ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. SATURDAY, 21st DECEMBER 2025.

As Brackley Town Lose Again…

Morecambe FC fans love Brackley Town. We have a 100% record against them for a start. When they visited the north Lancashire seaside in November, they not only let us win the only match that has ever been played between the two clubs but also allowed us a clean sheet into the bargain. That’s a very rare occurrence for Ashvir Singh Johal and his band of merry men these days. So were they going to extend their largesse into the Xmas season as a token of Yuletide generosity?

Referee Melissa Burgin was instrumental in Morecambe’s rare victory last month; ruling–out a perfectly legitimate equaliser for the Saints which was not appreciated by the Brackley Manager, Gavin Cowan. He claimed that the Fourth Official saw that there had been no infringement at the time but the Referee over-ruled him. So he would be looking for revenge this afternoon. He would also be looking for a change in his men’s league fortunes: at all other clubs except Morecambe, failing Managers get sacked sooner or later.

The Saints arrived in nineteenth place in the National League, just four points ahead of the Shrimps but with a game in hand. They have lost five games in a row in the league but won at fellow-strugglers Braintree in the FA Trophy last Saturday. Morecambe also won in the same competition away from home – at the even more disastrous Gateshead – by three goals to nil. But don’t be fooled: Ashvir’s tactics never change and his team usually don’t understand or can’t play them. Opposition Managers have worked us out: high press; hit on the break and Bob’s Your Uncle as the leakiest defence in the whole five top divisions in the English football pyramid inevitably concedes, sooner or later.

God know what drivel Ash came out with this week in his staged `press conference’ before the game. But he chose 100% failure Rolando Aarons to start again in the centre forward berth. Why? He can’t do it – anyone who has ever seen him play knows that. Ash also shook-up his defence yet again, emphasising that – half way through the season – he still doesn’t know which payers to deploy in the very department which most needs shoring-up.

At least he had a full team to choose from, bar injuries. Brackley didn’t. Their X feed named Shepherd Murombedzi as one of their substitutes today. If he had been, it would point towards another scandal where the UK Prison Service has released the wrong prisoner. The Banbury Guardian tells us about this delightful gentleman:

A Brackley Town player found naked on a roof discarding evidence of his leading role in a drugs ring worth millions has been handed a ten-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

Shepherd Murombedzi, 30, of Hazel Crescent, Kidlington, discovered his fate at Swindon Crown Court on Friday having previously admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine and possession of criminal property.

Co-defendant Tre Mitford, 30, of Hamilton Road, Dover, a striker who played alongside Murombedzi at Brackley before moving on in the summer of 2022, was sentenced to six years and nine months having admitted the same offences plus possession of cocaine. Police also exercised a search warrant at Murombedzi’s address and while trying to gain entry, saw the suspect naked on a flat first-floor roof at the back of the property throwing something into the garden. That turned out to be one of four phones discovered in that search, one of which was found in the bathroom after it rang while Murombedzi, accompanied by police by that point, was on the toilet. No drugs were found but just shy of £50,000 in cash and £200,000 worth of high-value clothes, footwear and Rolex watches were gathered.

During his initial police interview, Murombedzi tried to shift the blame to Mitford, saying he had stored the money because he had been “blackmailed with threats to tell his girlfriend he had cheated on her”.”

Wow – never a dull moment at down-town Brackley, obviously…

It was quite bright and dry in Northamptonshire as Morecambe kicked-off at Midday on the Winter Solstice. Not much of interest happened until the tenth minute, when Miguel Azeez lost the ball in the middle of the pitch. The Saints’ Morgan Roberts got away down the Brackley left and crossed into the Morecambe box where a diving Matt Lowe headed just wide of the target. Jack Price then shot over the bar after thirteen minutes for the hosts before taking a corner in the 25^th minute which Shane Byrne headed powerfully over the bar from a corner taken by Jack Price on the Saints’ right. Shortly afterwards, with Town asking most of the questions, Michael Nottingham tried his luck with a shot from within the penalty area after Jamal Blackman had flapped at a cross. At full stretch, all Nottingham was able to do was wallop the ball over the away crossbar.

Morecambe had predictably looked fairly toothless up-front up until this point but went ahead with a really soft goal after half an hour. Jack Nolan got away on the Morecambe right following a superb pass by Azeez and played a cross towards Rolando Aarons at the far post. His tame header looped towards Cameron Gregory in the home goal but his own man Scott Pollock got in his way and he inexplicably dropped the ball at the feet of George Thomas, who accepted an early Xmas gift by rolling it into the net to register his first goal for the Shrimps.

The home team responded by winning a sequence of corners and continuing to dominate the play. In the forty-first minute, Lewis Payne chanced his arm with a low shot which was deflected just wide of Gregory’s right-hand post, with the goalkeeper a mere bystander. But in what was a really poor advert for National League football, a mixture of sometimes desperate defending and poor finishing ensured that Town trooped back to the Dressing Rooms in a familiar position for them: losing again.

