LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 1st MARCH 2025.

Morecambe bail-out Old Boy at Gillingham – but at what cost?

It was the long trek to the county of Kent and the Medway region today for Morecambe in their increasingly desperate search for points to remain in the EFL.

Their host – Gillingham – is a club with a potentially huge catchment area which you would expect to be much further up the EFL than they currently are. But the impression you get is that Gillingham is one of those clubs whose potential is never quite fulfilled. Over the years, the Kent outfit have see-sawed between the two lowest divisions of the Football League and there have been several False Dawns which never came to amount to anything. Just over two years ago, with huge fanfare, it was announced that a new American owner would be propelling the sleeping giant – in the mode of Wrexham – to a bright new future. Brad Galinson assured his new fanbase:

“One of the things I think owners lose sight of is that we serve the fans, the fans do not serve us. We are literally here as custodians of the football club for the fans. I’m a custodian for a very important football club, with a huge rich history. We’ll keep it sustainable, hopefully we’ll start to move up and get promoted.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But the reality is that Gillingham are further away from even a push towards League One than they were when the man from Florida with the slick talk took over. The Gills were nineteenth in the League Two table before kick-off and their current form is really poor – no wins in their last six league games, half of which have ended in defeats. Having said that, they are in a far better place then we currently find ourselves. They also undeniably have the Indian Sign over the Shrimps:

In the unlucky thirteen meetings they have had in the past, the Gills have only lost once – almost fourteen years ago – and won a massive eight matches. In their five previous trips to the Priestfield Stadium, the best any Morecambe team has ever been able to do is draw: just once, also almost fourteen years ago. The club from Kent have won six of the last eight encounters between the teams, including a victory earlier this season at the Maz by the familiar (and depressing) score of one-nil. This is what Morecambe Manager Derek Adams said after this particular defeat:

“We haven’t been able to get that killer touch in front of goal. We certainly had some good opportunities – I’m not saying we’ve had loads of opportunities – but I thought that as a team all round, we were much better today. It was a tight affair. I didn’t think that they were causing us too many problems. We’ve got to be better at a lot of things in the game – both in and out of possession. But to lose the game today in the manner we’ve lost it is hard to take.”

Since then, though, a man who is single-handedly responsible for an even more successful record than the Gills’ against Morecambe during his time as Accrington Manager – our former star striker John Coleman – has taken over the reins at Priestfield. The brutalist style of football he always used in Lancashire has not worked so far on the south side of the Thames. Gillingham haven’t won for thirteen games. Himself and long term partner in crime against the Beautiful Game, Jimmy Bell, have been in charge for nine of these. When they took over, Gillingham were in sixteenth position in the division with a ten point lead over Morecambe in twenty-third place, having played on game fewer. Now they are three positions lower and only nine points ahead of us with the same number of matches completed. Their latest loss – last Tuesday at home – was against Fleetwood, when, despite taking the lead in the first half, they fell behind in the second and lost to our Lancashire neighbours 1-2. They were roundly booed by their own supporters as they trailed off the field at the end of this latest reverse.

`Coley’ – as always – had a lot to say prior to the meeting between his current club and one of his former ones. He started off trying to find the words to explain a video which has gone viral of his team laughing and larking about after their latest defeat against Fleetwood. He said it `wasn’t acceptable’ because it gave the impression that they don’t care and added:

“The players have been told in no uncertain terms that going out on social media or the public domain, people laughing and joking after we’ve got beat, it doesn’t look good.”

But he also said:

“I want the players full of confidence now going out on Saturday. I don’t want the players with their chins on the floor and being negative. I’m desperate for a win on Saturday, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve got a massive game on Saturday. We’ve got to realise that the threat of relegation is there – and we don’t want to be drawn into that. But we’ve got to be aware that if we don’t pick-up results, we will be in that. I think we’re getting close to a win. We will get it right. People just think Morecambe is a cake walk. These clubs are fighting for their lives. They’re probably more of a difficult opponent than a team sitting twelfth in the league. We’ll be fighting every inch of the way on Saturday in what I know is going to be a difficult game. I know Derek’s teams very well; I get on quite well with Derek meself anyway but we know the way they set-up; they know the way that we set-up: it will be a tough game but it’s one I know we are capable of winning.”

