Morecambe Football Club – Review of the Season.
This has been Morecambe Football Club’s Centenary Season. Nobody could have imagined – when the club was formed at the long-gone West View Hotel on Morecambe promenade in 1921 – what would actually happen not just in the town but right across the planet one hundred years later. The club had made plans for lots of events – including rock concerts at the Mazuma Stadium and a special documentary to go out on mainstream TV – to celebrate this pivotal date in its history. But a year that began with personal tragedy as Shrimps’ defender Christian Mbulu died at the age of just 23 ended in a much wider tragedy as a pandemic swept across the world and left millions more lifeless unfortunates in its wake. The rock concerts were cancelled; the TV documentary shelved as the season ended early and football grounds right across Britain shut down.
But among all this darkness and gloom, there was a shining light. A force of nature who took Eric and Ernie’s plea to bring everybody sunshine with inspirational words like these:
“On the pitch, nothing much changes. The game is played the same way but we want supporters to be back as quickly as possible because they’re missing… getting out and meeting people and seeing football matches. But we’ve got a virus which is going round the world at this moment in time that is very hard to deal with and until we find a vaccine, then we are going to be under these restrictions for a long time to come… There’s no doubt we want supporters back as quickly as possible: we need them back but only in a safe environment not just for us but for themselves – and for the whole nation.”
Shrimps’ Manager Derek Adams said this right at the beginning of the pandemic. As I remarked at the time: if only he was in charge of the country as well as our club…
This wasn’t appreciated by everyone who apparently supports Morecambe FC though. They seemingly don’t like anything – or anybody – who doesn’t come from Morecambe. A schismatic group on Faceflannel who had run a long campaign to have club icon Jim Bentley sacked decided that my match reports were no longer welcome on their site because I had the temerity to mention other teams in them. How do I know this? Because Facebook told me so:
Group rules that were violated
No posts about other clubs
If you went for a day out at AFC Fylde, don’t post it in here. We don’t care.
I tried desperately to get back in their good books. I even sent them a re-written version of my recent Crawley report in a style more befitting to their very exacting standards. To no avail. I don’t think I put enough swear words in it personally. Make your own judgement, though – and remember; this is very much the cleaned-up version:
Here follows a special report by our Environmental and Morecambe Supporters Group correspondent, Greta Tintin Thunderbird:
Morecambe x Somebody Else y.
Morecambe made the long journey to somewhere that is not Morecambe today in an unusual position: top of the League Two table. The hosts – under the leadership of someone who is not Jim Bentley so that’s almost ok – were in eleventh place, already a whole five points worse off with only five games played of which they have won two; lost two and… Hold on a chuffin’ second – I don’t give a plop what they’ve done because they’re not from Morecambe so bollards to ’em! All I can say is that effin’ Corona virus wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for soft bladdy Southerners like those Moss Pots in whatever Spit Hole it is they live in somewhere South Of Watford…
It was horrible and wet wherever our brave lads were today though, unlike the weather at home, where scantily-clad lovelies were basking in the perfect sunshine on the equally perfect beach and handing out free tequila sunrises to any young man wearing a Shrimps shirt. Even the ugly ones – the blokes; not the birds – not that any member of the Morecambe FC Supporters Group could be described as ugly in any way of course.
We kicked off. Carlos passed it to Sam; Sam passed it back to Joshy; Joshy booted it out to Sully; Sully nodded it on to Ken-yo (Ken-yo! Ken-yo!; Ken-yo!) as Gibbo overlapped and slung over a cross which one of their Slobheads headed away for a corner. TWONK! Coley got his head to it but their goalkeeper saved it. PLONKER! And so it went on – we played all the football; they just took the chuffing U-Rhine with their play-acting and whingeing and stimulat… simpulati.. simulati… effin’ diving. Referee was a four-eyed Brum-Boy who gave them all the free kicks – Brum Boy my backside! – I bet he wasn’t from the Midlands at all but actually another totally biased soft Southern BAR STEWARD!!!
Anyhow, we won. The Stat Is Ticks might say otherwise but we don’t care. Got that?: WE DON’T CARE!!!!!
Adams said something about it afterwards. I thought Bentley was bad enough, the effin’ thick Scouser – couldn’t understand a chuffin’ word he said! But this Scotch twonk – they can’t spell simple English up their wear he cums from, let alone speak it.
So we stay top of the table. But I have only one word – two; no three words for our loyal followers:
ADAMS OUT!!!!!
Mighty Morecambe: 1 Jake Morecambe; 5 Sam Morecambe (C); 6 Harry Morecambe; 11 Carlos Mendes- Morecambe s; 9 Cole Morecambe; 10 Aaron Morecambe; 14 Alex Morecambe; 20 Adam Morecambe; 16 John O’ Morecambe; 21 Ryan Morecambe; 22 Liam Morecambe.
