FA CUP THIRD QUALIFYING ROUND. SATURDAY, 11th OCTOBER 2025.

Shrimps are Shrimped-On…

Old acquaintances met again for the first time in ages at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium this afternoon as Morecambe hosted Chester City in the FA Cup Third Qualifying Round.

My – how the mighty have fallen. This is the first time the Shrimps haven’t been entered into the First Round Proper draw since 2006, during which time they have enjoyed that automatic privilege as an EFL club. For Chester, though, the wait has been even longer. After slipping out of League Two during 2000, City fought its way back again in the 2004-5 season. But who can forget the time when – at Christie Park – a shameful bit of play-acting by one of our own led to a Chester forward being sent-off for a head-butt which never happened and City lost a tie in which they had been on top? This happened on 7th December 2002 when Morecambe was an authentic non-league club and the Shrimps came through in the F.A. Cup by three goals to two. I also have a particular memory of the performance for them by a certain crazy-looking player with a shaved head and a Rottweiler mentality at Christie Park when he was almost able to turn a losing position into a draw for the Cheshire club single-handedly with a simply phenomenal goal and a dominant performance in mid-field. This was none other than legendary Shrimps player Kevin Ellison – before he played for our club. The game was a League Two fixture which happened on Saturday 14th February 2009 and Morecambe finally won 3:1 in a season which would end in relegation out of the EFL for the second times for the Seals (a nickname which came about as a result of their former stadium on Sealand Road in Cheshire’s County Town.)

This loss of Football League status sparked a financial crisis for Chester which had already been exacerbated by a typically unsympathetic EFL with a transfer embargo. Facing a ten-point deduction for going into administration, City found themselves seven million pounds in debt. As the HMRC used the Courts to enforce a CVA (Company Voluntary Agreement); City’s 10 point deduction became 25 and when they tried to re-start life as a new company, the FA intervened to prevent them playing their first game as a member of the Football Conference in 2009 at Grays Athletic. Unable to fulfil their first few fixtures as a new non-league club, things got even worse during January 2010 when their players went on strike having not been paid and the Conference reacted by suspending the club altogether. Following a vote by other members of the league, Chester was expelled on 26th February 2010, with its assets valued at just one pound sterling and a points total of minus three right at the bottom of the Conference. Their application to join the Welsh League was immediately rejected and the rump of a once proud club found itself without any league to play in at all by Summer 2010 until they were finally accepted by the Northern Premier League Division One. Since then, they have managed to battle their way back to the National League only to be relegated again in 2018, when they found themselves in serious financial trouble once more. But they rallied again – helped by former Manager and Liverpool legend Ian Rush plus Michael Own among others – and last season, they were denied membership of the National League proper once more only by a 2-1 defeat by Scunthorpe United in the NL North Play-Off Final at Glanford Park.

So when we think we’ve had a hard time as Shrimps’ fans, we have not been alone and the generosity of Chester fans just a few short months ago as they paid for travel to away warm-up matches for our club as we teetered on the brink of extinction ourselves will never be forgotten by Morecambe supporters.

Altogether – according to 11v11.com – the two clubs have met seven times in various competitions in the past (beginning with a 0-1 win for Morecambe at Sealand Road as a non-league club against Fourth Division City in November 1961) and Morecambe have won all of them. Can this be right?…

Whatever, Chester arrived by the north Lancashire seaside today in seventeenth position in National League North. They are the division’s draw specialists and they have shared the points in four of their last six league games and won only one of them. Last Saturday, they let a two-goal lead slip against Merthyr Town and had to settle for a 2-2 draw at home in front of a relatively enormous 2,268 crowd at their newish Deva * Stadium.

(*Deva: 1) Noun. “A member of a class of divine beings in the Vedic period, which in Indian religion are benevolent and in Zoroastrianism are evil.”

2) Roman name for Chester: Deva Victrix. Take your pick – given the club’s history since they relocated from Sealand Road, both might be true…)

Morecambe Manager Ashvir Singh Johal was asked by Beyond Radio’s Dave Salmon after the 3-1 defeat for the Shrimps at Scunny last Tuesday what his approach to today’s potential Giant-Killing would be. Ash replied:

“Exactly the same as today; exactly the same as Tamworth: we can’t change our approach; we can’t look at the context; we can’t look at the opposition; we can’t look at this round or that round: it’s a game against a good team that we need to win. So nothing changes for us.”

To reach this point, City have already played two qualifying rounds in the FA Cup. In the Second Qualifying Round, they overcame Stalybridge Celtic away by the odd goal in three; they then walloped Curzon Ashton at the Deva 5-1 last month.

Chester Manager Calum McIntyre regretted his team’s inability to keep a clean sheet in recent games but said he hoped for one today as he added the following prior to the Cup-Tie:

“I hope we get the opportunity to see it and improve the group and keep adding. We’ll enjoy the fact that once again we’ve progressed in the FA Cup. Earned some money for the football club. Winning needs to be the norm and the ability to string back-to-back wins.”

It was probably no surprise to anyone that Ashvir Singh Johal has signed a new goalkeeper this week. Archie Mair – although potentially a really good player – has looked shaky in recent games and the public dressing-down he received from Captain Yann Songo’o during the game at Tamworth probably hasn’t done his confidence any favours.

So straight into his shoes today stepped Jamal Blackman – a 31-year-old who has a wealth of experience with clubs as diverse as Chelsea, Vitesse and Los Angeles FC but was without a club, having not been retained by Shrewsbury Town at the end of last season. (He also has his own line in clothes for larger people – he is 6’7” himself – called Prodigieux: French for `prodigious’, that is, impressively large in extent.) Jamal has only been signed on a temporary contract (until January 2026) so I assume that his main job is not only to keep the ball out of the Morecambe net but also to coach Archie and help him to reach the potential which he clearly still possesses. Failing that, he might at least give the Scotsman a discount on his next casual top: some of his designs are truly amazing…) So good luck to both of them.

