ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE, SATURDAY, 18th OCTOBER 2025.

Pretty Awful.

Morecambe entertained one of their most favourite clubs in the shape of Southend United this afternoon in the National League at the Mazuma Mobile stadium.

In the past, the Shrimpers were the Shrimps’ Second Best all-time favourite whipping boys: until Chester beat us for the first time in nine attempts last Tuesday.  In thirteen previous meetings, United have won only once (in the FA Cup) and Morecambe have beaten them ten times in previous league games. In other words, Southend have never taken three points off us – ever.

The very sobering thought before today’s game, though, was that this history was unlikely to be repeated this afternoon.

But I get ahead of myself. This is what I wrote about a club who has experienced roughly the same sort of trauma over the last few years as we have ourselves in my account about National League rivals on this site earlier in the season. (This was at a time when detested former owner Jason Whittingham was still strangling our own club):

Southend United is not only Morecambe fans’ second favourite club of all time, it is the one which ours is most regularly mistaken for by the BBC and other media outlets that really should know better. Southend probably get this as well – but the other way round.

We are the Shrimps: they are the Shrimpers – how difficult is that?

We also love Southend because they hardly ever beat us – and never at their home stadium of Roots Hall, which is 280 miles from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium on the Essex coast in the south-east of the country. The two clubs have met a total of lucky thirteen times altogether and the only game the Shrimpers have ever won was in Lancashire during 3013, when they walloped the Shrimps 0-3 in an FA Cup match. In the EFL, though, they lost ten out of twelve games and drew the other two. So – if past history is any guide – we really would like to play them every week…

To be serious though, Morecambe has a lot in common with Southend-on-Sea: the coast; the holiday makers; the fairground rides (although we have never had anything to even vaguely compare with Southend’s Mods’ Valhalla: the Kursaal); the piers (ours both sadly gone) but Southend’s still the longest in England)…

 The Shrimps also have a lot in common with the Shrimpers:

The dodgy owners; the recent relegations; the threats of complete collapse…

Southend–on-Sea’s current major football club was founded in May 1906 and initially played in the Southern League Division Two. United immediately won this but had to do so again in their second year of existence before they were allowed to progress to Division One. (Which, even if it doesn’t prove anything else, is evidence that Promotion – unlike, say Gravity – is an invention, not a discovery…) In 1920, though, they were elected to the new Football League Third Division South and remained in it when the North and South Divisions were unified during 1958.

1966 was a memorable year: England won the World Cup … and the Shrimpers slipped into Division Four, staying there until 1972. They then yo-yoed between the two bottom Divisions until 1991, when they climbed as high at Division Two (now the Championship), staying there until 1997 until double relegations befell them once more and they ended-up in Division Four again – now re-branded as League Two. But double promotions in 2005 and 2006 saw them back in what was now known as the Championship once more. They only lasted a season and by 2010 were back in a more familiar – and traditional – environment: the lowest Division of the EFL. They managed to climb back into League One but – as is becoming a regular experience for struggling clubs – suffered another double relegation which saw them fall out of the Football League altogether for the first time in 101 years.

This was during 2021 and United had been in deep trouble both on and off the field for some time at this juncture. Their financial problems have sadly been mirrored at our own club as staff wages were not paid and the EFL responded – as they so often do – by pushing the club into an even more perilous state by hitting them with a transfer embargo which meant they could not sign any new players. (Sound familiar at all?) Libel laws prevent me comparing the Shrimpers’ owner at the time to the rogues and chancers the Shrimps have endured in recent times but suffice it to say that in their first year in the National League, United admitted to a debt of almost seventeen and a half million pounds in total. This resulted in widespread protests by fans against the incumbent Chairman; another embargo on the club after missing a payment to HMRC and a Winding-Up Order issued by the taxman.

(Shrimpers’ fans once regularly staged mass protests outside their detested owner’s house. One of their number told the BBC:

“We’re not like Manchester United, we’re not like Chelsea or Liverpool – these are real live fans from every area. We will stick together. If we don’t get the deal done by the league: that’s it, we’re dead. He’s got to sell – he’s got to walk away now.”

Now, I can think of another `detested owner’ of a certain football club who also lives in Essex. Do you think we could sub-contract them to do the same for us?…)

Things looked so bleak that Southend supporters and the Shrimpers Trust began planning for a Phoenix Club to replace the seemingly damned United. More payments to staff and players were missed and at the beginning of the 2023-4 season, Southend players went on strike; refusing to train in pre-season until they got paid. The club also had to find £300,000 demanded by the National League to avoid expulsion from the competition and was given until the end of the campaign to settle all its debts – or face a ten point deduction. With just fifteen players on the books, the ten points were duly deducted in August 2023. On the eve of a National League match against Maidenhead United on the nineteenth of September, Southend had only ten fit players due to injuries and suspensions. Emergency signings were sanctioned and the team went on to actually win the game by two goals to nil.  Off the field, though, the financial plight of the Shrimpers grew ever worse and by the end of the season, they had faced a total of nineteen Winding-Up Orders since relegation from the EFL. Despite all the problems it had faced, the club finished ninth in the National League (without the ten point deduction, they would have been sixth and therefore in the Play-Offs.)

