Just how stupid does Jason Whittingham think people are?

I’ve been writing for ages on these pages that Essex `businessman’ Jason Whittingham will not relinquish his grip on Morecambe Football Club. We’ve all yawned as we have read his many previous promises to the contrary. We have shaken our heads as we see though the increasingly desperate smoke-screens he has created about secret new `last-minute’ buyers. Even the names he has com- up with for some of these apparently imaginary people beggar belief on their own. One Swedish MP he seemingly chose at random might as well have been called Jonny Funfactory for all the credibility that the name he came up with actually possessed. He might just as well have announced that a Mr Blobby is moving back to Crinkly Bottom at Happy Mount Park and is about to take over at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium: this claim would be more believable than some of the other absolute rubbish he has dreamt-up so far.  (So don’t be surprised if this latter-day mountebank announces this in due course: imagining more believable scenarios to explain his own actions is clearly well beyond his intellectual and creative abilities.)

I’ve been able to identify the reasons for his lies about his real intentions for quite some time. One thing that we established early on was that our club has been acting as a Cash Cow for Jason’s Bond Group. He has borrowed money to keep his other failing business interests going – and then `lent’ a similar amount of money to the club at a higher rate of interest to keep his head above water. But with the Shrimps now effectively a financial basket case, this arrangement no longer works. So the incentive this gentleman has to keep his claws in our club has become less obvious. But he still won’t let go.

Why not?

Quite frankly, I don’t know. As I’ve written before, I’m not in the loop at Morecambe FC; I don’t have any insider knowledge or privileged information and I’m neither an accountant nor a lawyer either. However, quite a number of clues and commentaries on Morecambe’s sorry plight at the moment are pointing in various directions.

For example, Charles Street Commercial Investments Ltd has lent Jason significant funds and will no doubtbe taking steps to recover them. Elsewhere, it has been suggested that Jason is desperately attempting to hold-out for an offer which will probably never come but could wipe out all of his apparently massive debts if it did. It’s also possible that what we are witnessing is a mental breakdown in slow motion befalling a man who sees his own world falling apart around him and chooses to retreat from reality into a fantasy world instead. Or it could be that we are just witnessing the sheer bloody-mindedness of a particularly unpleasant individual who knows he is ruined but is determined to pull as many other people as he can down with him as he slowly sinks beneath the waves.

All of these analytical thoughts have one thing in common: they are rational. Each is trying to make sense of a situation which defies logic and rationality in the first place. Jason Whittingham’s actions have been increasingly erratic and frankly bonkers as the crisis which he has created at Morecambe FC grows ever deeper. So let’s have a little look at what has happened in the time that has passed since my last update.

First of all, Panjab Warriors re-stated their current position in a joint statement with local solicitors Wright & Lord and Morecambe MP Lizzi Collinge on July 29^th 2025:

The Shrimps Trust AGM.

Two days after this – on Thursday, 31^st July 2025 – the Shrimps Trust held its latest Annual General Meeting at the Strathmore hotel on Morecambe’s promenade.

It’s a beautiful location and the sun was slowly setting over the distant Langdales on the other side of Morecambe Bay once it was all over. This has happened for more years than anyone can remember. It will continue to happen right into a future nobody can foresee. But as I looked towards the north across our own little inlet from the north Atlantic, I felt a lump in my throat. This was despite the fact that the meeting – which could have had the atmosphere of a Wake – was actually very positive. There had been a realistic analysis of the current stalemate and talk of a new iteration of Morecambe FC to start the season in the North West Counties League next year.

Yet the stark reality of what is happening right now really hit home as I stood there and watched the mountains darken far across the water. It hit me right between the eyes that the sun might be setting on all we know as Morecambe Football Club as well. For me – and for so many other Morecambe fans – the club has been something constant in our lives – just like the sun setting over the Bay is. It still could be – a miracle last-minute deal could yet preserve what little is left of it to compete in the National League this season. As the AGM had just suggested, AFC Morecambe or whatever a new club might be called will almost certainly be created if our current club goes under altogether. But I felt both sad – and very angry – as I walked along the prom in the twilight that things have got to the stage they have – and all because of one shifty individual’s appalling selfishness. It’s not fair; it’s not right and it shouldn’t be allowed.

