ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. TUESDAY, 30th SEPTEMBER 2025.

Ash – or Crash?

I’ve missed the last two Morecambe matches because I’ve been away gallivanting in foreign climes. Before I went, I ended my last match report after a seemingly unstoppable Morecambe had beaten a very impressive Wealdstone by the odd goal in seven:

“I have good reason to believe that our league position could be much improved by then. “

Oh dear – shows how much I know…

I managed to read several accounts of the first game I missed, a week ago tonight. In it, the Shrimps took the lead against Halifax only for the opposition manager to change his team’s approach, equalise and then win the game 1-2. I was able to actually watch last Saturday’s match at Truro live. With virtually the same team which had looked so impressive against Wealdstone just a week earlier, Morecambe were annihilated by a team which had lost its last four games and failed to score for ages. Right from the beginning, the Tinners took the game to the Shrimps, who had no answer to them at any time: it really was Tin Men against Ten Men. Promising Arsenal loanee Maldini Calcurri was sent-off early doors for a frankly numbly stupid foul at a point when he was already on a yellow card and should have been treading on eggshells, not other players. Morecambe constantly tried to play-out from the back. But they are not Liverpool or Manchester City: they don’t have the skill to do this. And Truro – bottom of the National League before the game – took full advantage. Archie Mair gifted them a goal – again – and up-front, they offered absolutely nothing all game. New signing Aarons looked disinterested, constantly gave the ball away – and dived. Jake Cain was snuffed-out and Miguel Azeez anonymous. But to lose five-nil to an at best functional side like Truro is unacceptable – and the performance rings all sorts of alarm bells.

The feedback I read after the game seemed to concentrate on the fact that in both of the games I have missed, Manager Ashvir Singh Johal had no Plan B. But from what I saw last Saturday, his Plan A isn’t working either. Constantly trying the same tactics in a situation where they clearly aren’t working is almost a definition of madness. Ash needs to Up His Game – and do so quickly – because the one he is playing clearly doesn’t work and Morecambe’s position at the bottom of the entire National League is a true reflection of this.

So what do we know about tonight’s visitors? Gateshead arrived in fifteenth position in the table and with twice the number of points – fourteen – than tonight’s hosts have accrued after their nine matches to date. Alun Armstrong’s side have won only four games out of their twelve so far but ended a string of poor results with a 1-2 win at Braintree last Saturday. This is what I wrote about them in my review of other National League clubs earlier in the year:

Gateshead is another club with a sometimes very troubled history which currently plays at the International Athletics Track in the town which it also shares with no less than two Rugby Union clubs. The Gateshead International Stadium is situated 118 miles north east from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium

Gateshead began life in 1930 as a Football League club after financially-troubled South Shields Adelaide moved the few miles across Tyneside to Redhugh Park and continued to play as Gateshead; `the Tynesiders’ or – more commonly – `The Heed’ (reflecting the local pronunciation of the second part of the name of the town they are based in).

You could argue that this was an early version of the Wimbledon/Milton Keynes Cons scandal with one very big difference: South Shields apparently wanted the change which happened at the time: or at least some of their Directors presumably did. But things didn’t go well and the new Frankenstein club was let down in 1960 by the Old Boys Network which usually ensured the survival of the four bottom-most clubs in the lowest tier of the EFL: Division Four. The Heed didn’t actually come bottom: they were third from it but out they went anyway as the predominantly industrial northern, Midlands and southern EFL clubs seized the opportunity of ditching a long and often problematic journey to the North East and elected non-league Peterborough United in their stead.

The club’s official website still whinges that this wasn’t fair – but what was fair about the fact that clubs like Wigan Athletic; Barnet; Altrincham – or ourselves (which were all at least a match for the likes of Gateshead at that time) had not even a sniff of holding the exalted position the Heed had enjoyed for the last more or less pointless thirty years in which they had achieved precisely nothing of any real worth?

