Problems; problems; problems…
Let’s start today’s latest tale of woe with a statement from the Board of Directors of Morecambe FC which was made yesterday:
“The Club was expecting to pay its players and staff today, Friday 26th April 2024, ahead of the normal due date of the 28th of the month. We appreciate that, despite pay not yet being contractually due, there was an expectation that wages would be paid today ahead of the weekend. We also completely understand how frustrating, unsettling and demotivating that this issue is to our people, who work so hard every day.
Throughout April and this week, the Owner has repeatedly assured the Club that funding would be provided to cover wages. Unfortunately, we have not yet received this funding, making it impossible to pay salaries at this time. Nevertheless, we will continue to do all that we can to rectify this before the 28th.
Due to the uncertainty, a number of first team players have expressed concerns about playing tomorrow without having received their pay today, and we acknowledge their feelings. Regardless, we will ensure that a team takes to the field at Swindon Town for the Club’s final game of the season.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the dedicated staff, players and supporters who continue to fight every day. The Board of Directors fully understands and shares the frustrations being reasonably expressed by people who love the Club as we do.”
Speculation has been rife on social media for some time that the Manager is about to leave and we’ve known for some time – because of the financial embargo on the club – that they are unable to re-sign players or offer contracts to new ones. What a mess…
Predictably, there has been lots of postings on Social Media and – trying to separate the wheat from the masses of chaff – it seems that Morecambe can
- Soldier on and accept that Whittingham and his Bond Group will continue to play these games and just take the points reductions and uncertainty which will ensue in its stride.
- Go into Administration. This will mean an automatic 12-point deduction to start next season plus cutbacks at the club itself, with everyone the administrators deem to be expendable sacked. The fly in the ointment here is that the administrators will have to persuade Whittingham to sell for a price which he almost certainly won’t accept. But even if he does, creditors ranging from The St John’s Ambulance to the VAT people will have to be paid-off with whatever fee they can get from a new buyer – and then there’s their own fees, which will be enormous.
- Seek liquidation. This would mean that the club would go bust altogether and therefore lose its place in the EFL. It then has the choice of disappearing altogether or doing an AFC Wimbledon or Newport County and start all over again at the lowest position in the football pyramid as AFC Morecambe; Morecambe Bay FC; Shrimpy Strollers or whatever.
So however you look at it, the future does not look very promising.
But life goes on. I think the one thing most Morecambe fans would wonder today is exactly what team would be put-out to face Swindon this afternoon. If this is going to be the Swan Song for almost everyone in the squad, who can blame them if they don’t want to risk injury in a situation where they haven’t been paid and don’t expect to play for Morecambe in the future again anyway?
For the record, Morecambe have an appalling record against the Robins. They have faced Swindon Town nine times altogether and have never beaten them even once; losing seven and drawing two, most recently at the Maz last September, when the game ended 2-2.
Town were nineteenth in League Two at the start of play today and had won three and lost three of their previous six league games. Morecambe, on the other hand, started today’s game in sixteenth place but have lost four games in a row as the wheels have completely fallen off their challenge to win a Play-Off position this season. But there were more things to worry about apart from a failing campaign; de-motivated players; no money in the coffers and doubt over the very future of the club today. I hope that female Morecambe supporters were aware of the following before they departed for the County Ground earlier on. You couldn’t make it up, could you?:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3gq31r0e70o
Ged Brannan has many other things on his mind at the moment so I can’t tell you what he said about this afternoon’s clash prior to it.
There have been many changes at the County Ground since Morecambe last played the Robins in September. The Manager at the time – old foe Michael Flynn – has been sacked after a poor campaign and hardly any of the faces which featured in the game at the Maz for Town were on show today. Interim Head Coach Gavin Gunning was in charge today, hoping that his performance since getting the job last January will be enough to earn it on a permanent basis.
It was dry but not particularly sunny as the game kicked-off in Wiltshire. Swindon Captain Charlie Austin was looking for his two hundredth EFL goal this afternoon and it took him just five minutes to score it. Rookie defender Adam Fairclough conceded a naïve trip on Joel McGregor to the right of his own penalty area. Sean McGurk took the resulting free-kick and Austin had the easiest of tasks to head the ball past Adam Smith in the away goal as the visiting central defenders seemed to totally lose the flight of the ball.
But in the fourteenth minute, the visitors were level. David Tutonda and Joe Adams had already warmed the home goalkeeper’s palms with long-range shots. Then, Kayden Harrack was fouled on the Morecambe right by Jake Cain; the ball was well-worked by a combination of Donald Love; Gwion Edwards Charlie Brown and finally Cammy Smith, who toe-poked the ball towards Adams, whose shot was deflected past Jack Bycroft into the Swindon net. After this, Morecambe played the better football for the next twenty minutes or so and looked lively every time they moved forwards. They deservedly took the lead with twenty-one minutes played as sixteen-year-old and very impressive Academy player Fairclough scored on his debut. Morecambe had worked the ball to him on the Shrimps’ left; he found Brown in the centre of the home penalty area and then walloped the rebound home after Charlie’s shot fell to him after bouncing back off the keeper’s legs. With thirty-four minutes on the clock, the Shrimps might have gone further ahead. There was pin-ball in the home penalty area as first Smith and then Fairclough took shots which were blocked only for Oscar Threlkeld to finally blast the ball wide of the target.
But Town equalised through that man Austin again after 34 minutes. Frazer Blake-Tracy took the ball forward down the centre of the pitch and – unchallenged – played a slide-rule pass to the unmarked veteran striker, who had the easiest of tasks to slip it past the advancing away goalkeeper.