Further evidence of the problems he is facing at Priestfield emerged when he was asked how he reacts to the widespread derision his players received from their own fans when they left the field after being defeated by Fleetwood. He responded:

“I was disappointed by the response we received on Tuesday. I want the fans to be part of our success. I want them to be part of the success process. They can help us on Saturday – and I hope they do. Because when Priestfield’s laughing, it’s a difficult place to come to and I want it to be a difficult place for Morecambe to come to.”

Despite all this, Derek Adams’ longest trip of the season as Shrimps boss would be made more in hope than expectation, historically at least. However – with games rapidly running out – points are more imperative for the Morecambe boss than ever before. Plus – given Gillingham’s utterly wretched recent record in the league of late – today was surely the day the Shrimps might be able to improve on their pathetic record against the Kent club. He said, before setting off on the three hundred mile coach trip to the Medway:

“We’ve played Fleetwood and Accrington and beaten them both, who are teams around about us. We should have beaten Newport away from home. So we’re happy with our performances. We have to obviously take our chances and win the games when we’re on top. It’s important we all take responsibility and that’s what the team are about: they are collectively taking responsibility, (The Gills) should have won the other night against Fleetwood, they had really good opportunities in the game. They made one change from the game before in taking in Hawkins and went a wee bit more direct; they’re a dangerous outfit. We go there, we have to play the same way as we have done against the teams that I’ve spoken about but we have to take the big opportunities when we get them – and we’ve certainly been creating them.”

The fact that he would be without suspended Rhys Williams to add to the long-term injury problems the Shrimps’ boss already has won’t have helped. For the second game in a row, King Derek was unable to name a substitute goalkeeper today either. He also confirmed that George Ray – injured on the first day of the season at Walsall – will be out for the entire season now. To make things even worse, results during the week have not all been good from the Shrimps’ point of view.

There was good news and there was bad news. Accrington won against Tranmere on the Wirral last Tuesday by the only goal of the game to put some daylight between themselves and the relegation pack – and an end to Nigel Adkins’ career as Manager of the team they defeated. But Tranmere’s game in hand over Morecambe as they lay just two points and one position higher than us in twenty-second place in League Two was wiped-out as the Merseyside men once again failed to score – and apparently never looked like doing so.

Bad news arrived on Thursday night, however, when Carlisle arrived across Morecambe Bay in Barrow and won the Cumbria Derby by the only goal of the game. This was new Carlisle boss Mark Hughes’ first win since he took over the club at the bottom of the entire EFL. Despite the three points they picked-up, they still remain marooned at the very bottom of League Two, level on points but behind the Shrimps on goal difference alone with the same number of games played.

John Coleman has been in charge at Gillingham for far longer than the Welshman in Cumbria has been but was yet to see his side win even once before today’s match. With Nigel Adkins gone and Mark Hughes’ predecessor Mike Williamson out of work, Mr Coleman isn’t doing any better than either of them. John would thus be worried about more than the result today. Whereas Opposite Number Derek Adams knows he has no fears of being sacked, Coley has no such guarantees at his new club, where expectations are high but patience, conversely, is in very short supply. If his men were to lose again today, Gillingham would be pulled onto the fringes of the relegation scrap in a downwards trajectory and thus fearing for their future as an EFL club – which is not exactly what their Chairman ever had in mind, is it?…

There was another incentive before kick-off for Morecambe. Earlier, Tranmere had taken the lead against high-flying Port Vale but were pegged back with ten men to finally draw 1-1. So if the Shrimps could actually win today, they would leap over them out of the relegation pack altogether.

It was deceptively sunny in the Garden of England but fairly cool at about eight degrees Centigrade as the game started.

The home crowd reacted to their Manager’s plea to make a lot of noise and the groundstaff had prepared the pitch for the sort of muscular, literally agricultural encounter Mr Coleman has always liked by watering only the away team’s side of the field. With giants such as six foot six Oliver Hawkins, it was imperative for central defenders Jamie Stott and Max Taylor to stand strong throughout the game. Within three minutes, Taylor was complaining to the Referee that his shirt had already been torn by Hawkins but Ruebyn Ricardo – probably yet again influenced by the baying home crowd – wasn’t interested. To be fair – as home players gathered around him in true Colemanesque style -The Man in the Middle resisted their Early Doors claims for a yellow card for former Gills favourite David Tutonda on his Saint’s Day. But the Ref then immediately awarded a corner to the hosts after the last touch clearly came off a Gills’ forward with five minutes played. Harry Burgoyne then got his body behind a shot from Armani Little which skidded off the wet turf for a regular save in the eighth minute.

