LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, 5th APRIL 2025.

It’s really Grim at Grimsby…

If ever Morecambe could have done with a favour from an Old Boy, today was the day. Dave Artell – former central defender from the twilight years at Christie Park – is currently the Grimsby Town Manager. The Shrimps visited his realm on the east coast at Blundell Park in Cleethorpes this afternoon trying desperately to maintain their exceptional form of the last little while: two wins on the spin and clean sheets in both of their last two games. Anything less could mean the appalling reality of falling out of the English Football League altogether as they languished next to bottom of League Two with only six games left to save themselves from banishment to the National League – or perhaps even worse – the total collapse of the club altogether.

But Dave Artell is a professional and there is no room for sentiment in such a competitive endeavour as league football at any level. Under his leadership, Grimsby have changed their fortunes of recent years and instead of looking anxiously over their shoulders – as we are doing – at a further relegation out of the EFL which they have experienced twice in recent years – their focus is very clearly on upward progression to League One. The Mariners started today’s game in the lowest of the Play-Off positions in the division – seventh – but on a patchy run of form. They have lost half of their last six league matches, most recently at Dave’s previous club Crewe Alexandra last Tuesday, when they went down by two goals to nil.

Historically, Grimsby have played Morecambe twenty-four times previously in various competitions. The Shrimps have won nine of these; the Mariners seven, most recently when they won far too easily by three goals to nil in Lancashire last December.

After this defeat, Morecambe Manager Derek Adams had this to say about his team’s efforts on the day:

“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.”

Prior to today’s game, though, King Derek said this:

“I think that every game we go into is tough. Grimsby want to be in the Play-Offs. There’s a long way to go in the campaign. Every game between now and the end of the season is difficult for all teams. We’ve been the sixth best team in the league over the last six games so I think that we’re able to show that we can compete away from home. We’ll go for it. We need to get wins. It is extremely tight in this league and at this moment in time, we’re just concerned about winning football matches.”

His Opposite Number said the following about his old club:

“They’re fighting for their lives. They tend to pick-up this time of year and have a late run for it. It’s always a tough test. Morecambe is never an easy game. At their place, they under-performed; we did well and got a deserved win. But we knew that wasn’t really reflective of them either. So we’re expecting a tough test. We’ve got to make sure we come out on top: it’s a game we should win but `shoulds’ and `woulds’ and `could-haves’ doesn’t mean you will. That’s what we have to make sure: we do win the game. We’ve got to make sure that we concentrate on ourselves.”

Visiting Blundell Park is – for those of us ancient enough to remember them – reminiscent of going to football grounds in the 1960s. They still have the pylon floodlights they bought from Wolverhampton Wanderers round about that time (or was it the 1860’s?):

They still have a wooden stand which not only looks like it’s out of the Ark but may actually be built from timbers from that very vessel:

Even the Ticket Office has a strong touch of the past about it:

It was a beautifully sunny day today in north Lincolnshire but the keen breeze from the North Sea adjacent to the ground still had really wintry teeth in it.

The game started after a minute’s applause for one of Town’s former Chairmen who died recently.

But what happened then for the next three-quarters of an hour was really encouraging for Morecambe’ noisy travelling support.

There wasn’t a lot to report for the first twenty minutes but both sides looked sharp and lively and it was a good game to watch. Then Morecambe dropped their guard after 24 minutes. Grimsby won a corner on their left after a fine run and shot from Denver Hume. He took the kick himself and saw Kieran Green ghost in unmarked at the near post and turn the ball home. It was a really poor goal for the visitors to concede. But they didn’t let their heads drop and continued to at least match their hosts before Andy Dallas – a last-minute selection to replace Ged Garner, who was  injured in the pre-match warm-up – received the ball from Callum Jones after half an hour and curled an unstoppable strike past Jordan Wright in the home goal from some way out: it was by far the best goal of the afternoon.