And so it carried-on in the second half. Morecambe struggled all afternoon defending Tyler Lyttle’s long throws. Right from the re-start, he was at it again: launching a howitzer into the Shrimps’ penalty area in the first minute from the Brackley left. It was headed back to him by the home defence for him to return it once and then twice, when it fell perfectly for Pollock to volley it home from just a couple of yards out. But he blasted the ball over the bar when it was surely easier to score. In the forty-eighth minute, Payne was booked for a foul on Roberts on the Saint’s left, mid-way into the Morecambe half. Price took it, sending the ball towards the far post, where Matt Lowe got a touch to it. But Blackman pulled off a miraculous stop, pushing the ball at full stretch against his left-hand post and away to safety.

Payne drew a fairly routine save from Gregory with 52 minutes on the clock before Azeez shot from distance a minute later but didn’t test the goalkeeper, who stopped it easily. However, the visitors were playing much more fluently by this point and Brackley were struggling to find any momentum to get themselves back in contention.  Raheem Conte was injured at around 55 minutes and had to come off after extensive treatment on the pitch. Ash took the opportunity to re-jink his defence. It managed to clear a corner from the Saints after 66 minutes after which Morecambe struck quickly on the counter-attack.  Nolan picked-up the ball on the left, slipped it to Azeez, who picked-out Ben Tollitt with a fantastic pass into the left side of the home penalty area. Ben had the presence of mind to draw the goalkeeper and then slip the ball to Thomas on his left, who scored his second goal of the afternoon with a measured shot.

There were half-chances for both teams after this and one thing I personally really don’t like to see. Blackman was shaping-up to take a goal-kick after 78 minutes and suddenly was struck by some sort of mysterious palsy which caused him to fall over. There was nothing wrong with him: this is cheating. I hate it when I see other teams doing it and I don’t want to see mine following suit. The fact that there wasn’t anything really wrong with him was shown in the eighty-sixth minute as he saved brilliantly again from Newton. I was also unhappy with Referee Dale Baines (bother of Everton’s Leighton) to only book Brackley Captain Gareth Dean after 51 minutes. He clearly slammed his elbow into Rolando Aaron’s face off the ball for reasons only he could explain. But he should have seen red for this really nasty foul. Substitute Connor Hall should have pulled one back for the hosts in the 84^th minute but blazed another gilt-edged chance from close in way over the bar. So Brackley lost yet again. We love them even more than ever: 100% record intact with a Double over them and another Clean Sheet.

This was a pretty dreadful game to watch. But Morecambe did just enough to escape with the points this afternoon At the end of the match, Brackley found themselves just one place ahead of the Shrimps in the National League table but level on points. Town remain out of the relegation pack: but only just. Morecambe went up to twenty-first position: but still in the mire. We all know the sort of stuff – about `the process’; the `game plan’ and other clichés plus endless statistics and a large dollop of wishful thinking about the goals his team might  have scored – that Ashvir Singh Johal likes to indulge in after games; win, lose or draw. He didn’t let us down today. So I hope he has a quantifiably happy Yuletide – and I hope everyone else associated with Morecambe FC does too. For the record, this is what he said after this second win a row for his men:

“I thought today the players executed the game plan really, really well. To score five goals in two games and not concede a goal speaks volumes about their togetherness; the unity within the group. Not just the players; the staff as well. I think that with the work we have done in our analysis sessions which the staff have done, I thought we looked very solid today. The most pleasing thing for me is, despite (Brackley) playing well – which they did – we were good on the ball and could have had more goals.”

Brackley Town: 21 Cameron Gregory; 2 Tyler Lyttle; 3 Riccardo Calder (27 Connor Hall 83’); 4 Jack Price (28 Danny Newton (Y) 56’); 5 Kyle Morrison (Y) (22 Ben Wodskou 68’); 6 Gareth Dean (C) (Y); 7 Scott Pollock (8 Zak Brown 83’); 10 Morgan Roberts; 11 Matt Lowe; 12 Michael Nottingham; 23 Shane Byrne.

Subs not used: 1 Jonny Maxted; 15 Byron Pendleton.

Morecambe:  40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne (Y) (6 Ludwig Francillette 57’); 3 Raheem Conte (20 Mo Sangare (Y) 57’); 5 Maldini Kacurri; 8 Miguel Azeez; 12 Rolando Aarons (29 Elijah Dixon-Bonner 79’); 14 Alie Sesay (C); 18 Ben Tollitt; 32 George Thomas; 33 Arjan Raikhy (28 Emmerson Sutton 78’); 36 Jack Nolan (Y) (19 Ma’Kel Bogle-Campbell 97’).

Subs not used:  41 M Boney; 9 Harrison Panayiotou.        

Ref: Dale Baines.

Att: 1.055 (154 from Morecambe – well done and Happy Christmas to all involved.)