But sadly, that’s life isn’t it?

I must say though – on a far more positive note – what a contrast the AGM was to the last event I attended in a licensed premises to see a Shrimps Trust panel front-up to its members. This was at the Exchange pub just over two years ago. It was an absolute shambles from beginning to end; no disabled access to a pretty pokey upstairs room; no proper recording equipment – even though the event was supposed to be broadcast live; no Agenda and not even an order of business of any sort. It was appalling.

The latest AGM was the diametric opposite: disabled access on the ground floor of a well-lit large room; a slick, professional and at times very funny presentation from a Board who came across as professionals who not only take a pride in what they do as amateur volunteers but excel at it. A screen which worked. An Agenda. An Order of Business. Even the booklet they produced was exceptionally good: beautifully put-together; well-written and informative using top quality paper.

So well done to them and well done particularly to retiring Chair Tarnia Elsworth: she has done a fantastic job in transforming this organisation from top to bottom but has also left it in more than capable hands.

So one very positive thing to emerge from the utter chaos of recent times is that – whatever happens to our beloved club in the next few weeks and months – at least one part of it is in excellent shape.

The political assault against the Bond Group was continued on August 1^st by an open letter to Jason Whittingham by the Labour government’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Wigan MP Lisa Nandy:

What has been his response?

Same as ever. Nothing at all initially.

That’s his established modus operandi.  I hoped on these pages not long ago that – as the interest of the national and then the international media has been focused on the plight of our club – that Jason would be relentlessly doorstepped by Sky; the BBC; ITV and national radio channels until he could be forced out into the open and answer – face-to-face – the questions that a lot of them would like to ask him.  But again, the instinct of this Gollum-like creature is to seek the shadows and he remains skulking away in them in his house in Buckhurst Hill, hiding from the light and refusing to communicate with anybody. (I wonder if he calls our club “My Precious”? – it’s made a precious amount of money for this gentleman in the past, after all…)

Meanwhile, other fans have made their support of our club obvious in various ways that warm the cockles and prove that despite the occasional rotten apple, the world has lots of good, warm-hearted people in it.

Torquay United made an early declaration of support for our club and offered to do anything they could to help.

Bury – who have been down exactly the same road as we have ourselves thanks to another owner who was deemed a `Fit and Proper Person’ by the utterly useless and incompetent EFL – offered free entry to Morecambe fans at their opening game of the season at Gigg Lane last Saturday. On a day that most of us would have been in Boston to watch the Shrimps play United, we were warmly welcomed to Bury.

This is Raul.

He is a Bury fan and he is wearing one of their shirts. But the bucket he is holding was to attract donations for the Shrimps Trust fighting fund to keep our club alive. God bless him: god bless all the many good people who have offered support in our hour of need.

Not all these people live in Bury. Beyond Radio tells us:

“On August 8, a group of Sikh MPs, Gurinder Singh Josan, Jas Athwal, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Sonia Kumar, Baggy Shanker, Jeevun Sandher, Kirith Enthistle and Warinder Juss released a statement thanking the Prime Minister and Lizzi Collinge for “their continued leadership and support in raising the urgent situation at Morecambe Football Club”. ”We stand in full support of the people of Morecambe, the club’s dedicated fan base, and the prospective owners Panjab Warriors, whose actions thus far have shown them to be the right custodians for the future,” said their letter.”

So that takes us Full-Circle back to where we started and the Dark Side of humanity represented by Jason Whittingham and his ilk. Just when you thought he couldn’t invent any more nonsense, he excelled himself on August 11^th 2025 with this little gem, published on the club’s official website:

“We continue to work with a number of potential buyers to secure the future of Morecambe Football Club, all of whom are aware of the urgency of the Club’s position and fully expect this process to complete this week.

There has seen a flurry of interest over the last month, and each potential Buyer has been given the required information and support in order to finalise their intention and plans toward the Club and the Community.

This includes Panjab Warriors who, unfortunately, continue to issue statements that bear no relevance to actual events, are unhelpful and quite frankly bemusing. That said we have agreed to a Mediation meeting with Panjab, for this Wednesday, and await them confirming final details. Despite Panjab’s recent comments it was Bond Group that formally invited Panjab to Mediation but received no response from them.