Predictably, Gillingham’s approach to the opening phase of the match was very physical with absolutely no sign of any finesse. At the other end, Marcus Dackers battled away manfully as he always does. There seems to be an Unwritten Law in League Two football at least that for a man who is over six foot six in height, anything opposing players do to stop him is within the rules. Apart from Marcus, though, there was very little sign of any threat from the visitors’ front line during the first twenty minutes or so.

On twenty-one minutes, the Gills’ Elliott Nevitt had a pop at goal but in a game that had been a really poor advert for League Two football so far, his effort went over the bar. With three minutes left of a really dire first period, Joe Gbodé put another pretty weak effort over the target. But at least Gillingham tried…

And so it went on: Morecambe playing in a quagmire; the feral home crowd baying at the referee and little to shout about as neither team actually seriously tested the opposing goalkeeper.

So would things improve in the second half? Not really – and for the visitors, they got much worse.

It was hectic to start off with in the sense of lots more muscular effort but there was still virtually no quality whatsoever from either team.  

Burgoyne did well to save a free-kick on fifty-seven minutes as Morecambe were far too slow to set up their defensive wall. Then Max Ehmer took a shot for the hosts which went just wide of the target with another minute on the clock. Gbodé was probably lucky to receive only a Yellow Card for what looked like an elbow into Taylor’s face with almost seventy minutes on the clock. In the seventy-eighth minute, though, the home team’s obvious desire to win the game finally told. From a corner, Robbie McKenzie took a shot which may have been deflected past a helpless Harry. And that was that. Despite substitutions, there was no reaction at all from a team which seem to have a mental block as far as playing at Priestfield is concerned.

Morecambe got what they deserved today. The defence was outstanding but both midfielders Callum Cooke and Harvey Macadam were more or less ineffectual as was the entire forward line with the exception of Marcus Dackers. The most telling statistic of the game is that – in ninety minutes of poor football – the visitors were not able to test 41-year-old Glenn Morris in the home goal even once.

The Shrimps looked like a team not only worthy of relegation today but simply not good enough to compete in the Football League. They may have saved Old Boy John Coleman’s career for now but the lack of creativity and application in their side against a really poor outfit which had not won previously during 2025 does not bode well for a future where the Manager tells us they still need sixteen points from a possible thirty-two.

They won’t get many better opportunities to turn things around at the bottom of the EFL than presented to them today. The team should have needed no motivation whatsoever from the boss to take the game by the scruff of the neck against palpably beatable opposition and put some daylight between themselves and their two other rivals for relegation.

Instead, though, Morecambe simply didn’t turn up. If Carlisle gets anything at all from their game in hand over the Shrimps or Tranmere fluke another point soon, Derek Adams’ men will be stuck right at the bottom of the entire EFL in no time at all. On today’s evidence, that’s precisely where they should be.  

I don’t envy anybody trying to put any sort of gloss on this appalling effort this afternoon but this is how King Derek tried:

“We didn’t do well enough in the attacking half. The players are the only ones that can change it. They’re the only ones that have the influence on the game.”

Gillingham: 1 Glenn Morris; 2 Romeao Hutton; 3 Max Clark; 5 Max Ehmer; 8 Armani Little (C); 12 Oliver Hawkins (19 Jimmy-Jay Morgan (Y) 61’); 14 Robbie McKenzie; 15 Andy Smith; 20 Elliott Nevitt (Y); 29 Joe Gbodé (Y) (16 Nelson Khumbeni 88’); 30 Sam Gale.

Subs not used: 25 Jake Turner; 4 Conor Masterson; 7 Jack Nolan; 17 Jayden Clarke; 23 Bradley Dack.

Morecambe:   1 Harry Burgoyne; 2 Luke Hendrie (Y) (22 Ross Millen 87’); 5 Max Taylor; 6 Jamie Stott; 8 Harvey Macadam; 10 Lee Angol (11 Jordan Slew; 87’); 16 Andy Dallas (7 Gwion Edwards 64’); 19 Marcus Dackers; 20 Callum Cooke; 23 David Tutonda (Y) (33 Ged Garner 87’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C).

Subs not used: 3 Adam Lewis 4 Tom White; 17 Paul Lewis.

Ref: Ruebyn Ricardo.

Att: 5,612 (maybe three score from Morecambe – god bless them.)