NATIONWIDE NATIONAL LEAGUE. BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY, AUGUST 25th 2025.

Reality Check for lacklustre Shrimps at Aldershot.

Morecambe made the long journey (precisely 271 miles one-way) from home to Aldershot in Hampshire today for their second National League game of the season and their first one away from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium.

The Shrimps had added one more player to the books since the last time they played, just two days ago: Miguel Azeez – or, to give him his full name, Miguel Adedayo Azeez Beloso.

The 22-year-old former Arsenal scholar has played on-loan for several clubs, home and abroad including Wigan Athletic and Portsmouth. He has also featured in the England set-up at Under-16s to Under-21 level as a central midfielder. New Morecambe Manager Ashvir Singh Johal said about him:

“I’m really happy that Miguel decided to join us, there was interest from clubs all over europe, competing in high leagues. Once we presented the project to him, and what we want to achieve here, he turned down those offers to join us. It’s a true testament to what we’re trying to build here.”

But to return to today, this is what I wrote about the Shots in the guide to the National League which you can find elsewhere on this site:

The Recreation Ground can be found 271 miles south of Morecambe’s Mazuma Mobile Stadium in Hampshire, just over forty miles south-west of London.

The original Shots were founded in 1926 and were a Football League club from 1932 until they went bust as a member of the old Fourth Division during the 1991-2 season. They had to resign in March 1992 as a long-term financial crisis finally totally undermined the club’s viability. In doing so, they were the first Football League club to fail during a season since the original Accrington Stanley did so in 1966. Just as happened then, all of Aldershot’s results were scrubbed from the record – regardless of how the sudden loss of points affected the teams unlucky to have actually played against them and won or drawn – until the very moment at which they eventually failed altogether.

The current incarnation of the Shots was founded in the spring of 1992 and still play at the same venue as the original club. The new Shots have emulated Accrington and risen from the ashes (hence the Phoenix pictured on the club’s badge) to fight their way back through the lowest tier of the Football Pyramid in Britain to re-establish themselves as a senior club once more.

In the 2007/2008 season, they actually won a place back in the EFL but only lasted for five seasons despite reaching the League Two Play-Offs in 2010. Then they experienced financial trouble anew and fell out of the League again before entering Administration in May 2013.

The Shots reached the National League Play-Offs for the first time in 2017 and did so again – unsuccessfully once more – just twelve months later. Only a year after this, though, they were technically relegated to the National League South but were saved when Gateshead were expelled in their place for financial irregularities. This year, they made history for the club when they played at Wembley for the first (and only) time ever, winning the FA Trophy with a three-nil victory over Spennymoor Town. As far as the National League is concerned, last season they finished in sixteenth position.

Morecambe have met Aldershot ten times in the past, all in League Two. The Shots have won three of these; the Shrimps five. Chris Blackburn – centre-back in Morecambe’s historic win over Exeter City in the Conference Play-Off Final in 2006 – immediately left for an unsuccessful stint in Hampshire and another player who wore both clubs’ colours was Manny Panther – last seen in a Morecambe shirt during the 2009-10 season.

Morecambe will travel to the Recreation Ground on Monday, 25^th August 2025. Aldershot Town will be visiting the Mazuma Mobile Stadium for the first time in twelve years on Saturday, 28^th March 2026.

Let’s move on now…

Aldershot’s start to the season this time around was more or less disastrous: they lost all three of their opening matches and found themselves in the relegation positions at the bottom of the National League table last Saturday at 1500 hours.

But by the evening, they had kick-started their campaign with an astonishing victory at Solihull Moors, where they thrashed the home team by five goals to one.

So the Shots started this afternoon’s game on a bit of a high.

High – but only one place higher in the league table (on alphabetical order only) than today’s visitors, who have played just one game – as opposed to four by them – so far.

New Morecambe Manager Ash’s collection of newly-assembled recruits managed to overcome Altrincham 2-1 last Saturday by the coast in north Lancashire.

This was a really emotional start to a season which looked might never dawn for the troubled club just eight short days ago.

One of Mr Johal’s biggest worries today will have been the physical state of his players – who, without any pre-season training – were dropping like flies on the pitch just two days ago. I’ve not been able to discover what he told the media prior to the game and I don’t know what Opposite Number Aldershot boss Tommy Widdrington said about it either.

However, Aldershot’s official website hosts an extraordinarily detailed and very well-written account of today’s visitors and is well worth a read on its own, even if they did spell our Manager’s name incorrectly:

MATCH PREVIEW: Morecambe (H)

The weather was positively balmy in tropical north Hampshire as the game kicked-off and water breaks had to be taken during the match to keep the players properly hydrated.

The home team had the best of things in the opening period and the always dangerous Josh Barrett’s cross to the far post after eight minutes was headed narrowly wide by Kwame Thomas. Gwion Edwards looked lively from the off for the visitors and after nine minutes, took a shot which home keeper Marcus Dewhurst could only parry into the path of Paul Lewis in a good position centrally. His effort beat Dewhurst but was brilliantly blocked and then cleared off the goal-line by Archy Taylor. From the re-start, Tristan Abrahams ended-up with the ball at his feet and forced visiting goalkeeper Archie Mair into a really good stop.  Then the Shots had an even better chance after a quarter of an hour. Abrahams seemed to be clear of the Shrimps’ defence only for Ben Tollitt to somehow manage to block his eventual effort on goal. Nine minutes later, Archie was in action again. He did really well to deny the ever-threatening Abrahams who was clean through following a superb pass from Jed Meerholz and only had him to beat.