So that was basically that for the first half: in a decent contest, there was little to choose between the sides and Morecambe were probably in the ascendency as the period ended, having generated some forward momentum with the equaliser.

But this all changed in the second half. Morecambe were unrecognisable from the team which had competed so well earlier on. Dave Artell also probably had some stern words for his own men at the break because the Mariners came out and dominated the game from the first moment to the last. Morecambe’s discipline and shape disappeared. They started aimlessly hoofing balls forward and thus constantly gave the ball away. They looked – and played – like a non-league team and if they keep performing like this, they soon will be.

It took Town just two minutes to re-take the lead as Luca Barrington took advantage of some more lackadaisical defending to score far too easily. From then on, Harry Burgoyne was repeatedly pressed into action in the away goal and pulled-off a number of really good stops to keep the score down. But he was beaten again with ten minutes left when Green got a second from another cross as the Shrimps’ defence was all at sea instead of next to it yet again.

Offensively, the visitors offered absolutely nothing and Wright didn’t have another save to make. Derek shook things up but Callum Cooke had yet another poor game in a red shirt and the first time I remember Ben Tollitt even touching the ball was right at the end when he took a corner (badly), having been on the field for the best part of half an hour. It’s not good enough in a situation such as the one the Shrimps currently find themselves in.

So Morecambe’s disastrous away form this season – already the worst in the club’s history before kick-off – got even more dire. They now have only five games left to save themselves.

The prospects of doing so looked even more grim as results came in from elsewhere. Tranmere thrashed Chesterfield 4-0 on the Wirral to get their Revival Train right back on track. They went up to twenty-first place in League Two as a result and are now seven points ahead of us. Carlisle also won – 3-2 against Newport County – to close the gap at the bottom of the division to just a couple of points behind us. The two straws to clutch at were that Harrogate lost 1-0 at AFC Wimbledon and Accrington were hammered 4-0 at Bromley. Stanley are now just four points and one place higher than us in the table: Town are twentieth but nine points ahead which could yet be enough to save them. Meanwhile, Grimsby maintained and consolidated their seventh position. Good luck to Dave and his men.

This is what King Derek made of it all at the end of the game:

“Going in at half time we were really happy because we were in the game. We scored an outstanding goal from Andy Dallas. There wasn’t much between both sides. We huffed and puffed in the second half; we chased the game. They deserved to win the game with their second half performance. I didn’t think we pressed them enough in the second half. First half, it looked like it was a draw at that moment in time. We tried our best. I can’t thank our supporters enough. For the small band of supporters we had, they sang and cheered for the ninety minutes. That’s what we need: we need a fighting spirit. The players have shown that. They’ve shown that they’ve got bottle because they’ve had that in the last couple of games. We have to have that going into the last five.”

Grimsby Town: 1 Jordan Wright; 4 Kieran Green (7 Jordan Davies 84’); 5 Harvey Rodgers; 14 Luca Barrington (21 Tyrell Warren 92’); 17 Cameron McJannet; 18 Darragh Burns (11 Jason Svanƥórsson 74’); 19 Géza Dávid Turi (Y) (20 George McEachran 45’); 24 Doug Tharme (Y); 30 Evan Khouri; 32 Danny Rose (C ); 33 Denver Hume (Y).

Subs not used: 12 Jake Eastwood; 6 Curtis Thompson; 10 Charles Vernam; 20 George McEachran.

Morecambe:  1 Harry Burgoyne; 3 Adam Lewis; 4 Tom White (19 Marcus Dackers 63’); 6 Jamie Stott (C) (24 Yann Songo’o 79’); 9 Hallam Hope (18 Ben Tollitt 63’); 10 Lee Angol; 14 Rhys Williams; 16 Andy Dallas (Y) (20 Callum Cooke 79’); 17 Paul Lewis (Y); 23 David Tutonda (Y) (5 Max Taylor 73’); 28 Callum Jones (Y).

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

Ref: Jacob Miles.

Att: 5,807 (128 from Morecambe.)