Seals Seal Morecambe’s fate…

I finished my match report on Morecambe’s 1-1 draw against Chester City in the FA Cup Third Qualifying round last Saturday at the Maz with these words:

“Chester didn’t deserve a draw or the replay which comes with it. And even at the end, there was more unpleasantness between 36-year old Roberts and a man literally half his age (and probably half his size as well) as he continued to shove young Emmerson and indulge in Verbals instead of shaking his hand. It left a bad taste in the mouth, as did the away team’s tactics generally: they are the dirtiest side I have seen in quite some time.”

Apart from Kevin Roberts, I indentified Chester’s Offrande Zanzala as a cheat who committed multiple fouls off the ball and an unfavourable Mention in Dispatches must also go to their Big Galoot of a Centre Half, Tom Leak. The Referee on Saturday – whose identity remains a mystery – let these Neanderthals get away with far more than he pulled them up for during the match. I posited the idea that in playing the way that they do, Chester are a reflection of their Manager, Calum McIntyre, who was booked by the otherwise useless Ref last Saturday for his aggressive antics in the away Dug-Out. So I watched his post-match interview to see if he fulfilled his own appearance as the sort of Extra you might see in a TV Soap featuring Gangsters or the Mob: just put a cosh in his hand and a stocking over his face and he would be a perfect fit for this part. But – to be fair to him – he didn’t: and far from it:

“First and foremost, it’s great to come here and see our hosts – after a difficult summer for them – to have football back here and to be enjoying an FA Cup tie: I’d be disappointed if I didn’t mention that, regardless of the result.”

So far, so good and fair play to him: he didn’t need to say this. But what he added is interesting, if only because it betrays his own view of how the Beautiful Game should be played:

“For us, it would have been a travesty if the travelling support today and the performance in the stand wasn’t rewarded with something. I saw a Chester team playing like a Chester team: maximum effort; maximum commitment; desire; the right attitude and that mad belief that just keep going and keep going and keep going. It’s half-time in the tie. We now get to play the tie on our patch. It’s going to be a tough test: you can see the physical effort but we get to do it all again come Tuesday. We’ve had to ride our luck at times – let’s not pretend that the post wasn’t rattled twice and as for George Murray-Jones: wow! – an unbelievable stop at one-nil. But that’s what it’s going to be like: we have no right to come here and think we can just dictate and dominate. They play a brilliant brand of football; they keep the ball and make it really difficult and we had to react in the game. We have that belief: we can do whatever’s put in front of us.”

So more attrition is what Morecambe were going to face at the very least tonight. Mr McIntyre’s Opposite Number – Ashvir Singh Johal – was more sanguine after the disappointment of conceding an equaliser with literally just seconds of the match remaining on Saturday:

“For ninety-three minutes, forty seconds we were good. In the second half, we missed three or four chances. There were moments when we could have made the final pass and scored so we should have scored more goals. We got behind their defensive line; we defended well for ninety-four minutes. The one moment that mattered, we didn’t and that was the difference. We’re so close to scoring three, four, five goals in a game. It should have been that today, If they score those goals, it’s a completely different ending. We wanted a full week of training for the Southend game. But now it means we’ve got to focus on this game on Monday. On Tuesday, we play. We’ll only have a couple of days to focus on Southend but that doesn’t come into it now. We’ve got a game on Tuesday. We’ve got to win: that’s our priority. It just needs to come together for ninety minutes – not ninety minutes: it needs to come together for ninety-five; ninety-six; ninety-seven minutes. It was close today – really disappointed not to win that game.”

Man of the Match Gwion Edwards added:

“It’s going to be a difficult game. We need to prepare properly and make sure we turn-up. We’ve got to make sure we do the job on Tuesday night now. It’s never easy, these games. It’s a horrible place to go to, Tuesday night. They come here to fight – and they did. They’ll be right up for it on Tuesday so we’ve got to be sure we’re matching it and giving a lot more to come out with a win and make sure we’re in the next round.”

The draw for the First Round Proper of the FA Cup was made last night, with a trip to Cambridge United lying in store for tonight’s victors.

Chester Skipper Declan Weeks didn’t play tonight due to personal reasons for the hosts. So Jack Bainbridge took over the Captaincy and Tom Weeks was promoted from Saturday’s substitute’s bench. Offensive – sorry; Freudian slip there – Offrande Zanzala was relegated to the bench – his place was taken by the scorer of Chester’s equaliser three days ago, Finley Shrimpton.

For Morecambe, Captain Yann Songo’o was again not fit enough to play 90 minutes: he started on the bench. Gwion Edwards – also not expected to last 90 minutes because of fitness issues – was the Skipper tonight. There was no place in the squad for George Thomas but both Miguel Azeez and Arjan Raikhy – who played Azeez’s usual role really well until being injured late on in Saturday’s match – lined-up together right from the start.

