An Open Letter to the Shrimps Trust.

As you can see, there is going to be a Shrimps’ Trust meeting at the old Imperial pub in the West End of Morecambe on Thursday, 18^th May 2023 – tomorrow evening.

I’ve been a member of the Shrimps’ Trust for some time but – as with most people – my involvement so far has stretched no further than being lucky enough to win one of their prize draws a few years ago.

Morecambe Football Club is facing an unprecedented crisis at the moment following relegation from League One and an impasse over the ownership of the club itself. It’s clearly important to all supporters of the Shrimps to have some sort of input into what is going on off the field – or at least some sort of insight into the actual situation as it exists currently. I’d thus like to put in my own penny’s worth as to what I personally think might be the most relevant questions to be considered on Thursday night. I don’t claim to be omnipotent and I invite everybody who reads this to add their own ideas or – if you have the answers to the questions I am about to pose – share them with us in advance of the meeting.

I’m sure a lot of us fear that – at an Open Meeting where everybody can raise issues which they consider to be important – we could easily lose sight of the wood for the trees. This has already happened to some extent. Active debates have taken place on both the Facebook Morecambe Fans’ page as well as Shrimpsvoices – the supporters’ forum – about where this meeting should be held.

The Trust leadership has insisted that advice it has received from elsewhere has driven its decision that it should be held at a neutral venue. This is so that the owners of Morecambe FC don’t benefit from any income over the bar if the event was to be held on club premises. Club Co-Chairman Rod Taylor, however, has taken the risk of publicly disagreeing. He has invited everyone to the Mazuma Stadium, assuring one and all that no money made on the night will find its way to the Bond Group but will stay in the club’s coffers exclusively to pay day-to-day expenses.

This is democracy in action, isn’t it? (says he cynically with his crusty old PhD in Politics mortar board on): relatively trivial matters already detracting from the whole purpose of the meeting in the first place – as Rome burns in the background.

For me, the venue is an irrelevance. The important thing is that the meeting is being held at all and I think we should thank the Trust for that in itself. But, in the absence of any Agenda, I think it’s important to suggest at least some topics which I at least hope might be addressed on Thursday night or even beforehand on these pages.

I took the liberty of sending a draft of this article to the Shrimps Trust on Tuesday at lunchtime. Obviously – with such a short time for them to consider it – I didn’t expect a detailed response. But I really appreciate the fact that they have answered promptly and I append what they have said – not as the final say on any of the matters raised – but at least as a basis for further discussion.

The first question I personally wanted to raise is:

1) What is the actual situation at the club at this moment in time – as far as anyone actually knows?

We know that the Bond Group technically own the club. But what does this actually mean?  (The Trust have replied: “Bond Group Investments Limited continue to own the majority of the share capital of the Football Club. They ultimately appoint the Board of Directors (of Bond Group Investments) to run the company on their behalf.”)

Unless I have misunderstood him, Rod Taylor seems to have said that an entity called The Christie Trust actually own the stadium. So:

2) What is the Christie Trust and what does it actually do?

This is the Trust’s reply: “There is no change in the position of the JB Christie Trust which continues to protect the land on which the football stadium stands. Further details are available on a prominent article on our website.”

You can read this here:

JB Christie Trust

Moving on,

3) How much money are the current owners holding out for in order to relinquish their grip on our club?

The Trust commented: “We are not party to any such information.”

4) Has the Shrimps Trust any plan to raise funds which could meet this valuation of Morecambe FC?

Given that they have no information about what might be involved, the Trust’s reply to this question is clearly conditional. It is as follows: “The Trust is not in a position to acquire any significant shareholding in the Club, and this position is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.”

5) Is the Shrimps Trust aware of any pressure they can bring to bear on Bond Group to

1. Reduce its valuation of the club at a time when its worth has clearly been severely reduced by relegation from League One?
2. Put any kind of pressure on Bond Group to respect a deadline to sell?

(My own – and many other peoples’ fear – is that the current owners would rather see the club expelled from the EFL altogether than accept a financial offer which would guarantee its future as a football club which doesn’t meet its valuation. This is an insane position for anyone to take: if the club goes bust, it won’t be worth anything and the Bond Group will make no money at all out of it. But sanity doesn’t seem to have had much to do with our esteemed owners’ activities as far as doomed Worcester Warriors’ fate was concerned last season – they don’t seem to care a jot about the knock-on effects that their often hare-brained money-making schemes have as far as anyone else is concerned.)

The Trust’s very laudable response to both of the above questions is: “The Trust has no legal power to force Bond Group into any decision and seeks only to unite supporters to act as a common voice as a key stakeholder of the Football Club.”

6) To its considerable credit, the Trust has written an open letter to potential buyer Sarbjot Johal asking him to clarify issues which have held-up any buy-out of the club from the Bond Group. So

1. Has he replied?
2. Is there any update which the Shrimps Trust can give us as to the status of this gentleman or the state of his attempt to take the club over at this moment in time?

This is the Trust’s reply: “We have had no response from Sarbjot and there is no further update following our letter.”

7) Given the uncertainty about the future of the club, what advice does the Trust have about buying Season Tickets for next season – and why?

To be honest, I only thought of this question after I had sent the draft of this article to the Shrimps Trust. I thus don’t know what their advice is but this is something they might want to address in the interim or perhaps talk about on Thursday evening. I know that many people have already invested in a Season Ticket for the upcoming League Two campaign. Equally, though, many others are put-off by the thought that buying a Season Ticket is effectively to invest in Bond Group and thus unattractive in itself. Others worry that if these people allow our club to go to the wall, they will effectively lose the money they have spent on a Season Ticket as well.

I’ve also belatedly thought of another question:

8) Is there a deadline which the club must meet to register basic things such as a full playing squad or thus face expulsion from the EFL? If so – when is it?

So there we have it – eight basic questions which could be explored on Thursday night or could serve as a way to focus minds on the actual predicament of the club currently – as opposed to irrelevancies such as parking at the stadium; what it should be called – or the price of pies, for instance.

If you have other questions which you think are relevant – don’t be shy: add them here. If you have answers – again – don’t keep them to yourselves.

Collectively, we may not be able to do anything to affect the fate of our club. But I am particularly struck by the Trusts’ commitment to seek `only to unite supporters to act as a common voice as a key stakeholder of the Football Club’. Amen to that. I also want to make it clear – and these are my own personal views – that I think the focus of our anger and actions should be exclusively The Bond Group. I personally don’t doubt for one moment the commitment of Rod Taylor and the overwhelming majority of other members of the existing Morecambe Board to remedy the current crisis in the best interest of the club – and all of us.

Remember: “A House Divided Will Not Stand”.

Let’s all move forward together. Thursday’s meeting is open to everyone who wants to attend. You don’t have to be a member of the Trust. My namesake – Keith Fitton of Shrimpsvoices – has received assurances that the venue is wheelchair-friendly. So if you are disabled, please don’t be put off attending. If you aren’t already a member of the Shrimps Trust, I hope you will seriously consider joining: there is undoubted strength in numbers in all campaigns, whatever they are.