Roger Fitton, D3D4 Morecambe FC Correspondent

Roger Fitton was born in Morecambe in 1954. He has lived and worked in London and back home in jobs as various as NHS bureaucrat; AA Recovery Truck driver and freelance writer, of which his most famous offerings were the scripts in verse for the comic character Watford Gapp; King of the Rap created and drawn by Tom Paterson for Fleetway Comics. He is a graduate of Lancaster University and has a PhD in Politics, awarded by Leeds University in 1988. He currently makes leaded lights (what most people call stained glass windows) as the Working Glass Hero and has been the long-term Morecambe correspondent for Vital football. He has had articles about the lost Breweries of North West England published by the Brewery History Society and is currently working on a study of the State Management Scheme in Carlisle (where the government nationalised all the pubs and breweries for a period of over half a century until 1973) which he expects to be published during the next few months.

1.Team Supported: Morecambe.

2.First Match Attended & the Year: About 1965 at Christie Park: I remember World Cup Willie (The England mascot for the forthcoming World Cup) nougat being for sale in the tea hut on the cinder bank which eventually became the Umbro I remember the nougat but I don’t remember who the Shrimps were playing but it was almost certainly in the Lancashire Combination.

3.Most Memorable Match: Morecambe 4 : 3 Crewe Alexandra. Coca Cola League Two. (Good) Friday 2nd April 2010. The Shrimps were facing a penalty and already three-one down and had just had a player sent off. Barry Roche saved Clayton Donaldson’s pen and the Shrimps won, ironically with Dave Artell (current Crewe Manager) scoring the winning goal. Most memorable games: Morecambe beating Dartford in the FA Trophy Final at the old Wembley in 1973 and their victory against Exeter City in the Conference Play-Off Final in 2007 at the new one: the only times I have ever been to either stadia.

4.Your favourite player of all time: Favourite Morecambe  player of all time: the late, great Charlie Lea. He should have been playing at a much higher level; he was phenomenally skilful and despite the unwelcome attention he received from a succession of agricultural non-League fullbacks, he never retaliated. As a black man playing in monotone football back in the 1960 and 70s, he was a role model for anybody both off and on the field. R.I.P. Charlie.

5.Things you like least about modern football: Too much money at the highest level. The wages Premiership footballers are paid is frankly obscene. Many of the antics of these overpaid, often wholly one-dimensional prima donnas both on and off the field make you glad to still be in touch with the roots of the beautiful game.

6.Favourite flavour crisps: Worcester Sauce