LEAGUE TWO. SATUIRDAY, 1st FEBRUARY 2025.

Dallas sinks Fleetwood.

Our second nearest neighbours travelled to the Mazuma Mobile Stadium this afternoon as Morecambe FC continued their daunting task of gaining thirty points from their last nineteen league games. Fleetwood Town are already well on their way to achieving Shrimps’ Manager Derek Adams’ target to stay in the EFL this season. They arrived in twelfth place in League Two with 36 points from 26 games. Morecambe, by contrast, were bottom of the table before the start of play, having clocked-up one game extra and gained sixteen points fewer.

Since 2012, Fleetwood and Morecambe have met twelve times in various competitions with the Cod Army winning five to the Shrimps’ three. Last time they met – in the reverse fixture at Highbury during September – Morecambe showed their Jeckyll & Hyde nature this season in one single game. During the first half, they played like a non-League team – and a bad one at that – and were 2-0 down at half time. After King Derek shook things up at half time, though, the Shrimps came roaring back into the match; equalised and were pushing for a winner against a Fleetwood team which had fallen apart before our eyes under the sudden onslaught. They were lucky to hang on for a 2-2 draw in a contest which saw no less than six of their players booked in their desperation not to be beaten.

Things have changed markedly at the Fylde coast club since then. Promising rookie Manager Charlie Adam was perhaps surprisingly sacked in December. Ex-Barrow boss Pete Wild has been in charge since then. Under his leadership, the Cods have had mixed fortunes. Last Saturday, they lost at home to then bottom of the table Carlisle United 1-2. But on Tuesday night, they beat run-away leaders of League Two, Walsall, by two goals to nil at the same venue.  A major blow for them has been the loss of leading scorer Ronan Coughlan to a snapped Achilles tendon last Saturday. Pete Wild had a lot to say about life without him in his pre-match interview. But – asked if he thought that the problems Morecambe have experienced might have a `galvanising’ effect on Derek Adams’ team, he replied:

“I think they’re already galvanised. Watching them, I would suggest that the team’s already galvanised and would suggest that they are as one and fighting. I know four or five lads in their dressing room and I know the types of lads they are in that dressing room. I know what they will be saying to the rest of the lads; I know what they will be trying to do personally for that football club. You’ve seen the results: they’ve lost the last three one-nil. They’re in every football match. They are going to give us another test that we have to withstand and try and negate. I’ve played against Derek’s teams a lot. I’ve been watching them and you’re expecting a real hard-working team that’s full of endeavour and trying to do the right things. They were so unlucky to get beat by Crewe. The players are giving 110% for Derek and for the football club regardless what’s going off off the pitch. You can see that in abundance. They are now fighting for their lives. They are going to put it on us and challenge us and give us all the tests – and more – that the last three teams have give us.”

Opposite Number Derek Adams spoke about the sudden lifting of the EFL embargo last Thursday on spending at Morecambe FC in his pre-match interview. He confirmed that the two loan signings he had lined-up for last week before the ban was slapped on the club were Lincoln City winger Dylan Duffy and forward Andy Dallas from Barnsley. Duffy has subsequently signed for Chesterfield instead; the Dallas deal remained to be resurrected at the time but Derek complained:

“We’ve missed out on a good number of players obviously. It has set us back a great deal. It should never have been a problem. When you give the Manager a budget to go out before January, everything should have been sorted before that. It should never have been an issue for the club.”

Subsequently, he has been able to persuade fellow-Scot Dallas to sign for the Shrimps until the end of the season. Andy Dallas is a 25 year-old-Glaswegian who is a product of the Rangers Academy and has played permanently for Cambridge United; Solihull Moors and – currently – Barnsley. He has also been on-loan to a number of Scottish and National League clubs as well as Barrow in League Two. Earlier this season – in Morecambe’s first away win of the campaign – he appeared as a substitute for the Bluebirds at Holker Street and came as close as Barrer did all afternoon to equalising when his shot beat Stuart Moore but bounced off a post back to safety. Today, the new signing went straight into Mr Adams’ starting eleven against Fleetwood.

