ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. SATURDAY, 30th AUGUST 2025.

Woking are Working: Morecambe aren’t (yet…)

First of all – let’s have a latest update on the ever-expanding Morecambe squad.

22-year-old full-back Terrell Agyemang was signed just as Patrick Noubissie was announced as the club’s new Head of Recruitment.

Manager Ashvir Singh Johal said of his latest signing, who will wear the Number Four on his shirt:

“Terrell is someone I have known about for a long time when he was a young player at Charlton. He was bought by Manchester City was part of the best under 21 team in the country, as they won the Premier League 2 title during his time there. Terrell then joined Middlesborough and had experience in the first team. He’s also got experience in the National League and in Scotland. He is someone who we have identified will fit the environment we are trying to create. First and foremost, he is a very hard worker; he has a fantastic personality. He is going to be a great fit for the style of play so we’re looking forward to seeing how he fits into this team this season.”

However, the reality of Morecambe’s reduced circumstances as an ex-EFL club were underlined today by the visit of a proper tiddler of a club which they have never faced before. Instead of mighty Sunderland; Derby County; Sheffield Wednesday or Ipswich walking into the changing rooms at the Mazuma Mobile today, the visitors were Woking. This is what I wrote about the small-town Surrey club in my guide to the National League which I uploaded on this site earlier this season:

Woking is a rather agreeable commuter town which can be found in Surrey, just over 30 miles to the south west of central London and 258 miles from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium in Morecambe. The football club was founded in 1889 and Woking initially joined the local West Surrey League. Like our own club, the football version of Woking initially played at the town’s cricket club. They moved to Pembroke Road during 1907 – only to struggle. But – footballing folklore tells us – they owe their initial salvation to a club most Morecambe supporters (entirely due to the appalling antics of a now-departed but extremely toxic Manager) detest. Yes, it’s Horwich’s least favoured club: a.k.a. Bolton Wanderers. Having battled through five qualifying rounds of the FA Cup way back in 1908, Woking were drawn against these giants of the game at Burnden Park in the First Round Proper. The Trotters hammered them five-nil but were so impressed by the non-league club that they agreed to play a friendly match against them in Woking. The gate receipts from this sold-out game alone ensured that the Cards (a nickname which came about because of the colours they have always worn: Cardinal Red) remained solvent.

As amateurs, they joined the Isthmian League in 1911and remained in various versions of it right up until 1992, when they won it for only the second time. (The first was in 1987: quite a long time to wait for their long-suffering supporters…) The 1992 win saw them promoted to the Football Conference, from which they were relegated into the Football Conference South in 2009 only to bounce back again during 2013. They were relegated again from the re-named National League for a single season in 2018 but have managed to maintain their position in the fifth level of the English football pyramid ever since. Last season, they finished fifteenth in the National League.

Woking moved to their present stadium during 1922. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain when we visit because – just like at Forest Green Rovers – away supporters get wet. (Even though the precipitation is presumably Vegan and probably organic as well at the New Lawn…) But the Laithwaite Community Stadium boasts a feature which a lot of (maybe all) football clubs should adopt: a small portion of the stadium known as Moaners’ Corner. (Just think: we could abolish the Morecambe Fans’ Forums altogether and just use that instead…)

In terms of Cup competitions, Woking won the now defunct FA Amateur Cup in 1958 at Wembley, beating Ilford 3-0 in front of no less than 71,000 spectators. They also share the very impressive distinction with the defunct Scarborough and extant Telford United of having won the FA Trophy more times than any other club: three. They have never lost a Trophy final and beat Runcorn 2-1 in1994; Kidderminster Harriers by the same score just a year later and Dagenham & Redbridge 1-0 in 1997.

