Or how about Brainless in Braintree instead?…

Morecambe made the long journey through wind and rain to Essex today to face Braintree Town for the first time ever in any competition. This is what I wrote about the club earlier in the year on this site as part of my review of our fellow National League members:

Braintree Town’s Cressing Road ground – voted the worst in the National League by at least one YouTuber – can be found 269 miles south from the Mazuma Mobile Stadium and roughly seventeen miles west of Colchester in Essex. Given its current sponsorship name, I’m surprised that the only vegan club on the planet – Forest Green Rovers – refuses to visit it at all on principle because the stadium is currently known as The Rare Breed Meat Co Stadium.

This gives a whole new meaning to the question asked by a waiter: ”Would you like your steak rare – or really rare?”

(Note to Self: If they genuinely are rare breeds, surely it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to keep on eating them, does it?…)

Whatever – long before the fate of any rare breeds became entangled with the club, it was founded as long ago as 1898 as Manor Works, which was the factory team of the Crittall Window Company. This firm apparently specialised in manufacturing metal window frames and from this, the club earned its nickname The Iron. During 1921, the club changed its name to Crittall Athletic and then Braintree & Crittall Athletic in 1968 before dropping the Works-related prefix altogether during 1981 – although a factory image still features on the club badge. They have been both Champions and Cup Winners in a number of local leagues in Essex but in 2012 finally reached what Buddhists might describe as the fifth Circle of Rebirth (The Inner Circle of Nirvana being represented by the Premier League) – otherwise known as the National League to you and me.

They were relegated to the National League South in 2017 for a single year; bounced back – and then were relegated back there again for five long seasons during 2019.

Last season, the Iron (not to be confused with Scunthorpe United) enjoyed their third stint in the National League and finished seventeenth. They clearly aspire to move even higher, as this statement on their website underlines:

“The floodlighting at the Cressing Road Stadium has recently been upgraded to over 250 lux to meet the entry requirements to the Football League. This upgrade, together with six new turnstiles and a total refurbishment of the dressing rooms was completed in March 2007 at a cost of over £600,000 to meet the ground grading requirements for entry into the National League in 2011. A further £200,000 was spent on improvements to the Cressing Road Stadium, including additional turnstiles, toilets, terracing, etc., during season 2011-12 to secure The Football Association’s ‘A’ Grade to ensure that the ground met the entry criteria for promotion to the Football League.”

Blimey: over 250 lux! Now – that’s what I call ambition!

Anyway, the only player I have discovered who has played for both Braintree and Morecambe – who have yet to meet in a competitive football match – is the late lamented Christian Mbulu.

Morecambe will initiate their relationship with Braintree Town at Cressing Road on Saturday, 29^th November 2025. They will then host the Essex Iron on Saturday, 14^th March 2026.

Braintree started today’s game in the relegation zone of the NL, a single place above Morecambe with the same number of points but a vastly superior goal difference against the leakiest defence in all of senior English football. A week ago, the Iron drew 1-1 against the other Iron in Scunthorpe and they have drawn two of their last six league games, losing three of them. They have no further interest in the FA Cup either, having been mauled by minnows Chelmsford City 4-1 earlier this month. They have been more successful in the National League Cup (which we are banned from due to the Whittingham shenanigans) by beating Wolves Under-21s 3-2 last Tuesday and booking a place in the Quarter-Finals.

Steve Pitt’s Town squad has some interesting players in it. One of their recently most successful scorers is Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. Jay is a convicted drug-smuggler who was released five months ago from a four-year jail sentence for planning to import £600,000 of cannabis after serving just over ten months of a four-year sentence. So although Braintree are not high in the league, that might not have been the case for at least one of their players (not mentioning any names) in the past, might it?…

I don’t know what Mr Pitt said prior to the game other than what he told the Colchester Gazette after his team’s win against Wolves:

“We knew it would be hard against such a high, young, fast professional side but everyone worked their socks off and even when they equalised twice we never gave up and we kept pressing to get the winning goal. Now we can look forward to the quarter-finals although our priority now is take all this forward for our next home game against Morecambe on Saturday afternoon.”

This isn’t particularly relevant but it’s certainly more interesting than what his Opposite Number would have said before the match on the club’s own channels. I haven’t even bothered to listen to Morecambe Manager Ashvir Singh Johal’s scripted thoughts about Braintree from these sources because these would be so boring and predictable. However, I found an interview from BBC Radio Lancashire in which he said things like this:

“We’ve worked on a lot of areas, not just on the pitch but in the video room; some sessions with the whole team indoors… It’s been a really positive week. You don’t really train physically; it’s more psychological; it’s more mental; it’s more positioning; it’s more thought process. That’s all we’re focused on.”