Derek had this take on the fixture:

“It’s more about us than anyone else. There’s loads of points (to play for). But we have to go and do it: we have to win the games; we have to take our chances when they come along. We can’t make excuses. We have to be the ones that make things happen.”

It was sunny but bitingly cold with a cool breeze as the match started.

Morecambe – unusually playing with three forwards in the shape of Marcus Dackers; Hallam Hope and new boy Andy Dallas – took the game to the visitors for the first quarter of an hour or so. The team looked lively, well-drilled and confident – not at all what you might expect from a side which is holding-up the entire EFL. Hallam Hope saw an effort bounce off the crossbar after just three minutes and then Andy Dallas put a shot narrowly over the bar before Referee Edward Duckworth awarded a penalty to Morecambe in the lucky thirteenth minute. He had adjudged Cods’ Captain James Bolton to have handled the ball. (From where I was sitting, I thought the ball simply hit him and he couldn’t get out of the way – to put this another way, I wouldn’t be happy if the award had gone against us, as so many refereeing decisions seem to have done this season.) From the spot-kick, impressive Callum Cooke opened his account for the Shrimps with a tremendous shot low to Jay Lynch’s right: the visiting goalkeeper made a valiant attempt to keep it out and dived the right way but the shot was right in the corner of the goal. After half an hour, Hallam Hope was booked for diving in what seemed to me to be a more clear-cut penalty than that already awarded by Mr Duckworth. (I’ve not seen a replay of either incident so I may be doing the Man in the Middle a disservice but it will be interesting to see the video footage later on.)

Hallam was in the wars again after 34 minutes when the Fleetwood stopper rushed from his line and flattened him as he had got beyond the Cod’s back line. Lynch was very lucky only to be shown a yellow card for this professional foul.  Cooke took the resultant free-kick from just left of centre from Morecambe’s point of view and struck the bar to Lynch’s right with the goalkeeper a mere bystander. Lady Luck came to Fleetwood’s rescue again.

But there was nothing lucky about the visitors’ equaliser. Harry Burgoyne had pulled-off yet another phenomenal save with one hand, turning a fierce shot from Mark Helm on the Town left round his right-hand post with 41 minutes played. Phoenix Patterson took the corner and unmarked Skipper Bolton arrived like a train from some way out to head emphatically into the back of the net with our Harry helpless.

So it was all-square at half time. Fleetwood looked like words had been exchanged in the Dressing Room during the break. Although their play wasn’t quite as bright as their garish fluorescent greenish and yellow striped strip, they came out and started to press further up the field and actually put pressure on the home defence. This was during the opening minutes – and for the first time in the game. Helm came close again with a header from a corner in the fifty-second minute which went just wide of the target. But after seven minutes of the re-start, what Morecambe have been missing all season was underlined in a truly spectacular way when debutant Dallas scored a truly tremendous goal. Marcus Dackers – at last having a team-mate to lay the ball off to in his unstinting efforts to play as a target man – flicked the ball into the path of the Scotsman. And Andy did the rest, slamming an unstoppable shot past Lynch from the left side of the penalty area from his point of view. Whoever wrote the script for this match had him starring again after an hour when the home side entered uncharted territory this term as Dallas scored a third goal for the Shrimps. This time, a long throw from the impressive Max Taylor on the Morecambe left landed in the away penalty area. As we have seen so often this season, the ball bounced around in front of the opposition goal. Could Yann Songo’o get to it? No. But Andy Dallas could and – BANG!!!! – it was in the roof of the net in an instant as the Cods’ defence just stood and stared.

But it still wasn’t all over. In my view, Fleetwood got lucky again in the 66^th minute when Owen Devonport committed a really bad foul on Morecambe central defender Jamie Stott. If Jamie had made even half as much a meal of it as one of Colchester’s defenders did last week when Lee Angol was sent off, Devonport could have been enjoying an Early Bath. But  Jamie – to his considerable credit – didn’t. So inconsistent referee Mr Duckworth didn’t even book the Cods’ defender.

