MORECAMBE 3 BARROW 1 HFS Loans League Premier Division 31 August 1992 by Dave Baxter
Great! A local derby, a big crowd, not far to travel, and winning! No such luck! The previous Tuesday I'd looked at the rota for work the next week. $#¡*! Working Monday. Can't get Monday off so I have to work a split, starting at 7am but getting up one and a half hours before to drive up to Windermere. Great start! Work is hectic all morning. Bank holiday at a hotel... finish at twelve, plenty of time for some lunch. Leave Lakeside at 12.45. Into my Lada (yeah, Lada!)... have I got everything? Scarf, flag, replica shirt? Yep, I'm on my way... I don't want to go onto the motorway so I drive through Milnthorpe. I stop for the bog in the square and some refreshment from Spar, but now that the traffic is getting heavier it takes me nearly ten minutes to get away from the lights. After crawling my way through Carnforth I finally reach Morecambe at 1.50. No sweat! I contemplate going into the town for some chips but remember that there is a chippy by the ground. Plenty of time to get parked, eat me chips, have a shandy and a good look round their excellent club shop - I should be so lucky! Instead I pull into the car park which is already quite full of Barrow cars and walk down to the chippy only to find that it's... SHUT! Never mind; I nip next door for a radioactive pie. I walk down past the ground to the bar, only to be told "Sorry son, but Barrow supporters are down at the other end!" Segregation! So I troop off down to the other club where a van is disgorging its load of coppers. This isn't usual practice here. Last season I watched Morecambe v. Bishop Auckland minus the police and the segregation. But perhaps this was because for Barrow's last visit a few of our lot were attacked outside the ground by some of Morecambe's mindless idiots. Can't be too careful, can you? The visit to the souvenir shop is off because we are penned in the terraceless end with no snack bar and a decidedly dodgy Morecambe programme. Anyway, I'm sure the match will make up for it! But Morecambe score with their first attack and our mindless brigade launch an all out verbal attack on their number eight. How many times - it's not clever, you morons. Otherwise we have excellent support and dominate the rest of the half with the long ball, but no goal attempts. We can't swap ends for the second half (hello Yeovil) but are served with Snickers and crisps from a box (hello Yeovil again). We score almost from the kick off, the crowd goes wild... and gets shut up again. Kelly is playing a blinder - NOT! and now Morecambe look like scoring every time they attack (Leo, you lie too much). Kelly scores a wonderful goal... past Armfield. Still we can come back... can't we? With seconds to go Rowlands makes a wonderful tackle in true Kevin Proctor fashion. Penalty! Christ, you can get worse than Conference refs! Morecambe's sub scores and the game is over. It takes me nearly half an hour to get out of Carnforth. No time for tea at work and I'm there till eleven o'clock tonight! Get home for 11.30... roll on Fleetwood! Issue 014 - November 1992