I may be showing my age, but I would have thought that as a footballer – however perfect your mental attitude and `thought processes’ are, if you don’t train physically, you simply will not be able to carry them out because you are not fit enough to do so. Soccer isn’t played indoors or in a video room: it’s played on a grass pitch against real people. Isn’t it?

But what do I know? I’m sure Ash is a really lovely chap (there’s no doubt that it’s very difficult to dislike him) but I increasingly think that – with his charts and his videos and his `processes’ – a man who has never played the game professionally is in totally the wrong line of work.

That said, however, the performance of his team later on would hopefully confound such negative thoughts…

There was no place for Gwion Edwards in his squad today so the Welshman is presumably injured – yet again. Mo Sangare was also dropped to the bench and Harrison Panayiotou was chosen to lead the line once again. Why? Surely the Manager has a better option for a man who is clearly not good enough to be playing at this level of English football. But maybe `Harry’s’ `mental processes’ are spot-on. Whatever, Paul Lewis also made a surprise return to the bench.

The weather in Essex had been very wet prior to the match but it was just about dry as it kicked-off at the Meat is Murder Cressing Road Stadium with their very impressive 250 lux floodlights already doing the business.

Morecambe won the first corner of the match after five minutes and Jack Nolan’s effort from it was immediately blocked for another one and then cleared. Town immediately pushed forward and intercepted a poor pass from goalkeeper Jamal Blackman apparently meant for Miguel Azeez but played directly to Goran Babić. Christmas had arrived early for the Iron forward. He duly accepted the present with probably the simplest tap-in he will ever be presented with as he simply guided the ball around the stranded stopper into the net from all of twenty-five yards.

It was absolutely appalling defending yet again of the sort which has blighted the Lancashire club’s performances throughout this season so far. We clearly cannot pass out from the back effectively: so why keep on trying to?

The Shrimps won another corner after a shot from Emmerson Sutton had been deflected with twelve minutes on the clock. This came to nothing but Ben Tollitt took a punt from just outside the penalty area a minute later which Town’s on-loan Derby goalkeeper Jack Thompson saved easily. Thompson then made another routine save from Nolan after just over a quarter of an hour.  The same players were involved again after twenty-five minutes after the Morecambe man took the ball off an Iron defender: the goalkeeper saved well low down in the corner of his goal.

Blackman redeemed himself somewhat after 34 minutes when, after Marley Marshall-Miranda had passed the ball to Callum Reece-Logan on the Town left, unmarked Fulham loanee Terrell Works was given a perfect opportunity to score from the resulting cross but the away goalkeeper denied him with a sublime save.

Referee George Laflin then booked Morecambe Assistant Manager Lee Tomlin – presumably for something he had said to the Fourth Official.

Jake Cain won a free-kick in the forty-second minute just to the right of centre from Morecambe’s perspective and about 25 yards out. But the shot by the man who had been fouled went harmlessly over the bar. Miguel Azeez then took his turn to shoot straight at the home goalkeeper right at the death and the away team trudged back to the Dressing Rooms at Half Time in a familiar position: losing against a poor side after another lack-lustre performance.

This would be the time that a motivational Manager would encourage his men to regroup and concentrate. But Ashvir Singh Johal doesn’t seem to be able to do this.

During the second half – with still effectively no punch whatsoever in the centre up-front – Morecambe again tried to beat goalkeeper Thompson with long-range shots. And rarely really troubled him. Tollitt was an exception with a fierce shot in the fifty-first minute which the Town stopper did really well to keep out. Ben then fed-in Harrison Panayiotou for a shot on goal with almost an hour played and our Number Nine predictably fluffed his lines by hitting the post when he really should have buried the ball.

At the other end, the Iron seemed to be increasingly relying on their long-throw expert – Captain George Langston – to cause problems for the visitors. This tactic was largely ineffective and the hosts offered very little offensively as Morecambe dominated possession during the early stages of the second period. Sahid Kamara put a shot into the side-netting with just over an hour played as the Iron tried to catch the Shrimps on the break. However, Manager Steve Pitt’s decision to replace defender Manny Omrore with evergreen forward John Akinde told everybody he was looking for further goals. This move would have been encouraged by the retirement of hurt Morecambe Skipper Yann Songo’o and Ash’s decision to move midfield dynamo Jake Cain into the back three and change the central attack by replacing one dud with another one: Rolando Aarons came on for Panayiotou with twelve minutes left to play: and put in his predicable shift: nothing whatsoever to show for the change.

