LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 7th DECEMBER 2024.

Grimsby far too good for anaemic Morecambe.

Morecambe welcomed Grimsby Town to the Mazuma Mobile stadium today. There was also another uninvited and unwelcome guest hovering on the fringes of the ground: Storm Darragh, who could give Stormy Daniels a run for her money any day of the week. It had already caused the game between Barrow and the plastic club from Milton Keynes – on the other side of Morecambe Bay not all that far away – to be abandoned.

David Artell’s club has won six of their previous 23 meetings with the Shrimps in all competitions but lost nine. Today, there was more at stake for Morecambe than has usually been the case in recent times. They drew at Tranmere Rovers last Tuesday night and in doing so, moved out of the relegation zone for the first time in literally months. This afternoon, they would be desperately looking to pick up three points to take them further away from the Legion of the Damned at the bottom of the EFL: Swindon Town and Carlisle United.

Former Morecambe favourite Dave Artell had a pretty torrid time last season when he took over a club which had been subjected to the tender mercies of the man who has led Swindon right to the bottom of the EFL during the last week: Ian Holloway. He certainly flirted with the sack as he tried to turn around the fortunes of a club which has been no stranger to relegation from the Football League in recent years. But now, Dave has not only managed to stabilise the Lincolnshire club, he has realistic hopes of guiding Grimsby into at least the Play-Offs by the end of the campaign. They started today’s match in the lowest – seventh – of these positions in the division. The Mariners have lost two of their last six league games but won three, most recently when they walloped Accrington Stanley 5-2 last Tuesday evening.  But only two clubs – leaders Port Vale and second placed Walsall – have won more games in League Two than them this season: ten each as opposed to Grimsby’s nine. Prior to this afternoon’s game, Big Dave said:

“There’s no league game that’s easy in this league. To think anything like that would be setting yourself up for a big fall. Morecambe; it’s a tough place to go. It will be windy; I think it’s forecast for rain. They are workmanlike; they work hard. There’s a galvanised team spirit there without a shadow of a doubt. Derek knows his job; he’s a really experienced Manager. They’ve got some good players. When you put all that into the mix, you’ve got to make sure you’re on your game yourselves. We certainly won’t be taking it lightly. We’ve got to prepare and the standard is set: keep winning away from home whilst also playing better football. We’re in the Play-Offs and we want to stay in there as an absolute minimum. We’ve got to keep winning games of football.”

Meanwhile, Opposite Number Derek Adams would be hoping for a better performance from his team than the one they put in on the Wirral a few nights ago. During the second-half in particular, his men were an absolute shambles. If they were to play anything like as badly this afternoon as they did then, the Shrimps would be in for a tough time this afternoon. King Derek offered these thoughts about Grimsby the day before the match:

“They’ve got a style of play. They win; they lose – and that’s the way it happens and it has been beneficial to them. They’ve lost eight games this season. But they have won nine. That’s allowed them to get into a really good position at this moment in the league campaign. (They had) a great victory the other night against Accrington Stanley. We know what type of team is coming to us on Saturday.”

It was predictably wet and very windy as the game kicked-off. Grimsby – used to North Sea gales at their Cleethorpes ground – soon grew accustomed to it after a few long goalkicks had almost boomeranged back towards where they had started from early on.

The King had decided to start with exactly the same line-up which began the game at Tranmere. The Boss was probably hoping that they would play like they did during the first half on the Wirral. But they didn’t. With a really strong wind at their backs, Morecambe didn’t cause visiting goalkeeper Jordan Wright any problems at all throughout the first half. From the beginning, though, Grimsby were clearly up for it; well-organised and happy to play on the break. They scored after 25 minutes when Justin Obikwu ran onto a through ball which bypassed the Shrimps’ defence and walloped it past a helpless Harry Burgoyne in the home goal. It should have been disallowed as Obikwu was clearly miles off-side but fussy and officious Referee Alan Young obviously couldn’t see this and his linesmen were both miles away from the action. And it has to be said that the Grimsby Centre Forward’s reaction to the home crowd was both uncalled-for and didn’t do him any favours – he needs to grow-up and learn to eradicate that sort of crass stupidity from his game. Having said that, Morecambe were the authors of their own downfall when – not for the first time – Ben Tollitt lost the ball on the right in his own half, made a half-hearted attempt to recover and then stood and watched as Town poured forward and Captain Kieran Green set-up Obikwu to finish. Whoever operates the scoreboard at the Maz chose this moment to indicate that the visitors were actually winning 0-3. Is he (or she) psychic? – if so, can I have a word before the Lottery draw next Saturday, please?…

The Grimsby striker was at it again – scoring and taunting the crowd anew – a quarter of an hour later. The same routine: a simple ball played through the centre of the home defence – and the same result except that this time, he equally clearly wasn’t off-side.