As so often happens after incidents like this, Fleetwood got back into the game when Matty Virtue reduced the arrears in the seventy-sixth minute with a tap-in.

So it was Squeaky Bum time for the home supporters. As so often this season…

Town again got lucky later when Lynch left his area and just nudged the ball with his hand to deflect it away from the onrushing home forwards – and got away with it once more. But the game was put to bed when – finally – Marcus Dackers scored his first goal for the club with just four minutes scheduled to play. And what a goal it was! Substitute Adam Lewis – always so effective on the left wing – slung in a peach of a cross after a fantastic dummy which took a Town defender out of the game which Marcus headed powerfully home. The stadium went wild.

For me, the reaction of his team-mates said it all: Marcus has toiled manfully all season for a club he is not signed to and played with a grit and determination – to say nothing of a maturity beyond his years as far as being constantly held, pulled-back and fouled by opposing players is concerned – and the men around him showed their sheer joy that he had finally broken his duck for the Shrimps. Well done that man. Well done Mr Dallas. Well done everybody – this was a tremendous victory today, against all the odds.

Morecambe found themselves back in twenty-third place in League Two tonight. Fleetwood fell to fifteenth position. Rejuvenated Swindon Town did us a huge favour by hammering bottom club Carlisle 1-5 at Brunton Park. Tranmere also lost at home – 1-3 to Colchester. Barrer let us down again by losing at our next opponents – struggling Newport County – by the only goal of the game. But the position tonight is that Morecambe are just three points short of Tranmere, who are only a single position above us. Significantly, Harrogate Town also lost again today – and although they are a whole seven points ahead of us, they have played two games more than the Shrimps. So there is very much still to play for…

Andy Dallas predictably – and rightly – was awarded Man of the Match today. But I think a special mention must also go to goalkeeper Harry Burgoyne, who made some really key saves at vital moments in a game Morecambe might have lost with a less able shot-stopper.

What did King Derek have to say after the game? We don’t know – he was probably receiving Smelling Salts in the home Dressing Room given the unfamiliar – and emphatic – nature of today’s win. He left the Last Word to Assistant Manager Danny Grainer. With all due respect to him, though, let’s end today’s match report with what Andy Dallas made of his debut for the Shrimps:

“I think the biggest thing today was winning in front of the home fans. I’m obviously delighted. I thought I’d get a shot off with my weaker left foot. Going forward, I thought we were good – obviously – scoring four goals. It was a special moment for me.”

Morecambe:  1 Harry Burgoyne; 2 Luke Hendrie;; 5 Max Taylor (Y); 6 Jamie Stott; 8 Harvey Macadam; 9 Hallam Hope (Y) (4 Tom White 77’); 16 Andy Dallas (7 Gwion Edwards 83’); 19 Marcus Dackers; 20 Callum Cooke (17 Paul Lewis 90’); 23 David Tutonda (3 Adam Lewis 77‘) 24 Yann Songo’o (C).

Subs not used:  12 Ryan Schofield; 11 Jordan Slew 18 Ben Tollitt.

Fleetwood: 13 Jay Lynch (Y); 5 James Bolton (C) (Y); 6 Elliot Bonds (Y); 7 Ryan Graydon; 8 Matty Virtue-Thick (Y); 10 Danny Mayor (2 Brandon Cover 57’); 16 Mackenzie Hunt; 17 Mark Helm (20 Harrison Neal 68’); 25 Finley Potter; 26 Shaun Rooney; 44 Phoenix Patterson (57’); 31 Owen Devonport.

Subs not used:   37 Luke Hewitson; 27 Kobei Moore; 32 Kayden Hughes; 33 Pele Smith.

Ref:  Edward Duckworth.

Att: 3,522 (Just 681 from Fleetwood. It’s a poor showing from a club so close-by and the letting-off of flares during the match didn’t do them any favours. But congratulations are due to their loyal fans and the few Morecambe supporters who walked all the way from Highbury to the game today to raise money for charity.)