LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 14th SEPTEMBER 2024.

Can Referees BE Retrained – in Siberia, for instance?

Pointless Morecambe welcomed Essex rivals Colchester United to the Lancashire coast today hoping for a change in their poor fortunes so far this season. Their unenviable record is five games played; five games lost; five goals conceded and not even a single strike in the `goals for’ column. Morecambe Manager Derek Adams keeps bemoaning his team’s lack of luck; dodgy refereeing decisions and two key appalling errors by his own goalkeeper to explain his team’s predicament at the moment. He’s right: the FA Referee’s panel have already apologised to the club for two bad decisions which denied the Shrimps penalties in their games at Walsall and at home against Gillingham. To add insult to injury, the very soft award which handed the game on a plate to Crewe last Saturday is another official aberration to add to this appalling list: three errors in five games that have cost Derek and his men three precious points. Mr Adams ended his post-match interview at Gresty Road by saying:

“We just need a break. I keep on saying it. We’re not getting it. Eventually we will and we’ll probably give a team a good roasting.”

Could that be today?

United arrived in eighteenth place in League Two having won one and drawn two of their league matches so far. In the past, the U’s have met the Shrimps twelve times and lost half of these games, winning four. But Danny Cowley’s side were victorious at this venue last season when they scored the only game of the contest to put a severe dent in Ged Brannan’s hopes of winning a Play-Off spot for his Morecambe side. Earlier though, King Derek had been in charge as the Shrimps won in Essex for the third time in a row.

Mr Cowley expressed his thoughts about the task confronting his men today in these terms:

“It’s a pretty Northern league. I think last year, we had the most travelling in the division and I think it will be the same this year. It took us eight hours to get to Accrington. We’re hoping for a much smoother trip this time around. We expect to be a winning team. We are really focused on what will be a really tough game come Saturday at Morecambe. They’ve lost five games one-nil. The league is so competitive: it’s a brilliant league. There’s a fantastic stat actually: that Morecambe are bottom having conceded five goals; Doncaster are top of League Two and they’ve conceded six goals. I think that shows how competitive the division is. I think that’s why people are so entertained by the league. Sometimes in the Premier League, you can almost predict the results before they happen. But with League Two (and) League One as well, you can’t tell which way these games are going to go because the difference between teams is so fine. We’ve watched all their games. They’ve been very, very unlucky not to take any points. I think they’ve been the better team in – certainly – three of the games that I’ve watched. Derek Adams is a very successful Manager. He knows what this division needs. We know it will be a tough game on Saturday so we have to put our energy into our process.”

Derek said the following:

“If you look at it, it’s been really harsh how we’ve been treated this season.  The way that we’ve played; the way that we have opened-up the opposition; the chances we have created… I think that a number of times already this season, decisions from the referees haven’t gone our way. On Saturday, we’re now told by a senior official that the penalty shouldn’t have been given. These are all big talking points in the game. We haven’t been particularly good enough in that final third to get the ball in the back of the net. We just have to be more clinical. We’ve created the chances; we‘ve has better opportunities than the opposition; we just haven’t been clinical enough in that final third.“

As far as today’s opponents are concerned, he added:

“They’re a team that changed formation from last year. Not only that, they’ve changed from the start of the season as well. They’ve got good experience; a bit of youth in the side. We’ve got to take the game to Colchester on Saturday. We’ll have to get at them and try and cause them problems.”

They would have to do this without several key players. In addition to George Ray’s long-term recovery from a fracture, Derek added that Gwion Edwards, Tom White and Hallam Hope were all doubtful because of injury.

The game started in sunshine with clouds flitting across the sky throughout, the occasional hint of rain and with a very strong breeze blowing from the away end of the ground.

This was a game of three parts. From kick-off to the forty-second minute, the home team were well in charge; went ahead and looked a good bet for a win. Then hopeless and inconsistent referee Geoff Eltringham took it into his head to send-off Luke Hendrie. From then until an hour had been played, Colchester were the better team, constantly stretching the home side as they repeatedly exploited their one man advantage. They went from one-nil down to one-three up and looked dead certs for the three points. But after an hour, the game was to change again as six foot seven Marcus Dackers made his first appearance in front of his new home fans. With the United defenders clearly in awe of him and failing to either grapple or foul him into submission, he wreaked havoc among them and changed the atmosphere in the ground both on and off the pitch. Morecambe wrestled back the initiative and scored two goals to deservedly take a point out of a game which was always in danger of being ruined by a man with a whistle who simply didn’t know what he was doing.