Subs not used: 13 André Da Silva Morecambe; 2 Kelvin Morecambe; 7 Jordan Morecambe; 18 Ben Morecambe; 19 Liam McA -Morecambe 4 Nathaniel Knight- Morecambe; 24 Yann Morecambe’o.
Manager: Eric Bartholomew.
Bandaged other team: The Invisible men. PLONKERS!!!!…
Ref: Some Southern Whooftah.
But back to the season just gone. What sticks in my mind most is another quote from Derek Adams, made when the new Manager had been in post for only a few months as long ago as last September:
“I’m trying to change the mindset at this football club. The mindset is we’re trying not to be little Morecambe – we’re trying to be Morecambe Football Club; we’re trying to be bigger and better than we ever have been and that’s the mindset I have to change amongst a lot of people at this football club going forward.”
I suppose this mentality is far more obvious to an outsider than it is to some people associated with the club who can’t see the wood for the trees. Derek is a serial winner – it’s what he does. So to arrive in a small town club with ‘a lot of people’ – note the words – who run it with a decidedly small-town mentality must have come as a bit of a shock to him. There is continuity between the club as it exists now and the non-league side which once played at Christie Park. It would be wrong to suggest that all of these people still cling on to a mentality better suited to the Conference – or even the Northern Premier League – to do so would be neither entirely true nor completely fair.
Some new faces on the Board and the Shrimps Trust have definitely made a big difference but it’s surely time to look at the way the club is structured and pep things up a bit in the way it interacts with its supporters and the world in general. I’m personally heartened by the number of young people there were at Wembley – and who regularly showed up at the home games when this was possible. Some New Blood who can appeal to the Shrimps’ younger supporters in the way they expect of any Twenty-First Century organisation would be absolutely top of my list, personally. The lad who did the podcasts from his bedroom, for example… Remember:
“WE’RE TRYING TO BE BIGGER AND BETTER THAN WE EVER HAVE BEEN AND THAT’S THE MINDSET I HAVE TO CHANGE AMONGST A LOT OF PEOPLE AT THIS FOOTBALL CLUB.”
What worries me more than anything else about the future is what might – and very sadly probably will – happen to the club if and when someone as clearly ambitious and positive as the man who made this remark leaves. You only have to look as far as Southend United to see what can happen: League One just one season ago; the National League next. If it doesn’t happen, Derek Adams will go – sooner or later. Then what will we do? For me, the way the club has failed to welcome the post-Covid reality is a perfect example of this failure of any strategic, let alone long-term vision at the administrative heart of a club where its own Manager has suggested that `a lot of people’ have attitudes stuck in the past.
Let’s compare what Morecambe FC did when spectators were allowed into the Maz for the first time this season with what happened as far as their opponents in the League Two Play-Off Semi-Final, Tranmere Rovers were concerned. Tranmere rewarded their season ticket holders’ loyalty to the club by automatically giving them tickets for the game at Prenton Park – for no charge. At Morecambe, even season ticket holders had to pay to watch the second leg – and the prices went up. Tranmere then looked at their i-Follow data and offered Second Preference tickets to people who had loyally supported the club by paying to watch them during the season. Only then were spare tickets offered to the general public. This didn’t happen at Morecambe either – once Season Ticket holders had taken up their allocation, all the other remaining tickets were sold on a first-come; first-served basis. The club decided – when a number of tickets became available later in the week – to respond to general criticism of the way things were handled in the first place with this statement:
“We have decided the fairest way to allocate these is by a fan draw for the chance to purchase them.”
This makes things even worse in my view. Translated, it says in plain English
`We know we have not been careful enough in the original allocation but we’ve decided – even though the metrics are obviously now available – to continue with the original lottery and offer these things to anyone at all on the basis of pure chance instead of taking the trouble to contact those people who we know might actually have done something to deserve them.’
We don’t care! – where have we heard those words before? Talk about adding insult to injury: I thought about inviting my editors at D3D4 and Vital football to apply for these spare tickets: they would stand as good a chance as I would of getting one even though they support other clubs altogether and I have been writing stuff like this for a decade and more in an effort to keep the profile of the club as high as possible. If my editors were successful, I would then beg them to sell the ticket to me. But I didn’t: it should never have come to this in the first place.
Sour grapes? I don’t deny it: I am absolutely Guilty As Charged.
