Scunthorpe United v Tranmere

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Football League One

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Hinds, Crosby, Foster, Williams, Taylor, Sparrow, Baraclough (Goodwin 88), Morris, Sharp, Keogh
Subs not used:
Lillis, Torpey, Mulligan

Tranmere :
Ward, Thompson, McCready, Goodison, Sherriff, Shuker (Stockdale 77), McLaren, Mullin, Ellison, Greenacre, Zola
Subs not used:
Achterberg, Mike Jones, Curran, Henry

SULSESC REPORT

by Martyn Girdham at Glanford Park

DECEMBER is upon us and the geese are getting fat...those of us who are of a certain age will perhaps remember having goose for Christmas (far too heavy on cholesterol to even be considered nowadays, or so I would have thought).

Anyway, the real problem of supporting the Iron since 'goose days' 40 odd years ago is the lack of optimism, even if we are having our best spell in four decades.

There is Life after Brian (yes, the man himself was at GP, albeit sat in the Directors’ Box) but how good will that life be?

I feel a little sorry for the directors in their 'what do we do now?’ scenario. They obviously want continuity in the hope the team can stay second in the table and get promotion. In reality, how can any new manager, be it Adkins or some new bloke, better the current position? Only by getting us promoted, I guess.

A tall order, there are plenty of other teams chasing a top two spot and perhaps we have already peaked.

Yes, Brian bailed out at the best possible time, at least as far as he was concerned.

Why my lack of optimism, even allowing for so many decades of supporting the Iron and several ‘false dawns’?

The Brighton home defeat raised a few doubts. “Just a one off,” we were assured, and “Foster getting sent off changed the course of the game”. Perhaps.

Okay, point taken, but we have just had another horrible home defeat to Wrexham, albeit in the cup.

Stuff the cup distraction theory, I wanted another day out to a big stadium (Derby in this case) and the money would have helped to keep Sharp & Co.

So amidst the questions being asked of the Iron, third-placed Tranmere arrived in town for a real top of the table showdown. Well, second v third at least and with 1,500 free tickets allocated to local schools and away support of 250-plus, it must mean a bumper crowd.

Well, err, actually, this is Scunthorpe United (Colchester in disguise hopefully), it is December, midweek as well, footy is probably on the telly, we are only second and having our best season for 40 years, we did get humiliated at home in the cup on Saturday, we are a town of only 60,000 residents, etc...

So it came to pass (a pre-Christmas phrase for you there) that almost 4,600 bothered to turn up to see Tranmere outplay the Iron in the first-half, yet go in 1-0 down.

A quickly taken free kick at the away… sorry, schoolkids end saw a handy Andy (Keogh) give the Iron the lead.

“Must improve in the second-half,” I thought, Improve we did but it was the Scousers who scored a near replica of Keogh’s goal in front of the screeching kids.

Sparrow hit the post and we had other near misses, but it all ended with the points shared as Tranmere were starting to get on top. In all honesty, we should have won it in the second-half but as it was, the meagre crowd went home a tad disappointed.

I cannot help feeling we need to make GP a winning fortress more regularly if the dream is to become reality.

Or maybe, as our SULSESC secretary said: “It shows how far we have come when we are disappointed at only taking a point off the third-placed team in Division Three!”