Tranmere v Scunthorpe United

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Football League One

Tranmere :
Ward, Thompson, McCready (Shuker 65), Goodison, Sherriff, Curran, Harrison, McLaren, Davies, Zola, Greenacre
Subs not used:
Hinchcliffe, Stockdale, Ellison, Henry

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Byrne, Foster, Butler, Williams, Taylor, Sparrow, MacKenzie (Goodwin 89), Hurst (Morris 89), Beckford, Sharp (Hinds 89)
Subs not used:
Lillis, Baraclough

SULSESC REPORT

by Bob Dook at Prenton Park

IT is with some honour that I accepted the Iron Filings editor's request to write the Tranmere match report. It's been a long, long time since we have been on the verge of being Champions of our league and to be given the pen is indeed a privilege.

I know that several readers will recall the last time we became Champions.

Though my tenure as an Iron fan started in 1958, it was in the second half of the season, when we had already kicked off in the Second Division. With this in mind, we will leave the 1950s and fast forward to the present.

Liverpool is one of my favourites cities in England. When I left Scunthorpe for University in 1970, I had turned down an offer of Geology/Oceanology at Liverpool, in favour of Geology at Sheffield. Nevertheless, I made several trips to the city during my uni years, mainly due to my friendship with a fellow Geology student and Liverpool FC fan. I ended up watching the Reds on many occasions. We had four of ‘Rock Doctors’ in our footie gang at

the time and use to share watching our clubs on a rotational basis. The other two were from Sunderland and Hartlepool. I leave further stories from that period and the spawning of my aversion to the northeast to next season.

It was with some excitement that my significantly better half and I left for Liverpool early morning. The M62 was full of Liverpool fans heading to the city, with the usual busloads of out-of-town supporters. We parked up in St John's after a drive around some of the old parts of town. After a bit of a wander, it was time for me to leave for the match and I was late arriving at Lime Street, only to find the Wirral Line closed for engineering works.

I fought my way onto the replacement bus service, which of course was packed. Eventually we got underway and I found myself surrounded by people from Eastern Europe, who no doubt were taking advantage of their entry into the EU and relocating to Birkenhead.

I'm not going to list the pros and cons of why one would leave Eastern Europe for Birkenhead, as my experiences in both are limited. However, I would probably venture that the Merseyside vodka is not as good as the locally produced stuff in the Swietokrzyskie Mountains, where it had proved excellent at keeping a roar going on a geology field crew's campfire a couple of decades ago.

One thing that Birkenhead has going for it is that it is close to Liverpool. By the time I had reached Rock Ferry station, I had just enough time to leg it to Prenton Park and find a spot in the away end far down in the right hand corner. We looked to have a good turn-out at kick-off.

The first-half was poor. A couple of sides that didn't seem interested. We certainly didn't look top of the league, in fact we were awful. Tranmere hit a post and could quite easily have been ahead. While it was dull out on the pitch, there was plenty of action in the away end, as a few of the worse for drink enzyme-challenged Scunny fans were evicted from the ground and into the pub on the corner.

Whatever Adkins told the players at half-time, it worked. A transformation ensued and we became quicker, more aggressive and deliberate. Passes made their mark and Tranmere were pushed back, allowing us more time to keep the ball close and short. It was only a matter of time before we scored.

A set piece was a likely provider, as I thought the Tranmere defence was one of the worst I'd seen this season. So it proved to be. As the crowd sang Andy Butler's name, he rose unchallenged at a corner and headed the ball down towards the goal line. The Tranmere goalie fumbled around and the ball crossed the line. Difficult to call it an own goal. I would have given it to Butler.

After that, it was one-way traffic. The inevitable second goal arrived as both Beckford and Sharp ran into the box, clear of the defence and through what may have been a contrived piece of play, the former miss-hit the ball into Sharp's path for yet another goal and a new goal scoring record.

The crowd sang "That's why we're Champions". We were and deservedly so.