Morecambe 1 Farnborough 0THOSE hardcore 800 or so Morecambe fans must have truly bonded in their shared adversity this season - even before this rollercoaster of a match.

They've had mind mumblingly bad results (remember the record seven goal defeat at Leek?) and moments to cherish like the ATS Cup victory.

To them this topsy-turvy, even strange, encounter must have been almost expected.

It began well to put it mildly. John Norman scored Morecambe's fastest goal of the season - a penalty - after just 32 seconds.

Even more amazing is the fact that this was Shrimps only successfully converted penalty in the league all season.

It proved to be the winner but not before any number of controversial moments including the sending off of Shrimps defender Andy Fensome on 90 minutes.

Redcarded for deliberate handball in the penalty area at full time Farnborough's Chris Boothe stepped up to knock home what seemed an inevitable equaliser. But he was denied by Andy Banks who saved the day in injury time with a quite spectacular save. Fensome argued with the referee that his block of a goalbound shot hit his side but ref Stephen Coffey was having none of it.

So plenty of incident and drama at the beginning and end of the game but the rest of the time the players strolled in front of the big 1,132 paying crowd. Morecambe's best second half chance came, inevitably, from 19 goal man Norman who curled the ball round the Farnborough wall only for Farnborough keeper Stuart Mackenzie to tip over.

In the first quarter of an hour Neil Morton, Norman and Andy Lyons all went close. At that stage it looked like the fans could be treated to a thumping victory like the 6-1 away hammering of Farnborough in December but the charge faded.

Manager Jim Harvey played a 16-year-old in this game, John Hardicker - the youngest ever first team player. Surely that was a sign that Harvey's thoughts were already focused on next season.

Team: Banks, Fensome, Takano, Harkicker (McGuire 67), Hall, Burns, Lyons (Shirely 55), Drummond, Morton (Keeling), Norman, Gardner.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.