But still its financial plight worsened and the National League stuck the boot in by demanding a one million pound bond before sanctioning the club’s continued membership of the competition. The club appealed this potentially catastrophic (and actually objectively absurd) ruling and an FA Arbitration panel broke with convention and finally ruled in their favour.

Despite further Winding-Up Petitions and an utterly tortuous sales process, the club eventually acquired new owners during July 2024. Last season – despite the nightmare of the last five years – the Shrimpers finished seventh in the National League. They made a valiant attempt to get back into the EFL during the ensuing Play-Offs only to lose to Oldham Athletic in the Wembley Final by three goals to two after extra time.

Se we love them even more: Southend supporters and the Shrimpers Trust are an inspiration to our own fans and our representative, the Shrimps Trust: there can be life after the EFL and dodgy owners after all…

I can only find one player who has played for both clubs; each time on-loan and that is the generally under-rated and now Scottish Premiership striker Marcus Dackers.

Morecambe will play Southend for the first time on Saturday, 18^th October 2025 in Lancashire. They will then travel to Roots Hall for the return game on Saturday, 14^th February 2026.

The reality of this first fixture saw us at the bottom of the National League and having just been out-played and out-fought by a team of part-timers from a supposedly inferior competition as Chester dumped us out of the FA Cup last Tuesday by two goals to nil.

As has been discussed on these pages before, Manager Ashvir Singh Johal doesn’t seem to have a Plan B – but his Plan A isn’t working either.

Would anything change today?

Southend arrived in eight place in the National League, just out of the Play-Off spots on goal difference alone and with a game in hand over most of the clubs above them. Their form is not brilliant, though – two wins and two losses in their last six league outings – but far better than ours. They are also comfortably still in the FA Cup, having walloped lowly Folkestone Invicta 4-1 last Saturday at Roots Hall.

As they look forward to a First Round Proper tie at Wealdstone, Sarf-end would also be looking to do something about righting their utterly dire record against the Shrimps in the EFL.

Ahead of the match, the Shrimpers’ Head Coach Kevin Maher said of his hosts:

“I know they’re in a bit of a difficult spot, but we can only focus on ourselves. They’ve added a lot of players and had a lot of change. Watching their games, they’ve got a lot of possession and a lot of the ball. They’re quite expansive with it and how they play. They’ve given up goals – we can see that – but I’m sure they’ll want to get out of that run. We’ve got to focus on ourselves – that’s all we can do – and make sure we’re right.”

For the Shrimps, beleaguered boss Ashvir Singh Johal said the following about the opposition before the game:

“They are a very good team. They are a team that have created a lot of chances in every game they have played this season – but it’s a game we’re ready for and these are the kind of games in which we have put in our best performances this season.”

He then talked about the `success’ his team has achieved in recent games. In this, he was using a very narrow definition of the word: Ash’s Morecambe haven’t won any matches this month and have lost four out of the five National League games they have played since only their second win out of twelve attempts against Wealdstone last month. (The Shrimps only managed to draw the other league game and subsequently contrived to lose to a lower league team in the FA Cup into the bargain.)

This isn’t `success’ as most people would define it, is it?

Nevertheless, Ashvir insisted that his players should be

“Remembering what got us success in the last few games: the defensive work we did; in terms of the solidity; to not concede chances; to stay on that track. We want to be solid defensively but make sure our ruthlessness and our edge in the final third: we keep that because that’s what made us score a lot of goals so far this season. We put in some good performances in the last few games. We are confident that we’re ready for a good performance.”

I don’t think that many football fans would agree that playing well in patches but then losing the game can be regarded as a `success’ in any circumstances and perhaps that’s the problem with Mr Johal’s mindset. `Success’ isn’t playing a certain formation well or stringing a few good passes or even moves together: it is simply about putting the ball in the other team’s net and keeping it out of your own. As former Manager Derek Adams once memorably said:

“Football is a simple game complicated by idiots.”

Without suggesting that our current Manager is an idiot (because he clearly isn’t), it strikes me at least that Ash’s approach to the game – in which charts and metrics that can be measured seem to be central – is far too academic. I fear that a man who has never actually played football for a living is missing much of the practical application needed to ensure that the actual skills – physical and mental – that are needed to win competitive games are applied in the real world; which means: on the pitch.

I could be wrong, of course: and I genuinely hope that I am. I want Ash to succeed.

Don’t we all?

If his team could confound the odds and actually play cohesively as a whole and win today, maybe his claim that things are finally gelling and his long-term strategy is beginning to bear fruit would be justified.  

But would they?

In word – no. It was a very familiar story. Under a suitably overcast sky, Morecambe started well enough. Ash had addressed one of the glaring problems in his squad by replacing Ben Tollitt – a winger played out of position as Centre Forward in recent times – with an authentic one in the shape of Joe Nuttall. Other than that, the line-up was much the same as usual. And on paper, this is a really good quality team with some excellent players in it. They should be doing so much better than they have been doing.

