ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. TUESDAY, 10th FEBRUARY 2026.

Morecambe hand Tamworth a point.

Morecambe entertained Tamworth for the first time at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium tonight. But it was far from the first time the clubs have crossed swords. The Lambs’ official website tells us:

“Despite Morecambe’s Football League pedigree, the two sides first met in January1972, when Tamworth were beaten 4–1 at home in the FA Trophy.

Across 17 meetings in the Northern Premier League and Conference/National League, Tamworth have recorded just two victories:
• 1–0 away win at Christie Park (August 1979)
• 2–0 home win at The Lamb (March 1981)

Prior to this season, Tamworth had gone seven consecutive matches without scoring against the Shrimps. That run ended in October when Kennedy Digie headed home from a Ben Milnes cross, though the match finished 1–1.

Tuesday will mark Tamworth’s first-ever visit to the Mazuma Mobile Stadium, as they look for their first away league win over Morecambe since 1979.”

Tamworth arrived in safe twelfth place in the National League table on the back of a single win and three losses in their last six games. Last time out, they came from behind to draw 1-1 against Hartlepool in Staffordshire.

Morecambe, by contrast, can only dream about such security in the league. Following his predecessor’s disastrous spell in charge, new Manager Jim Bentley appears more and more shocked by the legacy that Ashvir Singh Johal has left him with. Last week, on his second full day back at the club, Jim saw his players perform well enough against Altrincham on their own patch to have won the game. But they only drew. Last Saturday, though, virtually the same team put on possibly their weakest display of the season so far in the first half against almost equally hopeless Truro City. Jimbo seemed to be almost clinically in shock right after the game when he said things like this:

“I was quite alarmed by certain things in the first half, being perfectly honest. We have up the training a bit: try to get them sharper and brighter. It’s not all to do with how they have been set-up to play: that’s down to individuals at times; a mentality to defend and dig-in. We’re going to have to find that within us and roll our sleeves up and battle and compete. Is it in them? It’s up to us to try and get it out of them. We will have to squeeze every ounce out of every last player within the squad. If we take the first half, if we’re going to bring that to the party, we might just as well pack up now and go home – it’s as simple as that.”

On the day before tonight’s game, he told Radio Lancashire:

“There can’t be any doom and gloom. I’ll be positive; I’ll be bright today. That positive mindset that I’ve got – that’s what we’re trying to do: get into the lads and try and get them a bit more confident; feeling brighter about themselves. Take all the shackles off; take all the doom and gloom away. Go out there and play with freedom. Give it your absolute all. We will make one or two changes come Tuesday because we need to freshen things up. We can’t just keep flogging people – we might have someone on the outskirts of the first eleven who might have been out of favour; might come in and suddenly, they can be your best player.”

It’s good to see that Jim is also setting about getting some of the dead wood out of the squad he was bequeathed by Mr Johal. One of the worst signings ever to appear in a Shrimps shirt – Rolando Aarons – has not had his contract renewed. How someone as consistently useless, uncommitted and totally ineffectual as this player clearly was ever got one at the club in the first place – let alone kept being picked, week after underwhelming week by the utterly clueless former boss – is something only Ashvir could explain.

Tamworth Manager Andy Peaks had this to say about the impending fixture prior to the contest:

“Another long trip, another tough match. They’re fighting for their lives and if you’re not at it you get turned over. We have to turn the point against Hartlepool into three on Tuesday.”

The weather has been grey and showery in recent days in north Lancashire. Today, a bright morning deteriorated into pouring rain by the evening and the game started on a very wet pitch in a downpour which sometimes relented but never stopped.

Morecambe started brightly and bossed the game in the early stages. Jim had shaken things up as promised and veterans Yann Songo’o, Ben Tollitt and Gwion Edwards were rested only to be introduced later in the game. Timmy Akindileni and Mo Sangare started in defence and Harlee Dean took the Captain’s armband.

Timothy Akindileni leapt highest to head a corner from the Morecambe right after a quarter of an hour only to see Dan Creaney do really well to clear it off his own goal-line with his goalkeeper beaten. Jack Nolan did even better to win the ball in the middle of the park after 24 minutes. As he and Chris Popov led the charge towards the away goal, Jack took the initiative and beat veteran Jasbir Singh all ends up with a superb shot to put the Shrimps one goal to the good.

Gradually, though, the visitors started to work their way back into the game. After thirty-five minutes, the ball fell to Ben Asquaye in the home penalty area on the Lambs’ right and Jamal Blackman made a really tremendous reaction save from him at the cost of the corner.

Then the big Morecambe stopper completely let himself down. The home defence had lined-up to deal with the corner kick. Big Jim was yelling “Lewis – Lewis!” at little Mr Payne, presumably to get him to move himself, pronto – to absolutely no effect. Lewis was never going to stop any ball coming over into the danger area where he was standing – he surely needed to be on the line. But Jamal Blackman should have taken charge – and completely failed to do so. Tamworth Captain Benjamin Milnes took the dead ball kick from the Tamworth left, Jamal made a powder-puff flap at it and Jordan Cullinane-Liburd gratefully accepted the gift at the far post and nodded the ball home – thanks very much.

