LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 22nd MARCH 2025.

The trapdoor opens…

Before we start this time, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to a statement from Morecambe FC Co-Chairman Graham Howse which was published on the club’s website this week. This is part of it:

“The government is involved in reforming regulations to restrict the supply of pyrotechnics and smoke bombs.

The club has highlighted this issue in the past, and we were pleased to see the vast majority took it on board. However, now is the time to reaffirm that message, and the club stands side by side with the FA, the Premier League and the EFL in its measures and stronger sanctions.  These sanctions are effective and deployed, as the offenders from Saturday are now realising. 

The sanctions are a five-year club ban, and, on top of that, we are applying for a full football club banning order. Whilst we do not want to see any supporters or players suffer, who decides it’s a good idea to throw a firework at their own goalkeeper, with potential smoke inhalation threatening their own fans with breathing issues, asthmatics for example? Dangerous and illegal behaviour should not be part of the matchday experience.

We are proud to be a family club and proud of the way our fans conduct themselves home and away, so I would ask for your unequivocal support. Behaviour of this nature has no place in football or in general!”

Amen to that. Avid readers will no doubt have shared my puzzlement over the cover picture of my last Match Report, which shows a Steward removing a blue flare from the pitch in front of the home stand at the Maz. I thought at the time:

“If anyone among the Barrow section of the crowd has managed to throw this device the length of the pitch from where they were corralled: don’t ban them! Instead, sign them up immediately for the discus/shot put/throwing large objects miles immediately: our next Olympics squad will be unbeatable!”

But please don’t sign-up any of the idiots responsible for this particular bit of stupidity for Only Connect or any other TV show which requires even basic lateral thinking: they would fall at the first hurdle.  Morons like these bring our club into disrepute. Football in general – and ourselves in particular – are far better off without them.

Anyway, in Morecambe’s increasingly desperate scramble to acquire enough points to keep them in the EFL, the Potteries was the next stop today. Their record against Port Vale is pretty good: ten games won; nine lost with four matches drawn in all competitions over the years. The last time they met was in November, when Morecambe lost the reverse fixture by a depressingly familiar scoreline this season: one-nil. Vale were top of the table then; Morecambe bottom.

Since that time, the Valiants have slipped to sixth; the Shrimps have gone up a single place to twenty-third in League Two; and Old Boy Connor Ripley – who was in goal on the day for Vale – has moved on to Pastures New. Currently, the club from Burslem has only managed to win two of its last six league fixtures; drawing three of the others and obviously losing one. Their latest victory came last Saturday, when they walloped the Plastic club from Milton Keynes 3-0 at Vale Park.

King Derek used his pre-match Press Conference to contradict his prediction from earlier this season that Morecambe need fifty points altogether to survive in the EFL this season. He said this prior to setting off for the Midlands:

“We all know at this stage in the season we would all love an excellent performance. But the one thing that matters is winning football matches. We need to win two more games than Tranmere. We can’t judge what the points total has to be because we don’t know what the other teams are going to do around about us. We’re going to have to win back-to-back games at some point.”

Opposite Number Darren Moore concentrated on the importance of home support for his team against Morecambe when he said about Valiant fans:

“We need for them to come and really drive the team on and get that real together approach. The season doesn’t end on thirty-six games. We need their support ever more.”

Morecambe needed to win today. But they lost again by that oh-so-familiar score: one-nil. To add insult to injury, they held out against one of the better teams in League Two until the eighty-ninth minute. In any circumstances, this is a cruel way to lose. In the dire straits Morecambe are in at the moment, it is potentially catastrophic.

In dry conditions and with the sun shining, this game was hardly a classic. Morecambe had the first chance of the game after just three minutes as Gwion Edwards tried to lob Ben Amos in the home goal and failed to hit the target. Ten minutes later, veteran Jayden Stockley had the ball in the net for Vale but his effort was ruled out as the Off-Side flag went up. There wasn’t a lot to report until the same player shot right at Harry Burgoyne in the away net for a regulation save with ten minutes left of the first half still to play.

An hour had been played before there was any more action of note. After Stockley had unsuccessfully appealed for a penalty at one end of Vale’s massive pitch, Callum Jones popped up at the other end and forced Amos into a tremendous save as he parried a shot from distance away for a corner. Morecambe came even closer to opening the scoring when Edwards then drew a phenomenal save from the home keeper with a header after 67 minutes. Gwion was hurt making the effort and had to be replaced immediately afterwards.

During the closing stages of the match, Port Vale were asking all the questions. Substitute Rico Richards was denied when through on goal by David Tutonda’s tremendous covering tackle with seventy-nine minutes on the clock. Then Ryan Croasdale’s effort from distance crashed back off the post just a minute later. It looked as if the Shrimps might survive to take a single precious point back to Lancashire but they were beaten when a loose ball in their own penalty area was lashed home by Ronan Curtis literally right at the death: it was a fantastic strike.

So it was a depressingly familiar story today: 38 games played; 14 of them lost by a single goal.

As Port Vale went up to fourth in the division tonight, things got even worse for Morecambe as results came in from elsewhere. Carlisle beat Bromley in Cumbria by the only goal of the game to put themselves level on points with the Shrimps and behind us only on goal difference with a game in hand right at the bottom of the entire EFL. Tranmere made it three games in a row unbeaten with a goalless draw at Fleetwood to create a seven point gap between ourselves and them. On current form – four defeats in six and only four points out of a possible eighteen – Morecambe will not overcome this massive hurdle. There are now only eight games left before our eighteen year adventure in the Football League could be at an end. It’s never over until the Fat Lady Sings but the outlook is really not encouraging.

But is King Derek discouraged by all the Doom and Gloom?

No he is not.

This is what he said tonight:

“I thought we were excellent today, I loved the performance; I loved the way that we played. Tactically, we were outstanding with and without the ball. We were unfortunate – a number of times – not to score. Tactically, my players were excellent today. I love them. I loved the performance. I told them that after the game. This game does not define us. We’ve got eight games to go. We are fighting. I said to the players: “You cannot be down-hearted.” What I see is that this a team that want to fight; that want to graft; that want to win and feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t get anywhere. We will get a turn when it’s least expected and we will probably get it when we don’t deserve it. Performance-wise, we were excellent today.”

Port Vale: 13 Ben Amos; 2 Mitch Clark (26 Rico Richards 66’; 6 Nathan Smith 93’); 5 Connor Hall (C) (Y); 9 Jayden Stockley; 11 Roland Curtis (Y); 19 Laurent Tolaj (32 Antwoine Hackford 93’); 20 Tom Sang; 22 Jesse Debrah; 18 Ryan Croasdale; 24 Kyle John; 38 Rhys Walters (8 Ben Garrity 66’).

Subs not used: 40 Nathan Broome; 37 Jemiah Umolu; 45 Rekeem Harper.

Morecambe: 1 Harry Burgoyne; 22 Ross Millen; 3 Adam Lewis (24 Yann Songo’o 63’); 4 Tom White; 6 Jamie Stott (C); 7 Gwion Edwards (11 Jordan Slew 70’); 10 Lee Angol (Y); 14 Rhys Williams (Y); 18 Ben Tollitt (33 Ged Garner 84’); 23 David Tutonda (Y); 28 Callum Jones (20 Callum Cooke 84’).

Subs not used: 9 Hallam Hope 16 Andy Dallas 19 Marcus Dackers.

Ref: Scott Oldham.

Att: 7,038 (c.250 from Morecambe.)