So the visitors went back to the Dressing Rooms with a deserved lead, however lucky the first one was.

Derek shook things up for the second half. Hallam Hope and Callum Jones replaced the completely ineffectual Paul Lewis and Jordan Slew and Yann Songo’o was again asked to stiffen the resolve of the team at the expense of Tom White, who I thought had been playing better than most of his team-mates up to that point.

There was a period around about the seventieth minute when Morecambe showed at least some signs of getting back into the game. At last, they forced Wright into action. The visiting goalkeeper did well to keep out a Jones’ shot after 66 minutes at the cost of a corner. He did even better to keep out Hope’s low strike with about five minutes still scheduled to play. He did less well, though, with his reaction to the home crowd when the visitors sealed victory in the game with a well-deserved third goal in injury time. What was that all about?

Substitute Danny Rose scored Town’s third with an excellent low shot but by that time, the Mariners were unlucky not to be already further ahead: Jordan Davies’ fantastic looping shot right at the death beat Burgoyne but bounced back into play after hammering into the underside of the home crossbar. This tremendous effort was worth a goal in itself.

The gulf between a good League Two team and a poor one was blindingly obvious for everyone to see this afternoon. Grimsby’s tenth win of the season saw them consolidate their position in the Play-Offs, going up to fifth place in the division tonight.

With Carlisle’s game at storm-wracked Newport postponed because of the weather and Swindon beating Fleetwood 3-1 in Wiltshire, the Shrimps found themselves above the Cumbrians in the relegation zone tonight only on goal difference. But Carlisle now have a game in hand.

The one positive thing that could be said about today’s poor performance is that the individual members of the side never allowed their heads to drop, even in adversity. Most of them undoubtedly try their best. But the stark reality is that the best most of these players can offer probably just isn’t good enough for League Two. The King of Morecambe (nearly) always backs his players in all circumstances. But he didn’t mince his words tonight once the game was over:

“I thought it was our worst performance of the season, especially at home. We didn’t play well today. We didn’t create many opportunities on goal. Our defending all over the pitch was horrendous at times. The way that we managed the game; the way that we defended the goals was horrific at times – it was a really, really poor performance from us today. We’ve been on a good run of form but today shows you that we’ve still got a lot of work to do. There was nobody in that team that performed well today – it was a really poor performance. It wasn’t good enough. Today, they let themselves down.”

Morecambe:  1 Harry Burgoyne; 2 Luke Hendrie (22 Ross Millen 78’); 3 Adam Lewis; 4 Tom White (Y) (28 Callum Jones 45’); 6 Jamie Stott (C); 8 Harvey Macadam (20 Charlie Brown (Y) 78’); 11 Jordan Slew (9 Hallam Hope 45’); 14 Rhys Williams (Y); 17 Paul Lewis (24 Yann Songo’o 45’); 18 Ben Tollitt; 19 Marcus Dackers.

Subs not used: 25 Stuart Moore; 12 Kayden Harrack; 23 David Tutonda.

Grimsby Town: 1 Jordan Wright; 2 Lewis Cass; 4 Kieran Green (C); 5 Harvey Rodgers (Y) 6 Curtis Thompson (Y ) (30 Evan Khouri 84’); 8 Jayden Luker (14 Luca Barrington 92’); 9 Justin Obikwu (32 Danny Rose (Y) 92’); 11 Jason Svanƥórsson (16 Callum Ainley 85’); 17 Cameron McJannet; 20 George McEachran (7 Jordan Davies 84’); 33 Denver Hume.

Subs not used: 24 Doug Thame; 41 Sebastian Auton.

Ref: Alan Young.

Att: 2,995 (I would guess about 400 from Grimsby.)