So let’s put some flesh on these bare bones. Morecambe started brightly. Callum Jones hit a rocket of a shot from distance after seven minutes which just missed the target but then – against the run of play and the Shrimps’ run of luck this season – got away with murder for once when an under-pressure Jamie Stott fell on the ball in his own penalty area and clearly handled it as he managed to free it from under him. The blindsided Colchester players didn’t appeal for it but I assume that it was seen by their bench given what was to happen later on. A minute later, the impressive Jack Payne played-in Owura Edwards who forced a superb save from Stuart Moore – one of several the goalkeeper produced this afternoon. Off the pitch, the Colchester bench were clearly having words with Derek Adams and the Morecambe Manager was booked by the little fellow in black in the middle after 22 minutes. Two minutes later, the King was sent to the stands. We know that Derek doesn’t swear so it was difficult to imagine exactly what he had been dismissed for at the time – but off he went. The Referee’s erratic performance continued when he booked the lively Lee Angol for infringing on a free-kick after just over a half an hour. Fair enough. But this was a tactic that the visitors regularly employed from the moment they equalised until Morecambe pulled the game out of the fire. So why didn’t Referee Eltringham book them as well? Samson Tovide made a ridiculous dive in the hope of gaining a free-kick early in the first half. He should have been booked. Then – right at the end of the half, he booted the ball almost out of the ground when the Ref had stopped play some time beforehand. Strictly speaking, this also deserved a booking – so he should have been sent off too. But it didn’t work like that today: he wasn’t even booked for either infringement. Mr Eltringham wrote Luke Hendrie’s name in his little black book after a routine foul on Edwards with thirty-seven minutes played. It was a harsh decision and again totally out of kilter with the punishment the Ref had meted-out so far to other offenders on both sides. But five minutes later, Luke was sent-off. This time, his foul on Edwards deserved a yellow but to be sent-off for what he had done earlier is simply incomprehensible.

Earlier, Jamie Stott had taken the ball into the United half on the Morecambe left flank with eighteen minutes on the clock. He found Man of the Match Callum Jones in the centre of the park who looked-up and sent a sublime pass to Ben Tollitt on the left edge of the U’s penalty area. Ben feigned to go left, turned right instead and placed a perfect shot from the centre of the pitch low to despairing goalkeeper Matthew Ryan Macey’s left into the bottom corner of his net. It was a brilliant move capped with a superlative finish for Morecambe’s first goal of the campaign.

The dismissal, however, totally changed the game. Teddy Bishop took the resulting free-kick and plonked the ball from the Colchester left right on Edwards’ head at the far post, who equalised with a simple header.

The visitors took the lead within four minutes of the restart. And who scored it? – yes, it just had to be Samson Tovide, didn’t it? Four minutes later, as Colchester threatened to run riot, Moore again did brilliantly to deny Payne. He then caught Bishop’s strike after 56 minutes and crowned this with a tremendous further block from Iandolo’s fierce shot from the edge of the box. But he was helpless when – following a Shrimps’ attack and a brilliant block by Ben Goodliffe of a Tollitt shot, United broke at speed and covered the length of the pitch in a split second before Lyle Taylor smashed the ball past him.

As the fans from Essex noisily celebrated what looked like a winning position and the home crowd had fallen silent, Marcus Dackers entered the fray. As already mentioned, he simply shrugged-off much smaller defenders who constantly hung onto his shirt or tried to foul him as the incompetent in the middle did nothing whatsoever to stop them. But the panic he created in the away defence led to Alex Woodyard bundling-over substitute Kayden Harrack in the penalty area after 82 minutes. Callum Jones coolly scored from the spot. But Colchester could – and should – have gone further ahead almost immediately afterwards. Substitute Anthony Scully hit the crossbar with an excellent shot and Harry Anderson produced the miss of the century by failing to convert the rebound from point-blank range: it was harder to actually miss but he managed to do so. United were to regret this when Morecambe equalised in the 88^th minute as Dackers took a shot which was deflected by a defender to spin over a completely stranded Macey and send the ground into raptures.

The draw saw Colchester fall to seventeenth in the League Two table tonight. Morecambe remain bottom but just a single point below Accrington and two adrift of Carlisle in twenty-second place.

King Derek was not able to speak to the media following his dismissal so Assistant Manager Danny Grainger had to face them after the game. He explained that Derek had been yellow-carded for having the temerity to tell the Fourth Official – correctly – that he wasn’t allowed to return the ball to the players when it goes dead. He then objected when the Colchester bench said something similar to the Fourth Official but nothing happened to them. And off he went…

Danny also said about the result:

“It’s no more than the boys deserve. I thought we well on top in the game. I thought we were the better team until the sending-off. It’s harsh in my eyes. Some of the decisions today – I’m not going to go into it because I don’t want to get in trouble – some of the decisions were absolutely bamboozling at times. The consistency is what we ask for and I thought there was a lack of it today but I don’t want to go too far into it because we‘ll end up in trouble. Today, I thought the boys were absolute different class. They got what they deserved.”

Morecambe: 25 Stuart Moore; 2 Luke Hendrie (Y+Y=R); 3 Adam Lewis (23 David Tutonda 80’); 6 Jamie Stott; 8 Harvey Macadam(22 Ross Millen 45’); 10 Lee Angol (Y) (19 Marcus Dackers 60’); 14 Rhys Williams; 17 Paul Lewis; 18 Ben Tollitt (11 Jordan Slew 70’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (12 Kayden Harrack 80’); 28 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 1 Harry Burgoyne.

Colchester United: 1 Matthew Ryan Macey; 3 Ellis Iandolo; 5 Ben Goodliffe (6 Tom Flanaghan 76’); 7 Harry Anderson; 8 Edward Bishop (16 Arthur Read 70’); 9 Samson Tovide; 10 Jack Payne; 18 Mandela Egbo (Y); 21 Owura Edwards (11 John-Kymani Gordon 87’); 30 Alex Woodyard; 33 Lyle Taylor (17 Anthony Scully 68’).

Subs not used:  12 Tom Smith; 14 Tom Hopper; 19 Rob Hunt.

Ref: Gregory Read.

Att: 2,754 (200 plus from Colchester.)