Worse was soon to come. Their application to join the Scottish League was refused and Gateshead ended-up initially in the Northern Counties League for two seasons and then the North Regional League. Some sort of hope of a better future seemed to suggest itself when the Tynesiders became inaugural members – with Morecambe – of the new Northern Premier League in 1968. But as if to prove the point that they were never good enough to be a Football League club in the first place, they consistently struggled against authentic non-league sides in the NPL and were relegated into the obscurity of the Midland League of all competitions after a break of twelve months again after only two seasons. They lasted precisely two years in this league before – in 1973 – the club went bust altogether.

But history was to repeat itself, astonishingly enough. As Gateshead set out on their downward trajectory, a new club calling themselves South Shields was moving in the opposite direction. During 1974, the new club decided to sell its 25,000 capacity Simonside Hall ground in the town and chose to re-locate to the Gateshead Stadium instead. (Where did the money go? With disturbing echoes of Milton Keynes’ rogue outfit, many Shields’ fans were not happy about this, boycotted the new incarnation and started all over again in the town. They now play in the National League North.)

At the time of the latest transformation, South Shields were members of the Northern Premier League. But – now calling themselves Gateshead United – the Son of Frankenstein club (despite wins against Football League opposition such as Grimsby and Crewe in the FA Cup) didn’t last long in the NPL. In 1977, this club also went bust.

On this occasion, a new Gateshead FC was immediately formed by natives of the town. The latest incarnation of the club not only retained the defunct United’s NPL status (should it have, really?) but went on to win the title in 1983 with a record 100 points and an astonishing 114 goals scored in just 42 games. This earned them promotion to the Alliance Premier League. – just one step away from the EFL, albeit that this bastion of the mediocre was still a totally Closed Shop at the time. They lasted precisely two years before relegation but won the NPL again in 1986. And so it went on: relegation and promotion following dizzyingly regularly during the years that followed. But when they were relegated back to the Northern Premier League yet again in 1998, the club’s future was in doubt once more. They fell even further into the NPL First Division in 2003 for a single season and continued to struggle until the acquisition of it during 2006 by a native of Gateshead – Graham Wood – marked a transformation of the club’s fortunes.  The Heed became full-time professional in 2010 and actually reached the Conference Play-Off Final – with the prize of EFL membership eventually actually available – in 2014 only to lose to Cambridge United by the odd goal in three at Wembley. With Mike Williamson at the helm, Gateshead returned to this venue and reached the FA Trophy Final for the first time in 2023 only to lose to FC Halifax by the only goal of the game. A year later, though, they were back again and finally managed to beat Solihull Moors by one goal to nil

Changes in ownership and financial problems familiar to most football clubs in the English game means that the defeat against Cambridge and the victory over Solihull have been the high points of the club’s recent history. Last season, however, the Heed finished eighth in the National League.

I suspect that any team on Tyneside must inevitably struggle in the shadow of the huge club to be found to the north of the river: Newcastle United. Establishing their own identity in a town best known for the concrete monstrosity of a car park featured memorably in the film Get Carter; an Anthony Gormley sculpture concerning an Angel (which is apparently haunted by a Nazi apparition) by the side of the A1 (as featured on the club’s crest) and – very belatedly – the former Grain Store Baltic art centre by the side of the Tyne can’t be easy, can it?

No – even if you do have a five-year old lad called Robert Hall among your roll-call of natives who was abducted – and experimented upon – by aliens in 1940. He was warned by Men From the Ministry (implicitly MI5) not to tell anybody about this – but when another alien tried to abduct the poor wee bairn all over again, he was saved by his uncle, who killed the creature from some other solar system with a shovel.

Doubt it? The alien’s remains can apparently still be found somewhere beneath the floor in Gateshead’s St Cuthbert’s Church on Belsham Road, just south of the Tyne.

Beat that, Alan Shearer!… *

I’m not even going to try to explain why their Mascot is called Rooney the Goat – it’s probably best not to know (except that `Goat’ is apparently an abbreviation of Greatest Of All Time)… (If you want to find out for yourself, you can contact the Goat on @GoatRooney on X.)

