mayor hit a wild effort high over Jones’ crossbar after 26 minutes. Then Kyle Hurst forced a relatively routine save from Smith at the second attempt following a snap-shot in the 29^th minute. Despite James Connolly brilliantly marking old stager Joe Ironside out of the game, the hosts started having more of the play at this point. But they were rocked back on their heels when Michael Mellon beat their off-side trap in the thirty-fourth minute; forced an excellent save from the home custodian but managed to get back on the ball and wriggle his way into another shooting position. His second effort was blacked by Donny Captain Tom Anderson but the ball fell to the young Morecambe striker again and this time – although Jones got his hand to it once more – the ball eluded his grasp and trickled over the line via the post to put the Shrimps two goals to the good.

The home crowd grew restless after this and made their displeasure loudly known as their players passed the ball around at the back. To their dismay, the next chance also came Morecambe’s way. Tom Bloxham forced a good save from Jones with 44 minutes on the clock. From the resulting corner, JJ McKiernan headed King’s dipping dead-ball kick just wide of the target. Straight after this, a shot from Joel Senior was pushed away for another corner which King this time over-hit into touch beyond everyone in the middle. The half ended with Morecambe still on the front foot as they won yet another corner kick in injury time.

The visitors thus went back to the Dressing Rooms in a relatively comfortable position as half-hearted boos rang out against the hosts from the home terraces. The Shrimps had played the better football; kept their shape well throughout and played brilliantly on the break. For Ged Brannan it was: So far – So good…

Doncaster kicked-off in the second half under a fantastic red-streaked sky as the sun slipped below the horizon to the west.

Thanks for the tremendous photograph to Neil Palmer.

But any thoughts of a new dawn for the home team were extinguished in the fifty-first minute. Morecambe had again been asking all the questions before a corner was turned back across the away goal-mouth from the Shrimps’ left by Mayor only for Bedeau to react quickest and turn the ball home for his first ever goal for the Lancashire team. Almost immediately, Bloxham was set-up by Mellon to force another good save from the home custodian.

Grant McCann responded by making an immediate quadruple substitution for the hosts. At last, Donny actually threatened the Morecambe goal with 63 minutes played. As Smith left his ground to narrow the angle, sub Jack Goodman latched-on to a good through-ball but dragged his shot wide when he might have done better when unmarked in the middle of the pitch.

As the game grew ever older, Morecambe were not really seriously tested by the re-jinked Rovers side. Instead, they broke away again with ten minutes left to play and David Tutonda also opened his account for the Shrimps with a fantastic shot from distance which beat Jones all ends up as it hit the underside of his bar and went in. And that was basically that as far as Doncaster and any belated fightback was concerned . Morecambe still enjoyed the bulk of the possession and ended the match on the offensive yet again. During the seventh minute of stoppage time, Michael Mellon made it five goals to the visitors when he reacted first to another corner kick from King and scored his second of the afternoon.

Wow; just wow!!!

This was a fantastic win for Morecambe today. First EFL goals for Eli King, Jacob Bedeau and David Tutonda – and the very first away league points for new boss Ged Brannan. Well done that man. The victory saw his team go up to eighth place in League Two – just one point and one place short of Wimbledon in the lowest Play-Off place and with a game in hand over them. Donny, meanwhile, slipped to nineteenth position.

This was what Ged Brannan had to say at the end of the game:

“Fantastic. I was just made up with the way the lads played. I was really delighted we kept a clean sheet in the end. The passing today was unbelievable. Everyone was comfortable on the ball – all wanted it; all showing through angles to get the ball. It was an all-round exceptional performance. It’s such a relief to get a first league win. The whole back four; the goalkeeper: there weren’t a bad player on the pitch today for us. So hopefully, there will be more to come.“

Doncaster Rovers: 12 Louis Jones; 4 Tom Anderson (C); 5 Joseph Olewu; 7 Luke Molyneux (2 Jamie Sterry (Y) 56’); 14 Harrison Biggins (10 Tommy Rowe 56’); 16 Tom Nixon; 17 Owen Bailey; 20 Joe Ironside; 21 Kyle Hurst (30 Tavonga Kuleya 56’); 23 Jack Senior; 36 Mo Faal (35 Jack Goodman 56’).

Substitutes not used:  1 Ian Lawlor;  29 Jack Degruchy; 38 Will Flint.

Morecambe: 21 Adam Smith; 3 David Tutonda (Y) (23 Max Melbourne 82’); 4 Jacob Bedeau (C); 6 Yann Songo’o; 7 Tom Bloxham (14 Jordan Slew 68’); 8 Eli King; 9 Michael Mellon; 10 JJ McKiernan (18 Jake Taylor 58’); 11 Adam Mayor (Y); 12 Joel Senior; 22 James Connolly (Y).

Substitutes not used: 26 George Pedley; 15 Chris Stokes; 16 Jacob Davenport; 17 Cammy Smith; 19 Ethan Walker.

Ref: Kirsty Dowle.

Att: 6,260 (about 200 from Morecambe.)