ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. SATURDAY, 28th MARCH 2026.

National League North – Here We Come!

Two clubs facing distinct crises of their own met today at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium in a game that could be critical to their futures in the National League. Visitors Aldershot arrived in eighteenth place in the table, just four points above the relegation positions. But – under former Morecambe star striker John Coleman (who scored an astonishing 201 goals in just 273 appearances for the club) – they have lost six league games in a row to seize the unwanted distinction of being one of the clubs that always seem to fall out of the pack towards the end of a season and end up in the mire.

Hosts Morecambe are already in it – and have been all season. Seven days ago, Manager Jim Bentley identified this week as an absolutely key one in the club’s fading hopes for survival. With an away game at struggling Yeovil followed by two home fixtures, he was hoping for a maximum nine points and escape from the Legion of the Damned at the bottom of the table. Instead, though, his players let him down by losing tamely in Somerset and then allowing a two-one lead to slip under the lights against Hartlepool at home last Tuesday when they lost yet again this season right at the end of game. One of the reasons the Pools won is that they were conspicuously much fitter than the Shrimps. I have a vision of huge goalkeeper Jamal Blackman ambling back towards his own goal at a speed I reckon I could match as a 71-year-old after coming up for a corner as the Monkey Hangers won the ball and squandered a chance to increase their lead by missing an empty net right at the death. Where was the sense of urgency? Why can’t he move his enormous bulk any faster in the first place?

None of this can be blamed on Jim Bentley. His clueless predecessor Ashvir Singh Johal created this situation by signing too many players who are neither good nor committed enough to play even at National League level. He compounded this folly by failing to deal with the basics, of which physical fitness is a key one. But the New Manager Bounce which Jimbo certainly brought to our seemingly cursed club has worn a bit thin in the last two matches. With only six games left, the Shrimps are looking for a massive improvement in both form and help from fellow strugglers. If they are to have any realistic chance of getting out of their current position – next to bottom of the entire division – it was imperative that they won today. Nothing less would do.

As for the Shots, their form is even worse than that of today’s hosts. Since finally being shown the door by Accrington Stanley two years ago, John Coleman’s managerial career has gone steadily from bad to worse. He was sacked after just two months of a five month contract by Gillingham in March 2024, after managing a paltry two wins (one against Morecambe) in fourteen matches and earning the unwelcome accolade of achieving the lowest win ratio of any permanent manager in the club’s history. This barely improved in his next job and he was sacked by League of Ireland Waterford during September of last year, having won just five of twenty matches at the helm of the club. Now, his latest charges are going in the same direction as his previous ones: backwards at a rate of knots. Football purists will welcome this: `Coley’s’ teams have always been fully paid-up practitioners of the Dark Arts and pushed the rules to the limit with the agricultural and muscular style of soccer they have all played: the Beautiful Game certainly isn’t one of John Coleman’s trademarks…

For the record, this is what he said after the game last Tuesday when his team lost at home 1-2 to Boreham Wood:

“I feel I’m losing me own credibility here. The supporters have been absolutely brilliant with me. But I’m saying the same thing to them. I’d be bored; I’d be saying: `that fellow’s an idiot! What does he think he’s for? – they’re playing the same way all the while!’ (But) I’ve got a limited pool of players that I can pick from. Whatever we do, we concede a goal. That’s us at the moment. The minute we keep a clean sheet, we will win a game of football; I know that. It has to be soon. Because we’re in serious relegation trouble now and the players have got to realise that.”

Last August, Ashvir’s Shrimps played their first away game of the season against Aldershot in Hampshire. There, we all received a very large hint of what was to come when his hopeless team were trounced by four goals to nil by a distinctly average Shots’ side which would be looking to replace its manager in just a couple of months’ time. Morecambe should have done the same thing. Current Manager Jim Bentley has always been up against it, trying to coach negative mindsets and habits out of Mr Johal’s dysfunctional squad and the fear has always been that he simply doesn’t have long enough to complete this major transformation. This is what he said before the latest meeting with old adversary, pal and fellow Scouser `Coley’:

“We should have more points than what we’ve got. But that’s life. There’s loads of positives. Obviously, the negative is that we’ve conceded too many goals. In life, you’ve just got to dust yourself down. You can’t feel sorry for yourself because if you do, Aldershot will be waiting to throw the boot in. It’s a game now that we’ve got to react and respond – and we’re looking forward to it. We’ll look to go again on Saturday and give it our best shot.”

Off the field, there was yet more bad news in the seemingly unending saga which is Morecambe football club. Very tellingly, owners Panjab Warriors – who have repeatedly assured fans that we would hear so much from them that we would be sick of the sound of their voices – initially said nothing about this at all. (Just as they still haven’t responded to twelve very straightforward questions posed them by the Shrimps Trust literally months ago.) Finally however, they decided to tell the supporters of the club the following in a statement on their website last Thursday:

“Morecambe Football Club can confirm that it became aware yesterday afternoon of a winding up petition that had been filed against the Club seven days earlier by one of its suppliers, KPM Groundworks Limited, in relation to a legacy debt incurred prior to the takeover by Panjab Warriors in August.

This was the first notification the Club had received regarding this action.”

I personally find the final line in this statement very difficult to believe.  A Winding-Up petition is always the last – not the first – resort of any creditor seeking overdue payment: the cost of doing it (£700 I am told) is often prohibitive in itself. The term `legacy debt’ is also potentially disingenuous: when companies like Morecambe FC Ltd change hands, all previous liabilities are taken-on by the buyers – unless specifically excluded.

