LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 19th OCTOBER 2024.

Only the Result isn’t Fraudulent…

Morecambe were visited by football’s all-time pariahs – MK so-called `Dons’ today. This was to complete the twelfth tie between themselves and the club allowed by the authorities in this country to impersonate another one for the 20 long years they have been a stain on the Football League by their very existence. Previously, the interlopers have won eight of these ties and the Shrimps have only won two. The Plastics arrived today in fifteenth position in League Two. Morecambe, by contrast, lay in twenty-third place. But there were only five points between them at start of play. Also, our club must be thankful that this Frankenstein of a creation has finally taken an unwanted statistic away from our very good selves. Until the end of last season, Morecambe held the unenviable record of the heaviest aggregate defeat ever in any EFL Play-Off competition after being hammered by Dagenham & Redbridge 6-0 away and then drawing 1-1 at Christie Park way back in May 2010. Last season, however, the Milton Keynes Cuckoos outdid us. They met Crawley in the Play-Off Semi-Finals. Crawley – like ourselves and every other team in the EFL except the Plastics – have got to the position they currently occupy – a place in League One – the hard way. But the club which bought its way into the elite of English football were taken apart by Crawley home and away; losing 3-0 in Surrey and then being marmalised 1-5 at home to produce an aggregate of 8-1. No club anywhere is more deserving of it.

The only people who came out of the scandal of 2004 with any credit were those committed Crazy Gang supporters who refused to accept the sacrifice of their club in order to create a completely new one. So they did what the outfit from Milton Keynes have never had to do – started all over again at the lowest tier of English football and worked themselves, year by year; league by league; stadium by stadium back into the EFL and – finally – a new ground on totemic Plough Lane. On September 14^th last, the frauds faced the club whose identity it once stole in a League Two fixture at this venue. So not just AFC Wimbledon supporters but anyone with any sense of natural justice will have been delighted by the result – 3-0 to the Wombles. Since then, we all know the further misfortune AFC Wimbledon have faced, with the flooding of their ground; collapse of the pitch and all the other expense this has meant for them. And what has MK’s contribution been to making some recompense for the shameful way they originally stole this club’s identity? This latest calamity doesn’t even merit a mention on the club’s own website. Shame on them – but it’s hardly a surprise with an outfit as despicable as this one had always been.

The two clubs have been drawn against each other in the FA Cup First Round. I know who I want to lose this tie: the same interlopers I hope to get beaten today.

Despite the discrepancy between the two clubs’ relative league positions, Morecambe were on a better run of form prior to this afternoon’s meeting. They had won one, lost one and drawn four of their last six league games: the visitors have won one and lost two of theirs.

Do we care what the Milton Keynes management had to say about today’s game prior to it? I don’t for a start. So let’s concentrate on our own club instead. Manager Derek Adams acknowledged the welcome break of a whole week which has ensued since his team’s first victory of the campaign last Saturday at Barrow if only because it allowed key players to get back to some sort of fitness. Having said that, Paul Lewis has not recovered from the knock which forced him to leave the field last Saturday; Harvey Macadam and Ross Millen are still injury doubts and there is no date set for the return of either Gwion Edwards or George Ray. Before we read what Derek said as far as today’s visitors are concerned, we need to put some context into a point he makes next. MK Plastics has always had a vastly inflated view of its own importance, which is reflected in the huge stadium the team plays at. The reality, though, is that they can only fill a fifth of their home ground, large parts of which are closed even on match days. But I interrupt the King of Morecambe Bay, whose point was:

“They’re one of the biggest teams in the division from a financial point of view. They’ve got a magnificent stadium with thirty thousand. It’s the biggest stadium in the division. They are one of the biggest hitters in the league. But from our point of view, we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of them. We will try and get the better of them on Saturday.”

He said about his Opposite Number – the man whom the Plastics prized away from the team who so comprehensively battered them last season:

“Scott (Lindsey) will try and change the ethos, I presume.  MK Dons have tried to play in a certain way for a number of seasons now. It’s got them success; it hasn’t got them success. It becomes difficult because you want to change it quite quickly. Sometimes, you don’t have the personnel to do that – you have to continue with the old ways.  Until that changes and the personnel changes – or you find a system that suits you – I think it always takes time.”

So we could presumably expect the same old cheating, hassling the referee and pushing the limits of the laws of the game that successive practitioners of the Dark Arts from Milton Keynes have always shamelessly indulged in. Much good has it done them – from a place in the Championship way back in 2015, these tactics have seen the club go into decline with successive relegations ever since. Bearing in mind our Manager’s hope for a change in ethos from today’s opposition, could we really expect any radical change in their approach on the field?

To be fair to them, we certainly could. Luke Offord should have been sent off for a horrendous tackle on Hallam Hope after seventy minutes. Weak referee Will Finnie also failed to penalise the visitors when – time and again – they repeatedly pulled Marcus Dackers’ shirt almost off his back throughout the second half in particular. But this is the man in the middle’s fault: if he doesn’t penalise them, any defender will keep on doing it, won’t they? But – other than that – there was none of the blatant cheating, play-acting or time wasting that has characterised MK teams I have seen in the past. To be honest, they didn’t need to today.