It was a lovely warm, sunny autumnal day in north Lancashire today. When the match kicked-off, it was in front of a large crowd with the visitors bringing over 1300 supporters with them: the away end was packed. The Chester fans were noisy, enthusiastic and went away very happy indeed, as we shall see…

The pattern of the game was established fairly early on. Chester is a combative team which plays a physical game. In Kevin Roberts, we have a big, Neanderthal bruiser of a full-back who regularly committed fouls off the ball; got away with several bad ones on it and constantly attempted to intimidate young Morecambe substitute Emmerson Sutton during the second half by holding or frequently pushing him off the ball. A better Referee than the one chosen for today’s match would have sent him off if he’d seen even half of the things Roberts got up to but whoever it was in the middle with the whistle had a shocker today and the Seals’ defender wasn’t even booked. Offrande Zanzala was another repeat offender for the visitors – and a lot of his offences were also off the ball: sneaky pushes or trips which should have been penalised but weren’t. Virtually every time he came up close and personal with Shrimp Centre Half Maldini Calcurri, he fouled him: most frequently by pulling his shirt. But he got away with this scot-free all afternoon as well: he wasn’t even booked either.

Chester are a niggly, pretty Agricultural team that tried to break Morecambe’s rhythm all match long with cynical fouls and regular Afters as they squared-up to our players once they’d brought them down. In this, you fear they are a reflection of their Manager, whose constantly loud and very aggressive behaviour from the dug-out was finally punished with a booking even by an official as ineffectual as the one in charge today.

As far as the game is concerned, Chester played some half-decent stuff at the times they weren’t trying to mix it with the opposition. Having said that, they didn’t trouble debutant home keeper Jamal Blackman very often throughout the game.

At the other end, though, George Murray-Jones was a lot busier. He was beaten after twenty-one minutes as the deserved Official Man of the Match Gwion Edwards cut-in from the Morecambe left and arrowed an unstoppable shot into Murray-Jones’s top left-hand corner after clearly picking his spot. It was another cracker by the Welshman.

Jack Nolan also caused the visitors problems all afternoon. He beat the goalkeeper twice with tremendous strikes today. The first came after just over an hour as his powerful shot went across the away stopper from the Morecambe right and slammed into his far post only to bounce harmlessly away. With just a quarter of an hour or so to go, another tremendous shot struck the base of the post to the visiting goalkeeper’s left with him a mere bystander once more. But Murray-Jones kept his team in it with a simply miraculous save from substitute Elijah Dixon-Bonner with just seven minutes scheduled to play: his was an absolutely extraordinary reaction at full stretch as he dived to his left to keep a seemingly guaranteed goal-bound strike out of the net.

And it turned out to be absolutely crucial for the visitors. Five minutes were added-on at the end of the game (I thought three would be more like it) and with almost the last kick of the match, Chester substitute Finley Shrimpton equalised. I think there were about forty seconds still left on the clock to play and Morecambe seemed to be home and dry. But Blackman did an Archie and palmed a shot from Pat Jones to Tom Peers, whose strike was also blocked. Shrimpton kept his cool, though and walloped the rebound home.  So Morecambe were well and truly shrimped-on. I should probably apologise for this awful play on words but I’m not going to. The visiting hordes behind the goal went into raptures – as well they might. You don’t have to be Lazarus to know that coming back from the dead at the very last moment is a truly glorious feeling, do you?

Chester didn’t deserve a draw or the replay which comes with it. And even at the end, there was more unpleasantness between 36-year old Roberts and a man literally half his age (and probably half his size as well) as he continued to shove young Emmerson and indulge in Verbals instead of shaking his hand.

It left a bad taste in the mouth, as did the away team’s tactics generally: they are the dirtiest side I have seen in quite some time.

Ash was predictably disappointed – but characteristically forensic in his analysis – after the game. He made the following comments:

“We should have scored more goals, especially in the second half.  Maybe three; four times we should have scored. Our decision making or final action needs to be better. We defended well for the whole game except for that last incident, which is not good enough. You have to be better in those moments and the game’s not over until the game’s over. We’ve got to defend the box better. “

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman (Y); 2 Lewis Payne; 5 Maldini Calcurri; 6 Ludwig Francillette; 7 Gwion Edwards (28 Emmerson Sutton 68’); 10 Jake Cain; 18 Ben Tollitt; 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (Y); 32 George Thomas (29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner 76’); 33 Arjan Raikhy (8 Miguel Azeez (Y) 56’); 36 Jack Nolan (12 Rolando Aarons 91’).

Subs not used:  1 Archie Mair; 9 Harrison Panayiotou 14 Alie Sesay.

Chester City: 13 George Murray-Jones; 3 Nathan Woodthorpe; Declan Weeks (C); 5 Tom Leak (Y); 8 Jack Bainbridge; 9 Offrande Zanzala  (Dylan Mottley-Henry (Y) 63’); 10 Iwan Murray (Y) (Finley Shrimpton 76’); 17 Connor Woods (Tom Peers 63’); 18 Pat Jones; 19 Hayden Carson; 25 Kevin Roberts.

Subs not used: Dion Kelly-Evans; Rawlinson; George Barlow; Fin Roberts.

Ref: Unknown. But please don’t hurry back.

Att: 3,033 (1307 from Chester.)