Morecambe and Woking have met at this level of football on previous occasions: just over twenty years ago when they were both members of the Football Conference. Finding details of these games has been like pulling teeth but it would seem that the teams met four times and Morecambe lost none of them and won three; the only two I can find any hard facts about being a 2-1 Shrimps‘ victory 2-1 at Christie Park in September 2004 followed by a 2-0 win at the same venue in March 2007, with a brace from Matty Blinkhorn.

Justin Jackson is one of a couple of men who have played for both sides; Marcus Dackers is another. 

Woking will travel to Morecambe on Saturday, 30^th August 2025. Morecambe will then make the reverse journey on Saturday, 11^th April 2026.

The visitors have endured a fairly disastrous start to this season. Until last Saturday’s home one-one draw at York City, they hadn’t picked up a single point from any of their previous four matches. They arrived today in twenty-third spot in the National League table, just a single place above pointless Truro City at the very bottom of the pack.

Woking’s Manager is Neal Ardley (who has been around so long, I remember using a very niche joke about his namesake Neil and a Kaleidoscope of Rainbows LP which probably only I own when he was the AFC Wimbledon Manager over ten years ago.) I was hoping to tell you  what Neal had to say prior to the game but the Club’s website and X feed tell us nothing – and neither does BBC Radio Sussex.

So shall we break all the rules and have a musical interlude instead? Ok then. Neil Ardley said about his Kaleidoscope of Rainbows:

“All the music derives ultimately from the (Balinese) Pelog scale and consists of the notes C#, D, E, G# and A.”

But is this really a Pelog scale – or just A (as in A Major) Myxolydian Mode given that a key bass line in it has a drone of open E; followed by a kaleidoscope of descending notes starting on E two octaves higher; D; C#,A; G# and then repeated an octave lower? This is something that has puzzled me ever since I saw this piece performed live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 20^th October 1975…

I apologise. When you read stuff like this, you just know that there’s not a lot more to say, don’t you? So whilst you think about Modes and Pelogs, let’s see what Ashvir Singh Johal said prior to today’s game:

“I don’t think there is a normal game now this season. I think – because of the situation – I think this year is about making sure we stay in the league, making sure we try and win every game; making sure we have a clear process on how to win that game; make sure the players understand what is expected of them. I’m really hopeful that this year we can make this an exciting place for all the staff and the players to be, not just the footballing staff but all the staff around the club.” 

There’s really not a lot more to say after this bold statement, in truth: except that it didn’t happen today.

The rain started to fall just before kick-off and continued, on and off, throughout the game.

Probably most Shrimps’ fans would be primarily interested in what formation Ash would play today and – given all the new faces at the club – which players he would select this afternoon.

They played 4-3-3, with Terrell Agyemang, Alie Sesay and Captain Yann Songo’o at the back initially.

I didn’t think Terrell covered himself in glory this afternoon, personally.

In the early stages, ex-Arsenal Miguel Azeez looked every bit the player with a Premiership pedigree: he passed the ball well and seemed to exude class in the centre of the midfield.

But it didn’t last. Up front, newbie Joe Nuttall failed to impress and was lucky, in my view, not to be booked when he made a pathetic dive in the area after 54 minutes. Having got beyond visiting goalkeeper Tom Norcott, he decided to fall over. His energies might have been better spent trying to chase and convert the loose ball.

But that was the nearest Morecambe came to scoring all afternoon. Apart from that, I can only remember a Songo’o header from an Edwards cross which went wide in the first half coming anywhere near the target. Norcott will rarely have an easier day.

Morecambe obviously aren’t fit; they played the ball backwards and forwards across the back far too often and once they got into the opposition’s half, they looked like fish out of water because there was clearly no understanding whatsoever on the field as what to do next.

Ben Tollitt again impressed and Gwion Edwards did his best but overall, the Shrimps looked and played like a bunch of strangers today who were struggling physically to simply get through ninety minutes of intensive exercise.

Woking, by contrast, looked fit and played like a team. They have some good individuals: feisty Tariq Hings was lucky not to be booked on at least a couple of occasions but when he wasn’t niggling at Edwards in particular, he posed a problem for the home team all afternoon.

