Cheltenham Town 1-1 Morecambe
A LATE Padraig Amond penalty earned Morecambe a deserved draw at Whaddon Road.
The Shrimps came from a goal down to earn the point but it could have been more had it not been for a string of missed chances, including a penalty.
Boss Jim Bentley was forced to make three chances with Kevin Ellison, Alan Goodall and Laurence Wilson all unavailable through injury.
The Shrimps started brightly but went behind to a soft 18th minute. There looked to be little wrong with Shaun Beeley’s challenge on Lee Vaughan but the linesman pointed to the spot and Liverpool loanee Jack Dunn sent Andreas Arestidou the wrong way.
The first half saw end to end with Stewart Drummond and Amond missing good chances before the home side were denied a second in the 36th minute when Alex Kenyon cleared a Harry Williams effort off the line.
Amond had the ball in the net but his effort was ruled out for offside.
The Shrimps started the second half slowly and were grateful to Arestidou for two superb saves in the opening minutes of the period before Cheltenham goalscorer Dunn missed an open goal on 50 minutes that would have doubled his side’s lead.
From there the Shrimps dominated but were wasteful in front of goal with a string of poor misses before Amond forced Carson into a superb flying save to tip away a close range header before the Shrimps were rewarded for their efforts with the penalties.
The Shrimps had a chance to level the scores from the penalty spot themselves on 70 minutes when Jamie Devitt was brought down. Unfortunately Devitt’s effort was saved by Trevor Carson and the Morecambe midfielder somehow missed the rebound from just three yards out.
His blushes were spared on 83 minutes when the Shrimps were awarded a second penalty which was thankfully converted by Amond to earn a well deserved point.
Cheltenham: Carson, Vaughan, Taylor, Brown, Braham-Barrett (rep Bowen 81), Ferdinand, Sterling-James (rep Gornell 90), Williams (rep Hanks 52), Stewart, Dunn, Jones. Subs not used: Reynolds, Gray, Deaman, Kotwica,
Morecambe: Arestidou, McGowan (rep Mullin 59), Edwards, Parrish, Hughes, Beeley; Drummond, Kenyon, Devitt. Amond, Redshaw (rep Sampson 87). Subs not used: Jones, Bondswell, Doyle, Fleming, Goodall.
Ref: T Robinson.
Att: 2,122