LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 24th AUGUST 2024.

Stu-pid mistake hands Donny the points.

Morecambe travelled over the Pennines today for the second time this month, on this occasion to visit the Keepmoat Stadium in South Yorkshire. On the coach with the rest of the Shrimps’ players was Liverpool’s Rhys Williams, who signed on-loan until January earlier this week. The 23-year-old defender has played twenty times in Liverpool’s first team but has been troubled by injuries in recent times. He would be hoping to help Morecambe to win their first points of the season following two defeats so far – one at home; one away – and both by the only goal of the respective matches. They started the game against Doncaster in twenty-second position in League Two.

Today’s hosts, by contrast, have won one and lost one of their League Two matches so far and started this afternoon’s game in tenth position in the table. Historically, Morecambe have won three and lost…

Sorry. I got a note from my Editor this week telling me to adapt the sort of stuff you are reading now to the modern age.

“The average reader has the concentration span of a goldfish” she told me. “Anything more complicated than how many minutes a ready-cooked meal needs in the microwave will simply be ignored. You need to write less intellectually (sic.) challenging copy. More graphics. Fewer words. Capiche?”

Well – not really. But I got a better idea of how to express an idea more simply than I can with mere words when I looked at the BBC website on Friday and found this:

As you can see, it shows a circle cleverly divided into a black arc and a yellow one of equal lengths starting at the top and a smaller grey one at the bottom joining everything together. The yellow and white arcs are ascribed values:  3 each. The white arc is worth 2. Total? 8. This means that Doncaster and Morecambe have won three games each of their previous eight encounters and drawn two.

Clear enough?

Shall we leave it at that, then?

Unfortunately, this representation in an easily understood form is not only wrong but also contradicts what the website then went on to say. Which was – going back to where we started – that, historically, Morecambe have won three and lost two of the six games the two clubs have played so far. Capiche?

Anyway, last season, they won 0-5 at the Keepmoat but lost the return fixture 0-3 as Donny put together a phenomenal string of wins right at the end of the campaign. As part of his pre-match interview, Doncaster Manager Grant McCann was asked to reflect on the five-nil reverse and this was his slightly irked reply:

“Look, it’s long, long ago. I’ve not really thought about it until you mentioned it. I guess that’s your job to bring that up.”

Morecambe Manager Derek Adams, on the other hand, had this to say about today’s opponents:

“Last season, they finished really strongly, got into the play-offs and just came up short in the end. They have got the financial clout – if you look at their average gates compared to our average gates, there’s thousands apart.”

The King explained that he had signed Rhys Williams as cover for injured George Ray, who faces months of recovery and recuperation following a fracture picked-up against Walsall. Derek was also quick to assure doubters that Charlie Brown is still very much in his thoughts but would not even travel today because of a back injury. For reasons I don’t understand, Academy goalkeeper Alfie Scales was also named in the squad instead of Harry Burgoyne.

Before considering the challenge which Morecambe would mean for his team, Mr McCann first looked back at his side’s defeat at Newport last Saturday, where they lost 3-1 having initially taken the lead:

“It wasn’t very good from us in the second half. I’ve got to be honest. We didn’t start well. We didn’t quite gel. We’re two games in. We want to do everything we possibly can to respond from the game on Saturday. And we will. Hopefully it will put us in good stead for Saturday. We’re focused on trying to win the game on Saturday. That’s it really. We’ve had Morecambe watched a couple of times – we know exactly what to expect. Derek’s an experienced Manager. He’s been there and done it with numerous clubs. They’ve gradually looked better in the three games that they’ve played. They’ve got some good players in their squad; they’ve got a good Manager. We know it’s going to be a tough game. But we are firmly focused on what we can do and see if we can take the three points.”

It was sunny, dry and quite warm out of the shadows as the match kicked-off in South Yorkshire. The home team enjoyed most of the play in the opening few minutes without creating any chances. With about ten minutes played, Gwion Edwards got in an excellent cross for the visitors which Jordan Slew might have got on the end of if he had not been impeded by a home defender. Hallam Hope also might have been in for a shot on goal after fourteen minutes if he had been quicker to latch onto a forward pass after about a quarter of an hour. But the best chance of the match so far arrived with eighteen minutes on the clock when the Championship’s all-time top scorer Billy Sharp somehow managed to miss a cast-iron chance to net his 131^st goal when presented with the ball by Jamie Sterry on the Doncaster right with the target right in front of him. Harry Clifton hit the bar with a follow-up shot before the ball was cleared. But the home team didn’t have long to wait to go ahead. Stuart Moore took a heavy touch in his own area a couple of minutes later and allowed Clifton to nip ahead of him and blast the ball into the unguarded back of the net as Stu was powerless to do anything further about it. It was yet another sloppy and needless goal to concede. Donny then came close again with 23 minutes played as Jordan Gibson lobbed a cheeky chip past our goalkeeper only to see the ball hit the crossbar with Stuart stranded before Jamie Stott was able to boot it away from the danger zone. It continued to be virtually one-way traffic until the 38^th minute when Edwards got away from the Rovers defence only to be stopped in his tracks by a blatant shirt-pull from Brandon Fleming. The Donny defender should have been sent-off for denying Gwion a goal-scoring opportunity as he was within a few yards of the target with no covering players to stop him. Referee Scott Tallis inexplicably only booked Fleming, though. (Later – to add insult to injury, the defender was named as Rovers’ Official Man of the Match.) Anyway, from the resultant free-kick, Callum Jones forced a tremendous save from Chelsea loanee Teddy Sharman–Lowe in the home goal. And that was basically the end of the action in the first half.