It was dry and not too cold or windy in Chester – as it had been all day – as the game started under the floodlights at the Deva stadium, part of which is actually over the border in Wales.

(And did you know that if you find a Welshman within the city’s walls after dark, it is not an offence of any sort for you to murder them if you are a Chester native? Scary – particularly for Wrexham supporters – but technically true…)

The hosts predictably started on the front foot and won two corners within the first few minutes. In the sixth minute, though, Morecambe won a free-kick on the half-way line and although it led to nothing, it interrupted the constant flow of blue shirts towards the away goal. But City won a third corner in the eighth minute which kept the visiting defence on their toes. Gwion Edwards led by example with a key clearance after about ten minutes as the Shrimps soaked-up the pressure.

With twenty minutes gone, Morecambe had ridden whatever storm the National League North side had planned. Jamal Blackman in the Shrimps’ net made a routine catch after four minutes but was not troubled any further for almost half an hour. But he was all at sea as Tom Peers curled a tremendous effort beyond him with 28 minutes on the clock which hit the angle of post and bar but bounced harmlessly away.

Ben Tollitt – roundly jeered tonight as he was on Saturday as a “Chester Reject” – looked isolated in his unfamiliar Centre Forward role. But he got on the end of a Lewis Payne cross after 34 minutes only to narrowly miss the target.

In the lead-up to this, City’s Connor Woods was booked – with lots of echoes of how Chester performed last Saturday – for a swinging arm which only just missed Payne. The struggle between them both continued on and off the ball.

So a pretty dire match to watch so far ground to a goal-less draw at half time. Chester had indisputably dominated the possession and created the best chance when they hit the woodwork after almost half an hour.

What can you say about the second period?

Chester seemed to be much hungrier for it, simple as that. They probably played to their maximum. Morecambe, on the other hand, didn’t.  

Blackman left his line to punch crosses and completely missed them on two occasions.

His Opposite Number had nothing to do as the Shrimps were utterly toothless offensive-wise. Tollitt was taken off but his replacement – Harrison Panayiotou – typically made absolutely no impact on a game against part-timers and was yet again booked after just a few minutes on the pitch.

It seemed almost inevitable that any chances in a game bereft of many would fall to the home side. And substitute Dylan Mottley-Henry duly scored with just ten minutes left, sweeping home Iwan Murray’s low cross.

Morecambe never looked like getting back into it after this and lost so tamely that they didn’t force even a single save from George Murray-Jones in the home goal.

To rub things in, Chester Captain Jack Bainbridge scored a howitzer of a goal with almost the last kick of the game: it was tremendous strike.  And nobody could say that Chester didn’t deserve it – the Shrimps were absolutely pathetic this evening.

Where was the fight? Where was the skill? Where was the game plan?

So let’s take stock tonight.

Morecambe are now out of the FA Cup – soundly beaten by a supposedly inferior team in a replay during which Morecambe never actually competed– and sit at the very bottom of the National League.

We know we are all on a Sikh Adventure. Without this, our club wouldn’t exist at all.

But what was served-up tonight – as has been the case when the club was hammered by bottom-of-the-league Truro by five goals to nil only two weeks ago – is simply not good enough and the Manager must take the responsibility for this.

Ash has told us for quite some time now that things will improve by the end of this month.

They need to and do so quickly because tonight, they went backwards.

Good luck to Chester at Cambridge – they fully deserved their victory tonight.

Chester City: 13 George Murray-Jones;; 3 Nathan Woodthorpe; 5 Tom Leak; 7 Tom Peers (Y) Fin Roberts 94’); 8 Jack Bainbridge (C); 10 Iwan Murray; 14 Finley Shrimpton (Y) 17 Connor Woods (Y) (11 Dylan Mottley-Henry 64’); 18 Pat Jones (Y) (9 Offrande Zanzala 84’); 19 Hayden Carson; 25 Kevin Roberts.

Subs not used: 2 Dion Kelly-Evans; 32 Connell Rawlinson; 21 George Barlow; 33 Fin Roberts;

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne (Y); 5 Maldini Calcurri; 6 Ludwig Francillette; 7 Gwion Edwards (C) (Y) (12 Rolando Aarons (Y) 75’); 8 Miguel Azeez; 10 Jake Cain; 18 Ben Tollitt (9 Harrison Panayiotou (Y) 57’); 29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner; 33 Arjan Raikhy (24 Yann Songo’o 57’); 36 Jack Nolan (28 Emmerson Sutton 75’).

Subs not used:  1 Archie Mair; 3 Raheem Conte; 14 Alie Sesay.

Ref: Steve Copeland.

Att: 2,979 (about 500 from Morecambe – their ticket allocation – impossible train times ruled-out a potentially much greater number of away supporters.)