Morecambe FC: Just Football League Team of the Week

Elton John once sang that “sorry seems to be the hardest word.” Well if recent trends in English football are anything to go by, he was wrong. Sorry is quite an easy word. In fact, ’sorry’ has fast become the simple get-out clause for the thrashed, humiliated football team.

Wigan Athletic not only apologised but refunded fans’ tickets after the 9-1 debacle at Tottenham last month. And though Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey stopped short of the ’s’ word in reference to Mick McCarthy’s decision to play a reserve team against Manchester United, he did at least admit to feeling ‘empathy’ for the angry supporters.

Lower down the leagues ’sorry’ doesn’t seem too hard a word either. Bournemouth found this out last weekend when a trip to Christie Park to play Morecambe FC went horribly wrong and the Cherries were spanked 5-0. “We’d like to apologise to the fans because we know we were massively below par,” said Bournemouth skipper Danny Hollands afterwards. “I think every one of us agrees we weren’t good enough and we will admit that.”

Morecambe FC are the best team in England on current form. The destruction of Bournemouth was their seventh league win a row, making the Shrimps the form team not only in League Two but the rest of the country as well. That such a convincing victory came against Bournemouth only adds to the impressive nature of the feat: The Cherries are one of the best sides in the division, lying second in the table and well on course for promotion.

Morecambe’s winning run began back in October with a 3-1 win over Lincoln City. Since then, Sammy McIlroy’s men have swept aside Crewe Alexandra, Cheltenham Town, Darlington, Bury and Port Vale before capping it off with their most emphatic win of the season against Bournemouth.

Goals from Stewart Drummond, Craig Stanley, Lawrence Wilson, Phil Jevons and Mark Duffy saw off Eddie Howe’s team in a game Morecambe dominated from start to finish in front of an attendance of 2,034. The football was fast-paced, slick and full of confidence. The result moves the Shrimps up into a playoff place, with optimism coursing through the veins of Morecambe’s fans heading into the busy festive period.

Morecambe’s main men

Morecambe’s remarkable form has been built on those twin footballing virtues of staunch defending and potency in attack. Sammy Mac’s team have not conceded a goal in the last 450 minutes of football, keeping five clean sheets in a row on this magnificent run. This can be attributed largely to a recent switch in formation from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 and industrious, dominant defending from the likes of Wilson, Andy Parrish and Will Haining, who has been a revelation since signing in the summer.

The team is flying in attacking areas too with Phil Jevons the main man. Since his early days starring in the Everton youth teams of the late 1990s, Jevons’ career has taken him along the ‘journeyman’ route with stints at seven different clubs in nine years. But Jevons, currently on loan from Huddersfield Town, has been outstanding at Christie Park this season scoring 13 league goals – one behind the league’s top scorers Lee Hughes and Adam Le Fondre.

If you’re looking to identify people for praise at Morecambe however then first on the list must be the manager Sammy McIlroy. Since his appointment as permanent manager in 2006 McIlroy has taken the club to new heights, overseeing promotion to the Football League for the first time in Morecambe FC’s entire history before establishing them as a respectable and, at the moment, formidable outfit in League Two.

With a new stadium on the way in 2010 and the club currently undergoing a makeover, with fans invited to help redesign a new crest, there are presently ample reasons for optimism in Morecambe. The signs are encouraging both on and off the pitch and, as the team look to extend their winning streak up to Christmas and beyond, their fans will be hoping there are no reasons for players or managers to be apologising any time in the near future.

Photo 2 = shot of Morecambe’s new stadium, currently under construction.

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Bournemouth, English League Two, Football League, Football League Team of the Week, Morecambe FC