LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 12th OCTOBER 2024.

Derek Adams – King of Morecambe Bay.

Morecambe faced their second local derby in a row when they headed north and crossed the Bay to face high-flying Barrow at Holker Street this afternoon. The Bluebirds started today’s game in third place in League Two; a position that would be good enough to get them League One status if the season was to finish this morning. Barrer had won three and lost two of their last six league games and went into this one on the back of a 2-1 win at home against Cheltenham last Saturday.

Morecambe, by contrast, would find themselves in the National League if the season ended today. After ten games so far, they have only four points and no wins. They started the game this afternoon rooted to the bottom of League Two, three points adrift of safety. This is not an insurmountable deficit and until last Saturday, most Shrimps’ fans had good reason to believe that they could – and probably would – make it up sooner or later. They had played well in nearly all the games they had featured in up until that point and even when this wasn’t the case – notably, with a weak first half performance at Fleetwood – they compensated for it with the sort of storming display they put on at Highbury in the second half to pull themselves back into a match they were losing badly at half time. But then, along came arch Nemesis Accrington Stanley…

Last Saturday at the Crown Ground, Morecambe were an absolute shambles and – with a few notable exceptions – an actual disgrace to the shirt. Manager Derek Adams knows better than most how fine a line it is to tread between calling your players out for unacceptable performances and alienating them all by publicly slagging them off. But even he was forced to say about his own men after the match:

“We can’t leave it to the dying stage of the game to mount an effort. They need to understand that. They need to understand what it is to be a professional football player. The players have to take responsibility. Today, we weren’t at it. I can’t accept that. Today, I can’t back them with a performance like that.”

Since then, the team have been in for extra training and have also faced Nottingham Forest Academy in the EFL Trophy Northern Group C last Tuesday at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium. On Tuesday night, they came from behind twice at home to finally beat the Forest youngsters 4-2 on a wet evening by the side of Morecambe Bay.

Initially, Morecambe looked like carthorses in comparison to the thoroughbreds of Forest. The Premiership club’s young players passed and moved quickly, keeping the ball on the ground and playing it through gaps for their team-mates to run on to – the beautiful game indeed. Shrimps’ Goalkeeper Harry Burgoyne made one outstanding save and a couple of good ones before he was finally beaten by a goal which seemed inevitable at the time: twenty-two minutes in. But Morecambe held on and managed to equalise with a deflected shot from Ben Tollitt. Nottingham went ahead again straight after the break but the Shrimps again hung in there. King Derek shook things up and I think his key change was to bring-on Yann Songo’o as Skipper to direct operations. Hallam Hope came close again with a clever header which hit the post on its way into touch and then it was all-square again as Charlie Brown headed home at the far past from a perfect left-wing cross by Adam Lewis. Then Morecambe went in front with a well-worked move which was finished off by Hope with an excellent, committed finish. Tollitt finally sealed the victory by driving a low shot through an appropriate forest of legs as Nottingham tried to scramble the ball clear following another attack by the men in the red shirts. So in the end, it was a convincing victory which saw Morecambe at the top of the pack later in the evening and already qualified for the next round of the EFL Trophy. The downside, though, was an injury to Jordan Slew which looked like it could be potentially serious after half an hour. Rhys Williams also retired hurt and Charlie Brown then limped from the pitch near the end and he also seemed to be potentially badly injured as well. This is the team Derek Adams put out on the night:

Harry Burgoyne, Luke Hendrie, Adam Lewis, Jamie Stott, Hallam Hope, Jordan Slew (David Tutonda, 38’), Rhys Williams (Yann Songo’o, 58’), Paul Lewis, Ben Tollitt, Charlie Brown (Nathan Mercer, 86’), Callum Jones.

Stuart Moore, Lennon Dobson and Adam Fairclough were unused substitutes.

On the same evening, a strong Barrow line-up were losing at Fleetwood 3-0 in Northern Group D of this competition.

Today, though, Morecambe would need to keep up the momentum they generated in the second half last Tuesday against the Forest youngsters. The Shrimps have played Barrow five times in various competitions since the Bluebirds returned to the EFL in 2020. They have won four and only lost one of these games – appropriately last Halloween at Holker Street when they put in a ghoulish display on a ploughed field of a pitch. The Morecambe team of the time – almost entirely different to the one playing today – again failed to turn up on the night and lost a poor game by the only goal scored during a really dreary ninety minutes.

The only thing certain prior to the contest was that if they were to play like that again today – or as they did against Accrington or at Fleetwood in the first half of that match – they would be in for a hammering this afternoon.

Barrow Head Coach Stephen Clemence told the media the following before the game:

“There will be an atmosphere at the ground. That always comes with a derby day, doesn’t it? But that should drive our players on, too. We know – whether it’s a derby or not – we know that our home patch is a very difficult place for opponents to travel to – even though they’re only come over a short distance. We’re looking forward to the game. We have prepared properly – like we always do. We’ll have our game plan. I’m sure they’ll have theirs. But hopefully, we can come out on top.”

Opposite Number Derek Adams expressed his hopes for this afternoon in these words:

“We go to Barrow on Saturday – a team that have started the season really well. We want to go there and win the match. Every team in this division have their threats. We have played a lot of the teams at the top end of the table this year. We have competed very well against them but we have drawn against the top teams. Now it’s about putting that win together. The atmosphere is always great and the pitch is in fabulous condition. The atmosphere was very good at Accrington last weekend. It will be similar this weekend at Barrow.”

The weather in the Morecambe Bay area was really mixed today. In the morning, most places were sunny but regular downpours punctuated the afternoon. Although most of the game was played in bright sunshine, there was a gale blowing the entire time and a ferocious hail shower snapped at a lot of fans with its icy teeth as they left the ground afterwards.