However, the only statistics I can find about clashes between Morecambe and The Heed refer to the Football Conference almost thirty years ago: two wins for the Shrimps during 1997-8 when Gateshead were relegated at the end of the season; Morecambe winning 1-4 away and then 2-0 at Christie Park. But the clubs had met earlier than that – on Saturday 8^th March 1969, for instance, in the Northern Premier League: Morecambe won 2-0 as I stood and watched. They won by the same score in the same competition at Christie Park on Saturday, 25^th October 1969 as well: I was there again. I know there were other games – the reverse fixtures of these two for a start plus others in the Conference in the two seasons following the Shrimps’ promotion to it in 1995 – which don’t seem to be recorded on the internet.

Be that as it may, I have been able to find details of three players who have both played on-loan for both clubs: defender Alex Whitmore; forward Ged Garner and current Motherwell goalkeeper Archie Mair.

Both of Morecambe’s games against Gateshead will be night matches, played on Tuesday evenings. The first game is at home on 30^th September 2025; the reverse fixture will be in the north-east on Tuesday, 25^th February 2026.

(* Don’t blame me for this drivel. It’s the fault of the local rag – Number 5: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/10-things-you-probably-never-13589693)

As far as the first of these meetings is concerned, Ash said before the match started:

“The lads are well prepared for the fixture and they understand what’s required of them in tonight’s game. It starts by working hard, giving our all and imposing ourselves on the game.”

Simple enough, eh? It had been quite a nice, autumnal day in north Lancashire prior to kick-off: not too cold, sunny at times and with very little wind. Ideal, really, for playing football.

And that’s exactly what Gateshead did. It took them all of one hundred seconds to find the back of the Morecambe net. They had looked lively from the start and passed the ball well from front to back. On this occasion, it was worked-out to Harry Chapman on their left wing. As Shrimps’ Right-Back Lewis Payne backed-off and allowed him the space to do it, he turned inside and sent a curling shot from the edge of the penalty area which a flat-footed Archie Mair in the home goal simply watched as it flew past him and nestled into the back of his net.

Not even four minutes had been played when the visitors doubled their advantage. The ball was simply played over the top beyond the home defenders for Kain Adom to run onto. He raced down the centre of the pitch and never looked for a moment that he was going to miss. And he didn’t; slipping the ball past Archie as if he wasn’t there.

With ten minutes on the clock, the Heed were even further a-heed. Jacob Butterfield found himself unmarked in acres of space on the visitors’ left again and played a ball forwards which allowed David Ferguson to send over a simple cross into the middle which a completely unmarked Connor Pani walloped home.

Three became four-nil in the twelfth minute when Gateshead simply played the ball in nice patterns through a statuesque Morecambe defence for Chapman to score again.

So – twelve minutes gone: four-nil down. The scary thing is that it could have been even more. With Curtis Edwards absolutely imperious at the back as he controlled the game as a Centre Half with all the time and space he needed to do so, the Heed looked like they could score every time they had the ball – which was almost always.

So that was nine goals conceded in just over 100 minutes of football as Morecambe looked like men who had not only never met before but had never seen a football in their lives.

There’s not much more to say. As Gateshead probably took their collective feet off the gas, substitute George Thomas scored a good – and determined – goal for the Shrimps after just over half an hour. So it was 1-4 at half time but the game had clearly long gone as far as the men in the red shirts were concerned. As some of the home crowd jeered them, the Shrimps came back on in the second half and actually played some neat football in the Gateshead half at times. But the visitors scored again in the seventy-second minute, through Pani once more. Payne than reduced the arrears with a lovely volley in injury time but the visitors had spurned several more chances and could probably have run-up a cricket score if they had really wanted to.

Scarily, Morecambe were absolutely pathetic tonight: shapeless; out-thought; out-played and out-classed. Defensively, they were non-existent. Poor old Ash was barracked from the terraces during the second half; there was gallows humour in the crowd and although a lot of us clapped as the players faced the music at the end, I’m afraid that probably just as many people booed them.