No fee concerning the amount apparently owed is mentioned by the owners (rumours are that it’s £150,000) but further information is promised. My advice – not for the first time – is: don’t hold your breath: we’ve been promised things like this before by the Warriors only for total radio silence to then follow. Proof of their preference to always act in the shadows and say as little about anything as possible at all times is that fact that the statement by the owners doesn’t even bother to mention the fact that the club are under yet another embargo as a direct result of the latest imbroglio. We as fans only know this as a result of Jim’s pre-match interview in which he ruefully laughed-off the fact that he had a Centre Forward lined-up to sign on the dotted line only for the latest ban on new players to scupper all his hard work. The player involved has now gone elsewhere – and who can blame him?

What a shambles: Jim deserves better (although – to be fair, he had nothing but praise for the owners when asked to speak about them after the game). So I can only express my own view – as fans; I believe that we all deserve better…

For whatever reason, Jimbo started with Myles Boney in goal today. He also preferred Miguel Azeez to Mo Sangare again in the starting line-up.

Anyway, on the day the clocks would go forward an hour at midnight, there was sunshine aplenty to be found in north Lancashire today. But with the seasonally bright Spring weather was a present from Russia with love: a bitingly cold wind straight from the Urals, cold enough to freeze your own balalaikas off.

Aldershot played into this as the match kicked-off. And the wind was undoubtedly a factor today. As was the fact that here, we had two poor sides playing dreadful football. A Park game couldn’t be worse: this was just long periods of boredom connected by really scrappy intervals and chances for the visitors as first Cameron Hargreaves’ low shot bounced off Boney’s right-hand post with him beaten and then big Christy Grogan’s powerful header also hit the woodwork. There are no highlights as far as Morecambe are concerned – and the visitors weren’t really a lot better.

Early doors, big, aggressive James Henry made a nasty foul on Myles; leading with his studs and deliberately colliding with the goalkeeper some time after the ball had gone. He should have been booked – some Referees would have sent him off. After that, though, there was no more rough stuff from the visitors. Unusually for a John Coleman team too, they weren’t constantly in the face of the Referee either. All in all, the newbie goalkeeper couldn’t really be faulted. His kicking in the first half was erratic but the penalty area in front of the home stand which he was defending is clearly really slippery: the visiting goalkeeper from Hartlepool struggled to keep his feet on it last Wednesday night as well.

Jack Paine tried for Morecambe. Gwion Edwards and Yann Songo’o always do – and today was no exception with the Welshman providing the only two attempts that seriously tested Coniah Boyce-Clarke in the away goal. Chris Popov ran around like a headless chicken – as he has been doing in recent matches – but nobody could accuse him of not trying. But as for the rest of them – including Official Man of the Match Jack Nolan in my opinion, who I thought was poor today and not fully committed by any stretch of the imagination as he ducked out of a couple of fifty-fifty tackles – the effort wasn’t there. At a time when Morecambe really need to be giving their all and pulling out all the stops to avoid relegation, too many of our players seemed to be happy to simply play Kick & Rush. Or maybe they’re just knackered after a season where physical fitness has obviously always been a big problem.

So forty-five minutes of almost total ennui gave way to another after the break. Until right at the end when – right on cue – Morecambe yet again ran out of steam. A team which has lost all of of its last six matches took full advantage and scored in the eighty-seventh minute – just as the Pools had only a few nights ago. Substitute Kwame Thomas had only been on the pitch for a few minutes when he appeared at the far post to meet a long cross by Brody Peart on the Shots’ right and turned the ball home. In injury time, Charlie Warren was then clearly fouled in the home penalty area and Skipper Ryan Hill scored confidently from the spot.

So that was it. A pointless end to a week which promised so much. Morecambe aren’t technically relegated yet but they will be – and deservedly so on weak performances such as they have put in over the least eight days. For the record, they remain as they were before the game – next to bottom of the table and still six points adrift as Brackley, Braintree and Eastleigh all lost at home and Truro could only draw. Aldershot are probably now safe – as could be John Coleman’s job – as they move seven points clear with five games left.

This is what Jim Bentley made of it after the game:

“It’s very disappointing. As mad as it sounds, I’d rather get beat three or four nil and go: “Well – that’s where we’re at; we’re not good enough; we’re going to get relegated!” – that’s been a factor all season but we’re well in every game. But you get what you deserve at the end of the day: that’s where we’re at. It’s disappointing as I say; very, very frustrating as well. But we’ve just got to keep going.”

Morecambe: 41 Myles Boney; 2 Lewis Payne (18 Ben Tollitt 83’); 5 Harlee Dean; 7 Gwion Edwards; 8 Miguel Azeez; 16 Liam Hogan; 17 Paul Lewis (32 George Thomas 83’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (20 Mo Sangare 73’); 33 Timothy Akindileni; 36 Jack Nolan; 42 Chris Popov (23 Dan Ogwuru 72’).

Subs not used: 25 Alfie Scales; 28 Tommy Fogarty; 12 Kyle Jameson.

Aldershot Town: 41 Coniah Boyce-Clarke; 7 Cameron Hargreaves (Y); 11 Brody Peart;15 Christy Grogan; 17 James Henry (6 Theo Widdrington 70’); 19 Ryan Hill (C); 20 Callum Stewart (9 Kwame Thomas 3’); 22 Olly Scott; 24 Charlie Warren; 25 Will Nightingale; 31 Ryheem Sheckleford (34 Dejan Tetek 88’).

Subs not used: 42 Matt Penney; 16 Pat Nash; 8 Tyler Frost; 27 Toby Nelson.

Ref: Gareth Rhodes.

Att: 2,950 (451 from Aldershot – well done to all of them: it’s a very long way…)