Jim Bentley must have nearly gone into orbit on the touchline. I nearly did in the stands. This kind of absolutely hopeless defending has plagued Morecambe all season long. Blackman has often been culpable. He is a brilliant shot-stopper and apparently invincible at penalties but basic errors; weak distribution and positional errors have probably more than cancelled-out all the good he has done so far.

In injury time, Miguel Azeez took a free-kick from just outside the Lambs’ penalty area to the Morecambe left. The ball was deflected and finally reached Sangare but his shot bounced back into safety off the post.

So it was a familiar story at half time. Decent approach work by Morecambe at times and dominance for periods only to be undone by an inability to concentrate and absolutely dire defending at the back.

I personally dreaded what might happen in the second half. Time and again – at about the hour mark – Morecambe have run out of puff this season. Whatever discipline they had previously then goes out of the window as they just boot the ball anywhere in hopeless efforts to clear their lines. They look leaden-footed and drop ever deeper as the opposition begins to swamp them – not because they are better – but simply because they are fitter.

Much fitter…

And, right on cue, it started to happen again this evening.

I was beginning to fear for the worst once more when – with 65 minutes on the clock – Morecambe launched a swift counter-attack which saw Mo Sangare work a position brilliantly for a shot which Singh did well to save only for Chris Popov to wallop the rebound home from a position where it would have been easy to hit the ball over the bar.

The tremendous goal seemed to revive the flagging home team. Jim made some changes and we all hoped – for once – that Morecambe would be able to hold onto the lead for a very welcome change.

But visiting Manager Andy Peaks became really animated on the touchline after this: his foghorn of a voice was probably saving lives at sea by keeping boats away from the Morecambe Bay shoreline altogether: I bet he could have been heard in Lancaster if the wind was in the right direction tonight. But Andy didn’t just shout: he totally changed things with three substitutions when there were about ten minutes left.

They paid dividends after no time at all. Tamworth equalised with just six minutes scheduled to play. Tom Tonks – notorious for his long throw after Tamworth’s recent televised FA Cup adventures – slung a howitzer into the mix from the Lambs’ right. Creaney drew another weak save from Blackman as a result with a header and substitute Oliver Lynch tapped the rebound home with possibly his first touch of the ball.

And that was that.

Morecambe played the last six minutes with just ten men after Paul Lewis was led off straight down the tunnel after extensive treatment on the pitch for what was a bad enough cut to require stitches right at the end of the game. Jim had already used all his substitutes.

Many of the home faithful booed their men as they clearly tried to cling onto the point they had after that: Blackman took the brunt of the jeering as he took forever to clear the ball from set kicks. But the depleted Shrimps managed to hang on to what they had.

Tamworth are probably a better team than Truro, who beat us here far too easily just three days ago. By comparison, Morecambe’s was a phenomenally better performance tonight.

But we gave the Lambs their point on a plate, not just once – but twice. We remain next to bottom as the team who got the Double over us on Saturday lost at home 0-2 to Woking.

Single points aren’t going to save us. But at least we didn’t lose this evening.

Tamworth’s point meant that they remained twelfth in the National League.

So what did Big Jim think of it tonight?:

”I’m gutted for the players. We made a mistake for the first goal. Second goal was criminal. There were some good signs. Jamal Blackman’s been superb this season. So, for me, he’s well in credit. But sometimes, these things happen. It’s a critical error. I thought we looked good on the counter-attack. We just need that little bit of Lady Luck. We’re nearly there. Ultimately, we need three points rather than one. On a positive spin, they give it their all; they ran hard; they competed . Disappointed – but we need to take it on the chin and move on – and move on quickly.”

Morecambe: 40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne (Y); 5 Harlee Dean (C); 6 Ludwig Francillette (24 Yann Songo’o 56’); 8 Miguel Azeez (18 Ben Tollitt 88’); 15 Ben Williams (7 Gwion Edwards 73’); 17 Paul Lewis (Y); 20 Mo Sangare (32 George Thomas 74’); 33 Timothy Akindileni (Y); 36 Jack Nolan; 42 Chris Popov.

Subs not used: 41 Myles Boney; 2 Raheem Conte; 19 Ma’kel Bogle-Campbell..

Tamworth: 1 Jasbir Singh; 4 Tom Tonks; 5 Kennedy Digie (Y) (26 Haydn Hollis 45’); 8 Benjamin Milnes (C) (45 Ryan Howley 81’); 11 Luke Fairlamb; 12 Joseph Rye; 14 Stefan Mols (20 Tyler Roberts 81’); 8 Jordan Cullinane-Liburd; 24 Ben Asquaye (46 Daniel Isichei 66’); 39 Dan Creaney; 42 Teo Kurtaran (27 Oliver Lynch 81’).

Subs not used: 6 Alfie Bates; 44 Michael Reindorf.

Ref: William Davis.

Att: 2,170 (68 from Tamworth.)