Thomas came close again with a header which was blocked and then a shot into the side netting from the rebound with half an hour played. Then there was strong shout for a penalty in the 33^rd minute as a shot from Barrett just might have been blocked by a Morecambe hand (probably that of Paul Lewis) – but Referee Ben Atkinson gave nothing.

At the other end, former Shot Harrison Panayiotou got the ball in the net after 38 minutes when the ball seemed to bounce towards him after a tackle by the Shots’ Dejan Tetek but the Ref ruled him to be in an off-side position. (Can you be off-side if the opposition play the ball to you?) Archie then excelled again in the 44^th minute, doing brilliantly once more to deny another Barratt effort despite initially spilling the ball. But half time arrived with Morecambe pretty well under the cosh and offering little threat themselves going forward.

The home team had the first couple of chances of the second half which were both blocked by the visiting defence. But the Shots took the lead after 53 minutes after a free-kick was finally headed into the middle by Will Nightingale. As the ball looped towards him, Archie seemed to be the favourite to take it. But Aldershot central defender James Clarridge managed to get some sort of contact on the ball. It rolled agonisingly between a possibly unsighted Mair’s legs and then trickled over the line. The goalkeeper could have done a lot better but his defence also looked a bit disorganised around him and probably should have cleared it.

Taylor then got on the end of substitute Hady Ghandour’s half-cleared cross just seven minutes later and fairly walloped the ball home to double the home team’s advantage.

Edwards again looked lively as he weaved his way through the Shots’ defence with 73 minutes on the clock and forced home stopper Dewhurst into a really good save at the expense of a corner. Aldershot struggled to clear this but finally managed to get it away from their goal-line with a decisive clearance by Nightingale. But they scored again after 79 minutes when Josh Barrett wriggled his way through a Shrimps’ defence at sixes and sevens and slotted the ball home from six yards out. Just to rub it in, they put the icing on the cake with a superb fourth goal in the eighty-second minute. This time, Serbian striker Tetek took a tremendous shot from the edge of the box which swerved past a helpless Mair; struck the angle of post and crossbar and then hit the back station and came straight out again. Sadly, though, it had gone deep into Archie’s net before bouncing back into play.

It could have been worse. In the 87^th minute, sub Kiban Rai did well to cut the ball back to fellow replacement Keane Anderson on the edge of the box. But he was denied by another superb save by Agile Archie to keep the score down.

So it was a bit of a reality check for Ashvir’s new team this afternoon. It’s a long, tiring coach journey all the way to Aldershot. The players are still getting to know each other and – in the absence of any opportunity to train since Saturday’s game – many of them are still some way off full – let alone match – fitness. On the day, the searing heat didn’t help either. But it’s the same for both sides and the Shots won easily and fair and square today.

And – carrying on the theme of away Match Reports about Morecambe games – was the official Shots’ version of what had just happened as biased and wholly unbalanced as the one that appeared on Altrincham’s official website last Saturday?

(This was so bad, even their own supporters have complained about it. On their fans’ forum – altyfans.co.uk – there are remarks like these:

“The most embarrassing part of today is the write up on the official site.”

Someone else wrote:

“Apparently we “outplayed” them and were worthy of a “more deserving outcome.” Nowhere does it actually say that we can’t pass, defend or score or that we were s*** which is what we could all see.”)

To answer the question about Aldershot’s coverage: it was absolutely fair – and very nicely written into the bargain.

As the Morecambe Manager said after the victory against Altrincham: you can’t win them all; football doesn’t work like that. I don’t know what Ash had to say once the game had finished this afternoon either because the usual sources – Morecambe FC on X; BBC Radio Lancashire Sport X and the club’s website – hadn’t posted anything by half past seven in the evening. If they do, I will update this.

For Aldershot, this result marked a real recovery in their form over the Bank Holiday weekend: six points from two games and nine goals scored into the bargain. They found themselves in eleventh position in the National League table this evening. Morecambe, meanwhile, slipped to twentieth, just on the edge of the relegation zone but with three games fewer played than almost every other team in the League.

Do we care? With everything that has happened in the last little while – not really; I’m sure I’m far from being alone in having to pinch myself every time it occurs to me that we actually still exist at all…

Aldershot: 1 Marcus Dewhurst; 7 Cameron Hargreaves (C); 9 Kwame Thomas (18 Kiban Rai 73’); 10 Josh Barrett (Y) (24 Maxwell Mullins 84’) 14 Jed Meerholz; 19 Ryan Hill (Y) (17 James Henry 84’); 25 Will Nightingale; 28 Archy Taylor; 30 Tristan Abrahams (Y) (23 Hady Ghandour 58’); 32 James Clarridge; 34 Dejan Tetek (12 Keane Anderson 82’).

Subs not used: 16 Pat Nash; 38 Noah Watson.

Morecambe: 1 Archie Mair; 3 Raheem Conte; 6 Ludwig Francillette; 7 Gwion Edwards; 9  Harrison Panayiotou; 10 Jake Cain; 17 Paul Lewis (Y) (2 Luke Hendrie 57’); 18 Ben Tollitt (Y) (15 Ben Williams 68’); 19 Ma’kel Bogle-Campbell (30 Oscar Wright 96’); 23 Daniel Ogwuru (26 Lennon Dobson 96’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C).

Subs not used: 25 Alfie Scales, 31 Corey Goodyear.

Ref: Ben Atkinson.

Att: 2,371 (167 from Morecambe.)