Morecambe passed the ball around quite well initially; Miguel Azeez caught the eye in midfield with some decent passes and the Shrimps played mostly in the Southend half for the first ten minutes or so. With just four minutes played, George Thomas found himself behind the away defence, sold away goalkeeper Colin Andeng-Ndi a dummy which left him scrabbling on the ground – and then missed the target altogether from within the penalty area on the Morecambe right. He should have scored. In the thirteenth minute, Jack Nolan received an excellent pass from Azeez and unleashed another shot from close-range on the right which went into the side-netting to Andeng-Ndi’s left instead of the goal.

Morecambe were on top at this point and could have been two goals to the good. But the visitors reminded everyone that they were still there when ex-Morecambe striker Andy Dallas headed over the bar from a corner shortly afterwards. This seemed to galvanise the team in the yellow strip and they played some decent football – quick; sharp and clearly rehearsed – after this as they took the game over the half-way line and pushed ever further up the field. It paid-off after 26 minutes.

Centre Forward Slavi Spasov had just received treatment on and off the field for a knock which caused him to spit at least blood out of his mouth at the side of the pitch. But he received a forward pass from Keenan Appiah-Forson as the visitors broke quickly and effectively from a Shrimps’ set-piece in their own half, ran at a retreating defence which stood off him and chose an angle from which to beat Jamal Blackman all ends up. This is what good National League teams do: two or possibly just one pass from the back and Bang!

The Shrimpers’ second goal less than twenty minutes later was even simpler. United won a free-kick fairly centrally; Harry Boyes took it and Ben Goodliffe scored.

Where was the defence?

From Southend’s point of view, the rest of the match was just game management. Edwards hit the post once after Andeng-Ndi had panicked and basically passed the ball to him with after about an hour. But – the goalkeeper’s error apart – United played some good stuff this afternoon. They also cheat: Shrimps’ Captain Gwion Edwards was booked Early Doors as Gus Scott-Morriss rolled over and over again as if he had been pole-axed after a fairly innocuous challenge. Andeng-Ndi went down in his own penalty area with a mystery injury in the second half and stopped the game for perhaps four minutes. He was clearly play-acting as well and he should have been booked. But why do it anyway? The game was already won…

After half an hour, if Lewis Payne had made even half as much an Oscar-winning performance as Scott-Morriss did earlier, the United defender who cynically took him down as he looked like escaping up the Morecambe right could have been sent-off. But he wasn’t even booked.

I don’t want us to cheat – but we need to be smarter in situations like this by at least standing our ground with the Referee as he is conned by the opposition.

Southend already do things like this. They didn’t need to cheat this afternoon, though. And they reinforced their superiority: in movement; in organisation and in terms of how to finish – with another goal in injury time at the end of the game: substitute Josh Walker scored this time.  

So Morecambe were walloped once more – no Clean Sheet yet again but enough goals conceded to keep their average of three goals a game right on track. They remain bottom – and they will go down if they continue to play as naively as this. The crowd was restless – lots of people left even before half time as United scored their second goal. Many fans booed at half time and the jeering was even louder at the end. Former Manager Derek Adams’ name was chanted at times and – all-in-all – this was really not a positive experience for our struggling Manager today.

Southend, meanwhile, moved up one place to seventh in the table – and a Play-Off spot. And they finally – after decades of failing – got the Monkey off their Backs of not being able to beat the team whose nickname they are most frequently mistaken for in a league match.

Morecambe aren’t a really dreadful team but in a competition as unremitting and relentless as the National League, we remain miles away from the basics that are needed to compete, let alone survive.

With just twelve days left until Ash has told us everything will suddenly all come together, there was absolutely no sign of it today. I’m not going to repeat what he said after the game – he has been a Broken Record for quite some time and I don’t think it’s fair to dwell on it.

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne (28 Emmerson Sutton 86’); 5 Maldini Calcurri (Y); 6 Ludwig Francillette; 7 Gwion Edwards (C); 8 Miguel Azeez; 10 Jake Cain; 21 Joe Nuttall (Y) (11 Admiral Muskwe79’); 29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner (15 Ben Williams 62’); 32 George Thomas; 36 Jack Nolan (18 Ben Tollitt 79’).

Subs not used: 1 Archie Mair; 24 Yann Songo’o; 33 Arjan Reikhy.

Southend United: 30 Colin Andeng-Ndi; 2 Gus Scott-Morriss; 3 Nathan Ralph (C); 6 Ben Goodliffe; 9 Andy Dallas (11 Josh Walker 64’); 10 Sam Austin (28 Oli Coker 64’); 16 Harry Taylor (Y); 18 Slavi Spasov (19 Leon Chambers-Parillon) ; 22 Keenan Appiah-Forson (17 Cav Miley 79’); 23 James Morton; 33 Harry Boyes.

Subs not used: 1 Nicholas Hayes; 7 Jack Bridge; 14 Tom Hopper; 15 Joe Gubbins.

Ref: Paul Marsden.

Att: 3,042 (448 from Southend. It’s a hell of a long way but it must have been really worth it. They should mint a medal: “I was there when the Shrimpers took three points off the Shrimps for the very first time!” Safe journey home to all of them…)