As if it wasn’t obvious beforehand, so-called `Ash-Ball’ just isn’t working. The Manager has predicted that things will improve precisely one month from now when his squad is finally fit and they start to understand what he wants of them. At most other clubs, however, he wouldn’t be here by the end of October: the recent form of his team is that of a relegation certainty.

Given the apparent nature of the Panjab Project, though, he almost certainly won’t be sacked. At the moment – indisputably and really worryingly – his team seems to be getting worse, not better. Ten goals conceded in just two games – five against a team that had been at the bottom of the table last Saturday – is a really alarming statistic. Now Morecambe have the unwelcome distinction of being rock bottom of the table all to themselves.

Gateshead – who won’t have an easier victory all season – went up to lucky thirteenth position in the National League

Tonight’s performance from the Shrimps is simply not good enough and I fear that our rookie Manager is already looking as if the job is too big for him. What poor old Derek Adams must think of this as he looks on from afar is probably best left to the imagination. Getting rid of the most successful Manager our club has ever had and replacing him with one who seems to be increasingly out of his depth is beginning to look like an even more bizarre decision now than when it was originally made as the defeats pile-up and the manner of them becomes  ever more concerning.

This is what a seemingly shell-shocked Ashvir told local media after the game:

“The first twelve minutes and the rest of the game were two completely different games. We started very badly. That’s not the sort of team we want to be. Being 4-0 down after 12 minutes: that can never happen again. For everybody that’s paid to watch and support us, that doesn’t represent Morecambe and it wasn’t good enough. We were sloppy; we didn’t win many duels – but after that we were ok.”

Maybe someone needs to explain to him that football matches last for ninety minutes, not seventy-eight. It’s easy enough to say `that can never happen again’ but his team have now conceded five goals in both of their last two games and I would have expected him to explain at least what he intends to do to avoid more such humiliations in the future. But he didn’t. Instead, the Manager insisted that his players `give their all’ – which is alarming in itself because that suggests they have nothing left to give – and again asked for patience with his squad, repeating the claim he has made regularly recently that by the end of October, things will totally turn around. Let’s hope he’s right – but, quite brutally – the signs are not encouraging. And if he turns out to be wrong – what then?…

To finish, though, let’s have some good news. Whilst I was away, ex-Chair of the Shrimps Trust – Tarnia Elsworth – was appointed Morecambe’s official Director of Fans’ Engagement. It’s a great choice by the club and I would like to extend my congratulations to her. Tarnia will do a tremendous job. Mark my words: this young woman is bound for much greater things. You can read her first column in the club’s matchday programme here:

Morecambe: 1 Archie Mair; 2 Lewis Payne; 3 Raheem Conte (16 George Thomas 24’); 8 Miguel Azeez; 9 Harrison Panayiotou (18 Ben Tollitt 45’); 10 Jake Cain; 12 Rolando Aarons; (7 Gwion Edwards 82’); 14 Alie Sesay (6 Ludwig Francillette 69’); 24 Yann Songo’s (C); 29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner; 36 Jack Nolan.

Subs not used: 35 Harry Ascroft; 28 Emmerson Sutton; 33 Arjan Raikhy.

Gateshead: 1 Tiernan Brooks; 3 David Ferguson; 5 Kenton Richardson (C) (31 Ben Williams 55’); 7 Kain Adom (16 Lucas Lowery 75’); 10 Jacob Butterfield (17 Josh Home 45’); 14 Frank Nouble (Y); 18 Joe Grayson (6 William Flint 75’); 20 Fenton John; 22 Curtis Edwards; 26 Connor Pani; 32 Harry Chapman (21 Kyle Hurst 62’).

Subs not used: 13 Preston Leech; 35 Callum Bone.

Ref: Dale Baines.

Att: Just over two thousand. (About 40 from Gateshead, I would guess – it was good to see their players working a line of these people at the end and exchanging palm slaps. Well done to all of them.)