Akinde is a big lad and he caused more problems for the away defence during the time he was on than had any of his team-mates previously. But for an excellent interception by Sutton, Akinde would have set-up fellow sub Jay Emmanuel-Thomas for a tap-in with his first touch of the game with seventy-seven minutes on the clock. Emmanuel-Thomas then forced Blackman into a good save with just eight minutes left as Braintree looked the likeliest to extend their lead. But a poor game basically meandered to yet another spineless defeat for the Shrimps.

Basic errors which have plagued the team all season saw them give themselves a mountain to climb early on – and they never looked like doing it against a really poor outfit.

We’re doomed, Captain Mainwearing!

Ash’s choices and tactics are increasingly puzzling: surely everybody knows that you can’t play without a forward line and expect to win at any level of football. But that’s what he did today. To play out from the back, you have to have players who are properly coached and are – to use a cliché I suspect the Manager would like – on message. But the fact that they are neither was shown in a single kamikaze moment when Jamal Blackman set-up Goran Babić with a golden chance that I doubt even our own `Harry’ could have missed. But there again…

It’s been apparent probably since the Panjab Warriors’ Experiment began that Mr Johal simply doesn’t know what he’s doing. The players he has at his disposal are more than good enough to succeed in the National League. So why aren’t they doing?

You have to wonder how many of these men are here just for the pay-check. Where’s the commitment? We can’t keep relying on players like Songo’o, Cain, Edwards and Nolan to give our team any backbone on the pitch. If the Manager can’t motivate the rest of them, the jaws of the National League North are growing ever wider.

Braintree’s three points took them out of the relegation zone tonight: nineteenth in the National League pack. Morecambe’s toothless performance today leaves them in serious danger in twenty-second place. Only the equally hopeless form of Truro (who hammered us five-nil in September but lost 3-1 at Hartlepool today); Aldershot (who walloped us 4-0 in August but got clobbered 5-1 at York this afternoon with ten men on the pitch) is keeping us from the bottom of the league. These are the statistics which nightmares of made of.

Recent results: a capitulation against Sutton at home; a lucky win against Brackley and an even luckier escape again Yeovil – three poor teams who we should be sweeping aside – do not augur well for the future. It should have been Dog Eat Dog today at a stadium which celebrates the consumption of Meat. Braintree got this – but we played like Vegans. At virtually any other club in England, Ash would have been sacked ages ago. But he’s still in post – and he’s’ still spouting delusional stuff about the performance of his mis-firing team because he increasingly keeps on talking about what might have been rather than what actually happens on the pitch:

“Disappointed with the score. Disappointed with the way we lost. Disappointed that we conceded a goal from giving the ball away in our defensive third. Pleased with the second half attacking output. We had maybe six or seven clear-cut chances. I’m disappointed we didn’t score those: we score two of those seven chances; one of those seven chances; three of those seven chances and it’s a completely different game.”

But sadly – not for the first and probably not the last time – it wasn’t.

Braintree Town: 13 Jack Thompson; 4 George Langston (C); 5 Manny Omrore (14 John Akinde 67’); 6 James Vennings; 8 Marley Marshall-Miranda (Y); 16 Goran Babić (Y) (7 Tom Blackwell 58’); 17 Jacob Pinnington; 18 Sahid Kamara (9 Lewis Walker 76’); 33 Callum Reece-Logan; 24 Frankie Terry; 38 Terrell Works (10 Jay Emmanuel-Thomas 76’).

Subs not used: 2 Aiden Francis-Clarke; 19 Freddie Hockey; 20 Fletcher Alexander-Hubbard.

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 5 Maldini Calcurri (Y); 6 Ludwig Francillette; 8 Miguel Azeez; 9 Harrison Panayiotou (12 Rolando Aarons 68’); 10 Jake Cain (Y) (20 Mo Sangare 82’); 18 Ben Tollitt; 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (17 Paul Lewis 68’); 28 Emmerson Sutton (Y); 32 George Thomas (29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner 89’); 36 Jack Nolan.

Subs not used: 1 Archie Mair; 2 Lewis Payne; 33 Arjan Raikhy.  

Ref: George Laflin.

Att: Unknown.