Scunthorpe Utd 1 - 1 Tranmere Match Snippets

A Craig Curran goal wasn't enough for Tranmere to take the last play-off place as they held on for all but two minutes of the ninety before conceding a sickening late goal that meant it was the Iron who made it into the play-offs to face MK Dons next Friday night.

Scunthorpe 1 - 1 Tranmere R

  Byrne 88                                        Curran 39 

Weather Report

Another sunny final day of the season as Rovers Fans turned out in force and in all sorts of costumes and outfits!

Crowd

8,029 fans were inside Glanford Park, probably the most they have seen all season and 1,600 if not more of them came to support the Superwhites.  Despite almost giving tickets away this week, Scunny could not fill the home ends for this 'massive' game and the majority of home fans made virtually no noise for 88 minutes. 

Referee Watch

Steve Tanner (Somerset) - A few strange decisions including Gareth Edds' first yellow card and although he wasn't helped by the decisions of his assistants, particularly the one on the left side as we looked, he handled a tense game fairly well I thought - 7/10

Best Moment

Curran's goal sent us wild and I nearly broke my hand banging the back of the Stand with my fist.  I don't think I celebrated it as much as some other goals this season as I was too tense still but it was a great moment!  However being applauded on the way out of the Ground by Scunthorpe Fans was a nice touch too!

Worst Moment

The goal that we conceded was the worst moment of the season let alone the game and seeing some of the faces in the Tranmere end afterwards made it harder to take.

Tranmere Man of the Match

Ryan Shotton - After what I would call a few strange games since returning from suspension and then moving to centre-back, Shotton had a great game alongside Ben Chorley at the heart of the defence.

Connections

Scunthorpe's goalkeeper and ex-Rover Joe Murphy didn't feature for the home side but did applaud our fans on their lap of honour after the game which was nice to see.

Rovers Fans

A fantastic turnout and great noise throughout.  Deserved more than what they finally got in the end and stayed behind to applaud the Scunthorpe players around the pitch at the end of the game.

Scunthorpe Fans

Quiet for most of the 88 minutes prior to the goaland didn't manage to sell out despite the importance of the game. It will be interesting to see if they sell out for the play-off match against MK Dons on Friday night.

Summary

After being in front for a fair amount of time it was gutting to lose it so late.  A dominant first half from us but not so good in the second half and I felt the goal was coming for quite a while.

What next year holds is anyone's guess but it doesn't look good if rumours are to be believed.

To get ourselves into the position of needing something on the final day is a credit to the players and the backroom staff at Tranmere and hopefully we can build on the experience of Saturday and move on postively.

Entertainment Value

A tight game as it was always going to be so the long balls were inevitable as oppose to flowing football.  Both sides had their moments though and on another day the performance and result would have been a decent one for Rovers  - 7/10