So Morecambe trailed back to the Dressing Rooms in a familiar position in the league so far this season: one-nil down yet again. Today, though, they had looked a little more threatening occasionally as they sought to score their first goal of the season.

The Shrimps started the second half having clearly been told by King Derek to press higher up the field and they did this quite effectively to start off with. But the home team were still finding their way into the danger area on a regular basis early on. Morecambe were saved by the frame of the goal again when Clifton’s shot after 56 minutes hit the post. Three minutes earlier, Patrick Kelly had forced a good save from Moore after cleverly making space for himself as the away defence stood off him. David Tutonda then slung over a corner in the sixty-third minute which Sharman-Lowe had real difficulty clearing from under his own bar. Morecambe had more of the game as it grew older and the home goalkeeper struggled to clear another corner after seventy minutes. Slewy then showed an uncharacteristic fit of bad temper in the 73^rd minute and was perhaps lucky to be only shown a yellow card after laying his hands on a Doncaster man after being fouled by him. But he was given the Captain’s armband despite this when Yann Songo’o was substituted with about a quarter of an hour left. Jamie Stott then saved another certain goal with a phenomenal clearance off the line in the 76^th minute. At the other end, substitute Adam Lewis spurned a golden opportunity to actually score for Morecambe with just four minutes left. But – yet again so far this season – the home goalkeeper was not forced into a save as Adam contrived to miss the target altogether. So the game ended as all the other league matches have done so far: in a one-nil defeat for the Shrimps. Donny are a good side but they far from outclassed Derek Adams’ men this afternoon. However, the lack of scoring opportunities for the visitors and the continued poor showing of players such as Hallam Hope and Lee Angol really do ring alarm bells for a club which is now not only in the League Two relegation zone but actually right at the bottom of the entire EFL. This is what Derek made of it all afterwards:

“I was delighted with the performance today. We obviously limited Doncaster to one shot on target today. We had more shots on target than they did. Could we have been better in the final third? – at times, yes we could have. The major talking-point was the mistake that we made. You can’t afford to make that big an error in this league – and against a team at home as well. We grew into the game. In the second half, we were the better side. We were probably unfortunate not to come away with a draw in the end. We do believe that a major decision in the game went against us. The Referee – and the officials – should have noticed that Gwion Edwards had taken his man on; was taken-out and he was denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. He was closing-in in the eighteen-yard box; he was going towards goal – not away from the goal that the Referee had said. If he doesn’t know the difference between `to-wards’ the goal and `away’ from the goal, then that has to be picked-up. These major decisions haven’t gone our way again today – and sometimes, that can be really disappointing but they‘ve got to get them right. Overall, I’m really happy with the progress we are making. It’s a new team but we are getting better week-on-week. The players are getting to know each other – they are working ever so hard. The time will come when we are going to get the victories and move up the league table. I know we have been defeated one-nil but performance-wise, to see the understanding that the players have – in and out of possession – is very good. We’re slowly getting there. From my point of view, over the next number of weeks, we will keep on improving.”

I’m sure they will. Off the field, it’s not all been bad news this week for a welcome change. I would like to add my own congratulations to the six new members of the Shrimps Trust executive, who were elected this week. They are Tarnia Elsworth; Pat Stoyles; Michael `Hopey’ Hope; Ben Kassar; Joe Kennedy and Paul Crabtree. New blood in what was a totally moribund organisation this time last year was desperately needed then and although things have improved markedly since, I’ve no doubt that all of these people will do an excellent job for members and non-members alike, which is why I personally voted for every one of them.

Doncaster Rovers: 19 Teddy Sharman–Lowe; 2 Jamie Sterry; 4 Tom Anderson; 5 Joseph Olowu; 7 Luke Molyneux (18 Ephraim Yeboah 74’); 11 Jordan Gibson (21 Kyle Hurst 62’); 14 Billy Sharp (20 Joe Ironside 62’); 15 Harry Clifton (Y); 17 Owen Bailey (C); 22 Patrick Kelly (10 Joe Sbarra 74’); 27 Brandon Fleming (Y).

Subs not used: 1 Ian Lawlor; 8 George Broadbent; 25 Jay McGrath.

Morecambe: 25 Stuart Moore; 2 Luke Hendrie (Y); 6 Jamie Stott; 7 Gwion Edwards (18 Ben Tollitt 79’); 8 Harvey Macadam; 9 Hallam Hope (10 Lee Angol 69’); 11 Jordan Slew (Y); 14 Rhys Williams; 23 David Tutonda (Y) (3 Adam Lewis 79’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (Y) (4 Tom White 79’); 29 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 21 Alfie Scales; 5 Max Taylor; 22 Ross Millen.

Ref: Scott Tallis.

Att: 6,823 (160 from Morecambe.)