So it ended all-square at half time.
The game continued to be entertaining to watch throughout the second half. Swindon reserve goalkeeper Redman Evans made his debut as he had to replace Jack Bycroft in the sixty-eighth minute. Shortly afterwards, Town re-established their lead. Morecambe had won a corner but Swindon seized possession and poured forward down their right before a pin-point lob over the retreating defence found William Kokolo unmarked in the centre and he swept home another easy strike. But Morecambe didn’t give up. In the eighty-sixth minute, Gwion Edwards found himself free on the Morecambe right just outside the Town penalty area. He unleashed a shot which substitute goalkeeper Evans flapped at in his top left-hand corner; the ball spun back towards Smith and Cammy walloped it back low through a defender’s legs and straight past a probably unsighted keeper. It was reward for a gritty performance from Cammy today – and throughout the season.
The visitors could have actually stolen it in injury time when Gwion’s shot from close-in was well saved by Evans with his legs. Overall, though, this was a fair result after a pretty meaningless game which was played in a very good spirit by both teams throughout. This is what Our Ged said about it afterwards:
“It was a great performance by the lads. Twenty-five minutes of the first half, I thought we were much the better team. Took our foot off the gas a little bit. At the end, we could have won the game.”
Asked to predict what will happen next at Morecambe Football Club, he replied:
“Your guess is as good as mine; I don’t know. We’ll see what happens the next few days or so. Hopefully, it will all be put right. I’ve always spoke honestly in me interviews and I really don’t know what’s happening. Obviously, I will speak to the Board on the way home. I will go in on Monday and speak to Ben (Sadler; the retiring C.E.O.) and see what happens from there – I don’t know.”
So the season ends with more questions than answers as far as the Shrimps are concerned. What is certain is that they ended-up fifteenth in the table at the end of a topsy-turvy campaign. It could have been much worse – Sutton ended their short stint as an EFL club today, despite a battling 4-4 draw in Milton Keynes. They will go back to the National League with Forest Green Rovers, who backed-up their excellent win at our place last week with another victory in their final EFL game for now by beating Notts County 1-0 in Nailsworth.
Commiserations must also be offered to Barrow, who fell out of the Play-Off pack right at the last moment when they could only draw with Mansfield at Holker Street 1-1: they needed to win.
So the MK Plastics; Crewe; Crawley and the seemingly unstoppable Doncaster must battle it out to see who joins Mansfield; Wrexham and Champions Stockport County in League One next season. Congratulations to them. Assuming that we have a club to support and a team to play for it, we can also re-acquaint ourselves with Fleetwood; Carlisle; Cheltenham and Port Vale, who were all relegated from League One today. Chesterfield are returning to the EFL after a very long absence next term from the National League plus one of several teams who are still involved in the Play-Offs but whose fate remains to be decided.
The season thus ended on a fairly anticlimactic note today with no certainty for the future but at least a reminder from the past. Fifty years ago to the date and the day, Morecambe became the fourth team ever to win the FA Trophy at the old Wembley Stadium. They were given no chance on the day by the so-called `experts’ but they came up with the goods by beating high-flying Dartford of the Southern League 2-1.
https://shrimplythebestfootball.com/2024/04/27/50-years-to-the-day
Since then, the club has faced fair weather and foul. Winning promotion to the EFL and then promotion to League One are the highlights. But bad things have happened too. Under another dodgy ownership, the club faced extinction back in the 1980s as a deal to sell the old ground at Christie Park to then D.I.Y. giant Focus was agreed against the wishes of the supporters. This very dodgy move was headed-off at the pass by fans who blocked it using the covenant left by J.B. Christie himself when granting the club the land that it should only be used for sporting purposes in the future. This was conveniently forgotten more recently when the sale to Sainsbury’s was approved and the new ground built as a result. It’s not been an easy ride – with repeated issues with spivvy people trying – and sometimes succeeding – to buy the club. There is a real possibility that the Shrimps will go into Administration over the summer and thus start next season on minus twelve points. But Morecambe Football Club has survived similar crises in the past. Let’s hope they can do so again.
Swindon Town: 1 Jack Bycroft (47 Redman Evans 67’); 5 Frazer Blake-Tracy; 9 Paul Gatzel (23 Aaron Drinan 70’); 15 Sean McGurk (20 Dawson Devoy 62’); 16 Jake Cain; 17 William Kokolo; 24 Conor McCarthy (Y); 32 Charlie Austin; 33 Joel McGregor (7 Zachary Elbouzedi 61’); 40 Harley Hunt (22 Udoka Godwin–Malife 61’); 59 Nnamdi Ofoborh.
Substitutes not used: 29 Ricky Aguiar; 35 Jaxon Brown.
Morecambe: 21 Adam Smith; 2 Donald Love (C); 3 David Tutonda (5 Farrend Rawson 80’); 8 Joe Adams (24 Cameron Rooney 89’); 17 Cammy Smith; 19 Gwion Edwards; 20 Charlie Brown; 22 Kayden Harrack; 28 Oscar Threlkeld (16 Jacob Davenport 79’); 38 Nelson Khumbeni (6 Yann Songo’o 66’); 40 Adam Fairclough (11 Julian Larsson 57’).
Substitutes not used: 30 Archie Mair; 12 Joel Senior.
Ref: Craig Hicks
Att: 8,859 (204 from Morecambe.)