Those not directly involved in this process choose to make uninformed statements for their own self-promotion, including Members of Parliament. None of these people have made any effort to contact Bond Group in order to discuss the situation directly but instead use their platforms to spread inaccurate information which is irresponsible and has affected the sale process.

Key stakeholders of the club are regularly updated, as we along with our Advisory team engage with Buyers and remain fully supportive of the process.

We will be appointing an Interim Board imminently to facilitate the final stages of the sale process.

More to follow.

Jason Whittingham,
Bond Group Investments LTD”

As ever, there is no detail to add any substance to any of this latest load of waffle. Who are the unspecified `potential buyers’? Who are the new Board Members going to be and how have they been appointed? What on earth does this bit of utter drivel mean?:

“Those not directly involved in this process choose to make uninformed statements for their own self-promotion, including Members of Parliament. None of these people have made any effort to contact Bond Group in order to discuss the situation directly.”

We’ve all seen the letters that Lizzi Collinge and Lisa Nandy have sent to this idiot. If these aren’t `efforts to contact the Bond Group’, what are they? Can he not actually read? Everybody – from the Shrimps Trust to the BBC; from our local MP to Sky TV – has been met with the same response from this man when they have tried `to discuss the situation directly’: a wall of silence.

So to suggest that `Key stakeholders of the club are regularly updated ‘ is an outright lie and you suspect that his illusory `Advisory team’ does not exist either. But there I go again – making the mistake of responding rationally to a proven liar and fantasist. This is what the Shrimps Trust has made of this latest nonsense:

Strong words indeed which needed to be said. The hope of the departing Chair of the Shrimps Trust was that the awful man who holds all the cards will sell the club at the very last moment it is still possible to do so. She predicted that he will leave it to literally the very last minute as Brinksmanship is a game he likes to play. But even if she is right – and I think I’m right in characterising Tarnia’s prediction as just a hope, not an expectation – where will that leave us?

Our better players are leaving – at least Jamie Stott, Tom White, Harry Burgoyne and Harvey Macadam have already departed (and who can blame them?) and even if the club is sold, Derek Adams is going to be faced with a situation even worse than last season. Then, he was forced into a position where he could only sign other lesser club’s rejects because the season was upon him by the time he received the All Clear to spend any money. This time, the season will be well and truly already underway: Morecambe currently sit sixteenth with just one game played. The only good news would be that Derek is still here – god bless him – and that even a third relegation in four years would put the club in a better position – National League North – than we would be if we started all over again at the very bottom of the English Football Pyramid next year. Not much to look forward to, some people might suggest. But worse things could – and very well might – still happen…

One date to keep a look out for is for the lovely Jason’s appearance at the High Court in London: an appointment even someone as camera-shy as Mr Whittingham seems to be would be well advised not to ignore. The Business Desk explains:

“High Court action to force Jason Whittingham’s Bond Group to sell its shares in Morecambe FC has been instigated by a group of the club’s shareholders.

Through Morecambe law firm, Wright and Lord Solicitors, they issued an ultimatum to Bond Group (on July 24) to sell up within 48 hours or face legal action, via a ‘minority shareholder’ action.

Regarding possible High Court Action, the Morecambe law firm’s statement, posted on facebook, said: “Wright & Lord Solicitors have obtained a barrister’s opinion on the merit of taking a ‘minority shareholder’ action against Bond Group Investments Limited and Mr Jason Whittingham under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006.

“On the strength of that advice, a group of minority shareholders has quickly formed to back the application.

“The process will effectively be a petition to the High Court seeking an order that independent directors are appointed, the company’s affairs are overseen, and seeking an order of the High Court that a sale of Bond Group shares takes place.”

It added: “A letter of claim has been sent to Bond Group Investments Limited and Mr Whittingham today setting out the action which we are instructed to commence if the sale is not completed within 48 hours.”

The town’s MP, Lizzi Collinge, has backed the move, saying: “Well done to minority shareholders for taking action, I’ll back them all the way.”

I can’t find a date for this hearing but I am led to believe is should be imminently and at any case before the key meeting of the National League scheduled for August 20^th, when the decision to expel our club could be taken. So let’s all keep our fingers crossed and watch this space…