Aiden O’Brien also did a really good job as an old-fashioned centre forward trying to create chances for his team-mates.

Overall, though, the visitors clearly had a Game Plan. I suspect that was to take the match to Morecambe whenever possible and simply wait for the home side to tire.

If so, it worked perfectly.

Jamie Andrews scored for them after 54 minutes after O’Brien’s initial effort had been saved by home keeper Archie Mair but then bounced into his path. And right at the end, in injury time, the visitors hit the hosts with a real sucker-punch when they broke quickly from a Morecambe corner, raced up the pitch with a duo leading the counter-attack and then scored after Archie did really well to deny Josh Usude only for Sam Ashford to sweep the rebound home.

It was nothing less than a club which had not won previously this season deserved.

Although young Archie in the home goal had Shrimps fans’ hearts in their mouths at times with his potentially Kamikaze determination to play like an outfield player with the ball at his feet, he really earned his corn this afternoon. He made a succession of really good saves – from Harry Beautyman and an Andrews’ header in the first half – before being overworked in the second half as well.

But Morecambe lost badly this afternoon.

Some of our number booed the team off even at half time when the scores were still level.

What’s that all about?

And a lot more joined in at the end.

Some people have very short memories. Two weeks ago, these individuals wouldn’t have had a club to deride.

What’s the matter with them? – jeering at your own players is never going to motivate them, is it?

So why do it?…

But I’m glad to say that considerably more Morecambe supporters stood and applauded their beaten team after the game had finished.

Expecting a side which has had no pre-season; barely know each other and are struggling to simply finish a ninety-minute encounter as their overall fitness is not up to it – let alone understand the role they are supposed to be playing in a brand-new team – is completely unrealistic.

We need to take the positives out of it: and in Miguel Azeez; Raheem Conte and Ludwig Francillette at least, we already know we have some really good footballers.

We must also remember that league football is a marathon, not a sprint.

Woking’s first three points of the season saw them move to the highest of the relegation positions tonight: twenty-first place in the National League table.

Morecambe ended-up next to bottom.

But – unlike all of our rivals in the Legion of the Damned, we have only played three matches. The rest have played twice as many…

This is what Ash told the media following today’s home reverse:

“Really disappointed to lose today. I think it is a game we were quite comfortable in; it was a game we should have won. We defended for ninety minutes well. We need to be better finding solutions with the ball and I think that’s going to take time. With time, we’ll get there I think: I’ve seen the signs. We’re going win a lot of games this season. If we had a pre-season, some of the situations we are seeing on the on the pitch would have been fixed before. I’m really positive.”

Morecambe: 1 Archie Mair; 4 Terrell Agyemang (Y); 7 Gwion Edwards (23 Daniel Ogwuru 88’); 8 Miguel Azeez; 10 Jake Cain (20 Mo Sangare 79’); 14 Alie Sesay; 15 Ben Williams; 17 Paul Lewis (3 Raheem Conte 66’); 18 Ben Tollitt (11 Admiral Muskwe 66’); 21 Joe Nuttall (19 Ma’kel Bogle-Campbell (Y) 66’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C).

Subs not used: 25 Alfie Scales; 6 Ludwig Francillette.

Woking: 31 Tom Norcott; 2 Aaron Drewe (Y); 3 Caleb Richards; 5 Timi Odusina; 6 Jamie Andrews; 7 Harry Beautyman (C) (20 Sam Ashford 78’); 10 Aiden O’Brien (18 Joshua Osude 92’); 14 Tariq Hinds; 16 Olaunji Oluwasehun Akinola; 18 Jack Turner (Y); 23 Timothy Olaoluwa Akinola (25 Jake Forster-Caskey 78’):

Subs not used: 13 Craig Ross; 4 Chinwike Okoli.

Ref: Declan Brown.

Att: 3,001 (108 from Woking.)