The wind was clearly a factor as Morecambe chose to play with it behind their backs during the first half in front of the biggest crowd at this venue so far this season. The game was quite scrappy a lot of the time but the hosts kept the ball better than their visitors did almost throughout the game. As Derek Adams has said repeatedly, the Shrimps’ biggest problem is that final pass – and too often, it never arrived at all or went to a player in a white shirt. Having said that, Barrow also regularly found their moves coming to nothing, partially because of Morecambe’s excellent and well-organised defending but also because the strong wind frequently blew their passes too long and regularly out of play altogether.

For the hosts, Rory Feely headed well over from a corner after four minutes.  He then crossed for Katia Kouyaté with almost twenty minutes played, but the latter’s effort was tamely straight into the arms of ex-Barrow goalkeeper Stuart Moore. Ben Jackson took a shot from distance which whistled past the post with 27 minutes played but that was basically the sum total of a team who did not look like they are right at the top end of League Two at any time today.

The first effort Morecambe had on goal was after eleven minutes. Receiving the ball in the centre of the pitch, Ben Tollitt looked up and saw Barrow stopper Wyll Stanway off his line and tried to lob him. It would have been a miraculous strike if it had come off but Ben didn’t get the technique quite right and his effort was relatively easily saved. Paul Lewis was then injured after 18 minutes and had to leave the field. King Derek was shown a yellow card after forty-one minutes and it wasn’t clever of him to sarcastically applaud fussy and officious Referee Ben Speedie after it happened – he could have ended-up in the stands for the second time this season. Then Callum Jones tried his luck just before half time but his shot was a long over the target.

In the second half, with the wind behind them, it could be expected that Barrow would put a lot more pressure on the team at the bottom of the table. But it never actually happened. Instead, Jackson was hurt when he did well to block a shot by the combative Marcus Dackers with 56 minutes on the clock. Then Shrimps’ substitute Hallam Hope hit a shot over the bar with 67 minutes played. The ball went to the other end of the pitch immediately but Moore had an easy save to make from a weak Kian Spence effort. Elliot Newby put a shot way off target shortly afterwards for the Bluebirds and then forced Stu to make another save from a better effort from distance after 75 minutes. But the second half was beginning to follow a pattern – the Bluebirds playing up blind alleys and the Shrimps hitting them on the break. The visitors should have taken the lead after 56 minutes when Tom White played a superb pass through the home defence which found Dackers with a clear run on goal from the Morecambe left. But Stanway raced from his line and managed to save Marcus’ strike with his leg and Barrer breathed a collective sigh of relief. But they didn’t learn their lesson. The Shrimps broke away again in the eighty-second minute and industrious and impressive wing back Adam Lewis sent over a perfect cross from the left and Tollitt was quickest to react and smash it home past a helpless home goalkeeper to give the men in the red shirts the lead. Just a couple of minutes later, Barrow came the closest to scoring that they managed all afternoon when substitute Andrew Dallas’ excellent low shot beat Moore but bounced back from his right-hand post to be cleared to safety by Jamie Stott.

So that was it: Morecambe’s first league win of the season and very well deserved at that. The players and the Managerial staff returned the applause of the away supporters at the end of the match and the relief everybody felt was actually palpable.

Tonight, Derek Adams could rightly claim to be the King of Morecambe Bay. The match was notable for a number of reasons. Most obviously, it was Morecambe’s first three points of the season. It was also their first Clean Sheet for literally ages: 23 games in total. It also took them off the bottom of League Two. With Carlisle being hammered 4-0 by Wimbledon, Morecambe went above them on goal difference into twenty-third place. They are just two points behind Accrington in twenty-second place and three shy of Cheltenham in twenty-first. Most of all, though, this was the sort of reaction by Shrimps’ players to the dismal display in east Lancashire last Saturday which the Manager demanded of them. Today, they didn’t let him or their supporters down.

For Barrow, this loss was their first at home this season. It saw them slip to sixth place in League Two tonight.

The King of Morecambe Bay didn’t speak to the media after the game. Instead, he left this to his Assistant Manager, Danny Grainger. This is what he said:

“There wasn’t a lot in the game but I did feel we probably edged the chances. The boys stuck together. I thought we were well worthy of the three points today. It’s a tough place to come to. I thought we were the better team. I’m well over the moon – for the players; for the Gaffer – and everyone associated with the football club. It’s a massive result and a good achievement for the boys.”

Barrow: 1 Wyll Stanway; 4 Dean Campbell (C); 14 Chris Stokes (15 Robbie Gotts 84’); 8 Kian Spence; 10 Ged Garner (19 Dom Telford 72’); 11 Elliot Newby; 16 Sam Foley (20 Emile Acqua 58’); 17 Katia Kouyaté (9 Andrew Dallas 72’); 24 Rory Feely (2 Neo Eccleston 58’); 30 Ben Jackson (Y); 42 Theo Vassell.

Subs not used:  29 Junior Tiensia.

Morecambe: 25 Stuart Moore; 2 Luke Hendrie; 3 Adam Lewis (Y) (5 Max Taylor 91’); 4 Tom White (Y) (24 Yann Songo’o 64’); 6 Jamie Stott; 14 Rhys Williams; 17 Paul Lewis (9 Hallam Hope 18’); 18 Ben Tollitt (Y); 19 Marcus Dackers; 23 David Tutonda; 28 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 1 Harry Burgoyne; 20 Charlie Brown; 26 Lennon Dobson; 27 Nathan Mercer.

Ref: Ben Speedie.

Att: 4,665 (605 from Morecambe.)