It was quite a nice sunny day on the north west Lancashire coast. The visitors kicked-off and within one minute, they had won a penalty. Captain Alex Gilbey found himself free and unmarked in the home penalty area, pushed the ball past Stuart Moore and was brought down by him. Or did he just fall over him? Whatever, Joe Tomlinson scored confidently from the spot. Morecambe responded instantly and Hallam Hope did well to bring the ball under control before setting-up Alex Lewis for a shot which Tom McGill did well to save. There wasn’t a lot between the teams in terms of possession and use of the ball in the opening phase of this match. But Milton Keynes’ players were increasingly quicker to the ball and constantly moved it faster forwards than the home team were able to. Gilbey led by example; and the diminutive Liam Kelly caught the eye along with Scott Hogan throughout but the Plastics’ looked threatening every time they attacked and kept catching Morecambe on the back foot with precise passes which repeatedly bisected their defence. Scott Hogan had a decent chance to increase the lead after six minutes but just missed the target with a decent shot. Kelly then fired over the bar with thirteen minutes played. Then a brilliant bit of individual play by Hogan saw him get past the Shrimps’ rearguard as he cleverly played the ball between Rhys Williams’ legs for a clear run on goal from the MK left. His initial shot was well parried by Stu in the home game but Hogan made no mistake when the ball fell to him again to put the visitors into a two-nil lead. This was with twenty-two minutes on the clock. The Wimbledon impersonators than enjoyed a bit of a purple patch where they could have put clear blue water between themselves and their hosts. In the twenty-ninth minute, Joe White set-up Gilbey for another strike which Moore did well to parry. The Morecambe goalkeeper did brilliantly to respond and keep out another fierce effort from the rebound from Hogan. Two minutes later, Aaron Nemane put another powerful shot just over the bar. But Morecambe hung in there and – instead of going back to the dressing rooms potentially four or even four goals in arrears – pulled one back with an excellent header from Skipper Jamie Scott following Ben Tollitt’s cross from the left.

So the next goal became very important. And it was no surprise that the visitors got it. With just two minutes of the re-start played, Hogan stated his team’s intent with a sharp close-range shot on the Morecambe right which the home defence did brilliantly to block for a corner. But just three minutes later, Kelly took a fierce shot from outside the area which hit Williams and took a wicked deflection before flying past a helpless Moore, hitting the underside of the bar and going in.  And that was basically that. Stuart Moore made at least one more good save and although it wasn’t completely one-way traffic, nobody could deny that the visitors played the better football for most of the game and the gulf between a club which can afford to buy players like Aaron Nemane and Connor Grant from rivals Notts County and one which struggles to attract footballers from the National League North was blatantly obvious at times.

So it was no disgrace to lose to a team of this calibre. In doing so, Morecambe continued their appalling form against this fraud of a club and fell back to the very bottom of League Two tonight. This is what Derek Adams had to say about it afterwards:

“To give them a free shot at goal after fifty-seven seconds was difficult. They then got hold of the game from there. They passed the ball very well; they’re a talented squad; they’re a multi-million squad in this division – and they used it very well. From my point of view (our) players kept on going. They got into really good areas. Could we have kept it away from the goalkeeper? Probably could have. Could we have gone across the first man? Probably could have. These are all things we need to be better at. We came up against a team which have got better quality than us. There’s no doubt about it. They shouldn’t be in this division. They showed their qualities over the ninety minutes. In saying that, we still had good spells in the game where we could have capitalised on opportunities. We’ve got to capitalise on that.”

Morecambe: 25 Stuart Moore; 2 Luke Hendrie; 3 Adam Lewis (26 Lennon Dobson 90’); 6 Jamie Stott (C); 9 Hallam Hope (20 Charlie Brown 83’); 12 Kayden Harrack (4 Tom White 84’); 14 Rhys Williams; 18 Ben Tollitt (22 Ross Millen 84’); 19 Marcus Dackers; 23 David Tutonda; 28 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 1 Harry Burgoyne; 5 Max Taylor; 24 Yann Songo’o.

MK Plastics: 1 Tom McGill; 8 Alex Gilbey (C); 10 Liam Kelly; 14 Joe Tomlinson; 16 Aaron Nemane (6 MJ Williams (Y) 73’); 17 Luke Offord (Y); 23 Laurence McGuire (Y) (3 Dean Lewington 87’); 24 Connor Lemonheigh-Evans; 26 Nico Lawrence; 27 Joe White (28 Tom Carroll 65’); 29 Scott Hogan (9 Ellis Harrison 65’).

Subs not used: .15 Craig MacGillivray; 4 Jack Tucker; 21 Brooklyn Ilunga.

Ref: Will Finnie.

Att: 3,448 (250 from dahn sarf.)