A LATE STRIKE FROM KEVIN STREET was enough to decide this close-fought FA Trophy second-round encounter at Marston Road Stadium on Saturday. For 77 minutes, with both defences firmly in control, a replay looked inevitable until the former Shrewsbury Town midfield player pounced on a loose ball six yards from goal and fired a rising drive past Dean Williams to put Stafford Rangers into the third round.
With both teams holding the best defensive records in their respective leagues, the scarcity of chances should have come as no surprise and when added to a bumpy, difficult pitch that curtailed Morecambe’s flowing, passing football, entertainment was always going to be at a premium.
For Stafford, Levi Reid, who was ousted from Port Vale, the Coca-Cola League One club, at the end of last season after an alleged nightclub brawl, and Craig Lovatt mastered the midfield, while the youth-and-experience combination of Neil Grayson, 41, and Nathan Smith, 20, foraged relentlessly up front.
It was the venerable Grayson who looked the most likely scorer for Stafford. Early on the former Cheltenham Town striker, as energetic and muscular as ever, was just wide with a far-post header and late in the first half a wicked bounce denied him a shot on goal from close range. But just when a blank afternoon looked certain, up popped Street to ensure that a replay was not required.
“We put in an excellent performance to beat a team like Morecambe,” Phil Robinson, the Stafford manager, said. “We knew it was going to be a very tough game against quality opposition, but I felt that over the 90 minutes we deserved the victory.”
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Both Morecambe, lying fifth in the Nationwide Conference, and Stafford, leading the Conference North, have their eyes on bigger prizes than the FA Trophy, a competition that, without its glittering day out at Wembley, has lost the veneer of glamour that it enjoyed in the past.
“Every team’s priority at the start of the season is to win the division that they are in — we certainly want to get out of this league whether by winning it or through the play-offs,” Robinson said.
“I think it’s possible to have a run in the Trophy and do well in the league. We’re delighted that we’ve got through. It’s another victory, good for confidence, and I don’t think that it will distract us at all.”
One of the giants of the non-league scene in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Stafford were members of the Conference for nine years until 1995, relegation sending them on a downward spiral to the Dr Martens League western division. Since Robinson’s arrival as manager in 2002 it has been a story of steady improvement and, sitting proudly on top of the Conference North table, 14 points clear of the sixth-place team, a place in the post-season play-offs is the least they can expect.
Stafford Rangers (4-4-2): D Williams — P Groves, C McAughtrie, L Murray, N Talbott — R Gibson, C Lovatt, L Reid, K Street — N Grayson, N Smith (sub: D Walker, 69min). Substitutes not used: L Downes, A Gibson, D Edwards, P Robinson. Booked: McAughtrie
Morecambe (4-4-2): S Drench — C Blackburn, J Bentley, D Kempson, M Howard — G Thompson (sub: P Lloyd, 72), G Brannan, D Perkins, W Curtis — D Carlton, M Twiss. Substitutes not used: J Kelly, S Davies, K Walmsley, J Hardiker
Referee: I Smedley