In my view, loyalty to the club should work both ways – and with a modicum of thought and forward planning, it could and should have done…
To be fair, though, the Shrimps Trust was quick to raise this issue with the Board. They insisted that Trust members and people who had regularly paid to follow the club on iFollow should have got second choice. So the policy was changed for the Wembley final. But this didn’t change the fact that as the usual freeloaders, hangers-on and Fair Weather supporters who have no regular loyalty to Morecambe at all were free to watch the Shrimps’ tremendous victory over Tranmere on aggregate at the Mazuma Stadium in person, many other loyal supporters – not just myself – were left out in the cold.
It got worse. As a result of the implementation of a policy that should have been in place for the previous game, I received an email from the club on the night of the match I had been unable to attend. It invited me to buy a Priority Ticket by clicking on a link in the email. Unfortunately, there was no facility in this email to go back in time – talk about rubbing it in: the air was blue in my house for hours afterwards. Why? Because for me, this was like local lad Jim Bowen telling losing competitors on Bullseye: “This is what you could have won”…
The link didn’t work in any case. Then another email arrived with a different link. This seemed to work: it granted me access to the Ticketmaster site. And that’s as far as I got. I tried again the next day. Repeatedly. I substituted the Ticket Reference I had been given for my email address – a suggestion other fans had said had worked for them. I put two zero digits in front of it as suggested by other people who were struggling to get tickets. I did various other things from trying to change my password to applying via alternative email links as well as contacting Ticketmaster’s `Box Office’. This advised me to either ring the Shop at Morecambe FC or physically call there. I did both after the phone wasn’t answered after about ten times of trying and discovered – when I arrived at the Maz – lots of other horror stories from fellow fans about not being able to access the ticket site; being timed-out at the crucial moment; having payments refused; being unable to buy child tickets and plenty of other things as well. But my sympathy receded somewhat to be honest when I realised that the only person among all the disgruntled fans I spoke to who hadn’t been at the Tranmere game the previous day was Yours Truly. Sorry – just bear with me a moment as I take my Blood Pressure pills…
I expect the club to blame Ticketmaster for this latest fiasco. They may be right: if this company holds the franchise for Wembley’s matches they may have a point. I must also thank Graham Fagan in the club shop who not only patiently took all my details but made sure I got the ticket I was after the next day. I thought he did a tremendous job in clearly very stressful circumstances so Well Done That Man. I must also thank Charlie Appleyard for taking the trouble of ringing me and offering to take me through the online process which apparently required three – not two – zeros to win the coconut. If only he had made that call a week earlier; I would have snapped his hand off instead of biting his head off, so furious did I remain about missing the Game of a Lifetime at the Maz only two days earlier…
My old pal Graham with the unclothed posterior also not only offered to get me a ticket but also chauffeured me all the way from his house to the game and back again. Thank you sir – I am truly in your debt. Have I missed anyone else out? Probably. But Rod (and I know you’ll be reading this) I’m still waiting for the promised photographs of the ground – despite repeated requests for them to your staff. I love you even more than ever mate but…
Right, that’s the administration bit and the rant finally tied-up. Let’s get back to what happened this season on the field, which is far more interesting…
Morecambe started their League Two Campaign with a win at eventual Champions Cheltenham – and beat them again in the reverse fixture later in the season. The style of a Derek Adams’ team soon became very apparent: play to your strengths; compensate for your weaknesses. It’s common knowledge that the Shrimps have the smallest playing budget of any EFL club. But as the Manager constantly reminds everyone who will listen: it’s not the size of any football squad which is important: it is its quality. Right from the start, Derek brought-in players who he knew could do a job for him either on loan or permanent contracts and dispensed with those for whom he could see no future role at the club. He then coached the skeleton of the team left behind by Saint Jim Bentley and transformed journeymen players such as John O’Sullivan and Cole Stockton into stars of the team who have consistently played at a level that probably surprises even themselves. He got the best out of talented individuals such as Aaron Wildig and Skipper Sam Lavelle whilst at the same time not being afraid to promote Academy players into the first-team squad on merit. Hence the sudden blossoming of Carlos Mendes-Gomes into possibly the most valuable player currently on the books.
Establishing a first-team squad is one thing. But getting it to play as a cohesive whole is another altogether. Probably the most consistent thing opposition managers have commented on over the season is the way Morecambe play as a unit and how they have each other’s backs. This really takes some doing – particularly with a small squad. But DA has done it. As we have noted, when he first arrived at the club, he said that he was going to sort the wheat from the chaff – and the services of any player not showing sufficient determination to improve would be dispensed with. Looking back to this time, he has made this assessment:
“I can’t be any prouder with the way the last 18 months have transpired. When I came into the club, the immediate aim was to stay in the league but this season was about results and focusing on a play-off push. To be fair to the players who have been here, they have put in a fantastic effort and deserve the highest praise. I think we are the best team in English football in terms of resources and what we have done with them. To have the lowest budget of the 92 clubs, to finish as high as we have, and to have the highest points total the club has had in the EFL, I think we need to have special recognition of that.”
