Gillingham 2 Morecambe 1

Match 33/12/986 - Saturday, 17 November 2012 - League Two

Gillingham (1) 2 Montrose 37, Burton 90+3
Morecambe (0) 1 Redshaw 59
Att. 5,402

Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.00
Mileage: 45/2,104

Match Report

It was one of the abiding memories of the London Olympics. Mo Farah had bided his time on the shoulders of various front runners for 9,600 metres of the 10,000 metres and at the sound of the bell he made his kick for home. The American, Galen Rupp and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele attempted to stay with Farah, but 90 metres from the line he strode clear and the gold medal was his. There were front runners that had done much of the donkey work for a large part of the race, but the pressure of leading the pack was too much and they faded away and with it their medal chances.

The thought crossed my mind on Saturday, that the football season is the equivalent of the track’s longest race and the longer you stay at the front the pressure grows match by match as you look over your shoulder at the team that is seemingly content to wait until the home straight before making their move. Football, of course, isn’t like a athletics race at all, the odd game cannot be lost just so you can stay in second place, but the pressure of being the front runner is just the same.

For three months, Gillingham have led the table and have largely swept aside the majority of the sides put before them, but I sensed that the pressure of being the front-runner is beginning to manifest itself. Adam Barrett touched on it in an interview and following the game, Martin Allen also commented that being at the top is something that everybody at the club, chairman to fan, needs to learn how to handle.

The first half was one of domination by the league leaders. In the very first minute, Matt Fish forced Barry Roche to tip the ball over the bar and further chances came for Ben Strevens and Barratt. On the half hour, Gillingham did everything but score in a hectic moment for the Shrimps back line. Danny Kedwell claimed a penalty for holding that only resulted in a corner, from which Barrett had successive attempts that were cleared from the line.

The goal finally arrived on 37 minutes. A free kick from the right by Danny Jackman was weakly punched to the penalty spot by Roche, who was helpless as Lewis Montrose drove the ball past him into the centre of the goal.

The second half was an entirely different affair and Kevin Ellison and Izak Reid stretched Stuart Nelson before the Shrimps equalised with 20 minutes remaining. Callum Davies lost out in a tussle on the edge of the box and when Nelson left his line to face Ellison, the veteran striker fed a pass across the face of goal for Jack Redshaw to tap into an open net from a yard to the delight of the hardy band of 21 Morecambe supporters that had made the long trip south.

Kedwell and Charlie Allen went close before the game entered its time added and the classic finale to a game that perhaps didn’t quite deserve the stunning quality of Deon Burton’s finish. Fish lifted a long, almost desperate cross, into the box that Burton took on his chest, on the turn and volleyed home from around the penalty spot. It was pure class. Ellison, who had wound up the crowd with some gesturing following the visitor’s equaliser was left staring into space, head in hands as the point that Morecambe had worked hard to attain, disappeared.

Just like Mo Farah, when it came to the finish, Gillingham had enough to get over line when the pressure was at its most intense, but unlike a 10,000 metre final, you have to get over that line more than once in the course of a season.

The classic programme covers that are being replicated for this centenary season today came from the 1979-80 season.