Who could possibly dispute that? Derek Adams’ introduction of new blood in the shape of phenomenal midfield stopper Yann Songo’o and the powerhouse that is Toumani Diagouraga among others shows the Manager’s extraordinary skill in managing a small budget as effectively as possible. But having a collection of above-average players is one thing: getting them to play effectively as a unit – and to continue to do so in the face of defections; suspensions and injuries – is another altogether. Mr Adams has managed to do this as well and despite the loss of outstanding Burnley loanee Adam Phillips mid-way through the season and the temporary loss of Songo’o due to disciplinary reasons and Sully due to a serious injury, the team has continued to apply The Adams Method almost seamlessly throughout the season. The team missed-out on automatic promotion this season by one single point. But to recover from this massive disappointment and Go Again against Tranmere shows the depth of Derek Adam’s personal resolve and determination to inspire and motivate his men. To take this one step further and push Morecambe over the line against Newport County at Wembley has taken the club to a totally new dimension.
League One. The Third Division.
I make no apology for repeating something I wrote in an earlier match report about this achievement:
On a personal note, promotion to the Promised Land of the EFL seemed an impossible dream to people like me who stood on the cinder banks opposite the Main and North Stands at Christie Park in the 1960s and 1970s and watched my home town club being beaten by teams such as the utterly hopeless Goole Town in front of about two hundred people. At that time, the EFL was a Closed Shop. Even if it wasn’t though, the Shrimps’ chances of reaching it seemed as remote as my local club Carnforth Rangers’ currently are: non-existent. And yet – little by little; step-by-step and league by league, they made it. But who could have honestly predicted – even twenty years ago – that Morecambe would be a club in the Third Division of the Football League; EFL League One or whatever you want to call it at the end of their Centenary year?
This achievement is almost exclusively due to the efforts of one man. What a Manager. What a Man Manager. What a man. The upturn in Morecambe’s fortunes are all down to Derek Adams – and the members of the Morecambe Board smart enough to give him the job in the first place. So I’m going to finish this tribute to Morecambe’s extraordinary season with this little slogan:
ADAM MAY HAVE BEEN THE PROTOTYPE
BUT ADAMS IS THE FINISHED ARTICLE.
I’m going to finish this article too with best wishes to everybody who has loyally supported our club this season. Roll on the next campaign – in LEAGUE ONE!!!!!!!! See you all next season but for now – Roger and Out…
P.S. If you begin to suffer Withdrawal Symptoms from your football fix in the next few weeks, why not keep up with my series about the mystery wrapped in an enigma that is Scottish Football here on D3D4football?:
http://d3d4football.com/scottish-football-made-not-very-simple/
STOP PRESS
Subsequent to the above article and – very sadly – as predicted in it, Derek Adams left Morecambe Football club for pastures new the day after he had completed his Shrimps Project by lifting the League Two Play-Off Winners Trophy at Wembley. The club released this statement as soon as this development became public knowledge:
“Derek Adams has today left Morecambe Football Club to pursue an opportunity elsewhere.”
Co-Chairman Rod Taylor commented, “Derek did a fantastic job during his year and a half at Morecambe, not only guiding the club into League One, but also acting as a catalyst for positive change and encouraging everybody at the club to aim higher.
“For all of that we thank him, and we wish him all the best for the future. However, the club is now solely focused on moving decisively to appoint the right manager to build upon the huge opportunity that promotion creates for both the football club and the town.
“That manager will be tasked with delivering the club’s ambitious vision and strategy, and conversations have started already.”
Co-Chairman Graham Howse added, “We are absolutely confident that we can recruit the right manager to move the club forwards.
“Not only in terms of competing on the pitch, but also in progressing player development and ensuring that every part of the club’s football operations are run as effectively and efficiently as possible”
“This change and the timing of it presents a challenge, Morecambe Football Club will rise to that challenge and is relishing the test that awaits in League One.”
Chairman Rod’s words that Derek `acted as a catalyst for positive change and encouraging everybody at the club to aim higher’ are instructive. He and his Board had the very good sense to choose Derek in the first place. The club has apparently been inundated with applicants keen to carry on the new project in League One. Let’s hope they echo Graham Howse’s words and choose the right one again. In the meantime, let’s also hope that Derek Adams continues to be successful not only at Bradford – which is his next port of call – but in whatever he does in the future. This man has single-handedly performed a miracle at Morecambe Football Club. He is ambitious. He is charismatic. He will reach the top – and deservedly so. Good luck to him.
words Roger Fitton, D3D4 Morecambe writer