ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE. SATURDAY, 11th APRIL 2026.

Morecambe go down with a whimper at Woking

Today, Morecambe made the 268-mile journey to the Kingfield (a.k.a. the Laithwaite Community) Stadium in the London commuter belt of Woking, not for the first time. But your guess is as good as mine as to on how many other times they have made this journey in the past: the internet suggests numbers ranging from three to six and I have no way of checking these.

Anyway – last August, the Cards visited the Mazuma Mobile Arena for the first time ever and won 0-2 against Ashvir Singh Johal’s misfiring and dysfunctional team in the first meeting between the two clubs for two decades. In recent times, Woking have drawn too many games (four of their last six and three in a row in the league alone; most recently 0-0 at Braintree last Saturday) to be in serious contention to win anything this term. As a result, former Wimbledon boss Neal Ardley – who was in charge as the club won at Morecambe – was sacked last month. His replacement is a rookie Manager, the former Spurs and England player Jermain Defoe. Today, his new team actually had nothing to play for but pride and perhaps new contracts for individual players.  They were eleventh in the National League; safe from relegation but too far away from the Play-Offs to have any hope of promotion this season either.

How we Morecambe fans envy their mediocrity: that’s what we could do with a bit of after four years of almost relentless failure and heartbreak…

More heartbreak was possibly due to descend on the visitors today. With three games left, Morecambe needed to win all three of them – and hope that Eastleigh & Co lose all three of theirs – to have any hope whatsoever of staying in the National League.

The Shrimps started their penultimate away game in the division in twenty-second place. They have been unable to shake off their fellow Legion of the Damned members for most of the season and all of this year so far. In a sense, then, nobody can pretend to be surprised at a fate which their form over the marathon which is any league campaign has truly merited. The hopeless efforts of Ashvir Singh Johal – the utterly disastrous appointment by new owners Panjab Warriors in preference to Derek Adams – has seen us in the position we currently find ourselves in. Ashvir’s is a name that will go down in ignominy as far as Morecambe supporters are concerned: he is by far the worst Manager the club has ever endured. His replacement, Jim Bentley, has done his best in a very short time to save the club and the consensus is that he would have succeeded if he had been brought in earlier than he was. Jim – as always – made no bones about the situation his team faced today:

“We know where we’re at. We need to go to Woking and win to keep our hopes alive and keep fighting. We’re still in with a chance. We’re still fighting away. We’ll go there and give it our best shot. We’ve got to keep going: stranger things have happened.”

In my review of National League clubs from last season, I wrote the following:

“Woking moved to their present stadium during 1922. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain when we visit because – just like at Forest Green Rovers – away supporters get wet. (Even though the precipitation is presumably Vegan and probably organic as well at the New Lawn…) But the Laithwaite Community Stadium boasts a feature which a lot of (maybe all) football clubs should adopt: a small portion of the stadium known as Moaners’ Corner. (Just think: we could abolish the Morecambe Fans’ Forums altogether and just use that instead…)”

Woking had their ground capacity reduced by half to just 3,000 people earlier this week for what has been described as `safety’ concerns. The Cardinals – so-called because of the Cardinal Red strip they wear – share Morecambe’s distinction of having one of their players – Olly Sanderson – as one of three who have been nominated as National League Player of the Month for March, one of the others being our very own Jack Nolan. (The evergreen Ian Henderson – who scored against us last week for Rochdale at the ripe old age of 41 – is the other.)

Jim chose recently-injured goalkeeper Jamal Blackman to start in preference to Myles Boney. Mo Sangare also returned to the squad after a recent absence due to a family bereavement.

The weather was dry as the game kicked-off with a mixture of blue sky and large white clouds being driven across the heavens by a keen breeze.

Morecambe enjoyed the lion’s share of the possession during the opening minutes and won the first corner of the match after seven minutes. Five minutes later though, the hosts took the lead. Cards’ Skipper Harry Beautyman swept the ball home to a helpless Jamal Blackman’s left after the Shrimps’ defence had managed to block a cross but then failed to react when the ball was immediately sent back into the danger area. Almost immediately, a poor clearance by Harlee Dean allowed Kian Pennant an attempt which might have been turned home by Beautyman had he been faster to latch onto the chance.

Lewis Payne came close to equalising when Morecambe’s second corner fell to him on the edge of the penalty area in the twenty-second minute and he tried to screw the ball into the top corner of the net to Will Jääskeläinen’s left. But it didn’t come off this week. Then Jack Nolan played a cross over from the right which a Cardinal’s head directed against the crossbar but Referee Kirsty Dowle had already blown for a foul by the Shrimps in the build-up.

Payne then set-up Gwion Edwards for a powerful shot from 25 yards which Jääskeläinen struggled to stop at the cost of a corner with about ten minutes of the half still scheduled to play. Just after this, Morecambe went even further behind in the worst possible way. Aaron Drewe scored direct from Woking’s fourth corner of the match as Blackman simply failed to respond as the ball sailed past him into the net. The big Morecambe stopper then had to save a shot from Beautyman almost straight afterwards as the home side continued to dominate the game.

Morecambe managed to reduce the arrears when Nolan scored his nineteenth goal of the season in the forty-second minute with a shot-come-cross from the edge of the penalty area on the left which beat the home goalkeeper and went in via the post.  It hadn’t been either Jääskeläinen or Blackman’s greatest performance so far.

Edwards had another shot from distance which flew well wide after a typically clever run on the left just before the break. But Woking had the last word as an attempt on goal was well-blocked by the away defence in injury time.

So Morecambe faced an uphill task of their own making half way through the match. Poor defending and yet another appalling mistake by their big goalkeeper to add to his litany of others this term had handed two goals on a plate to the opposition. Elsewhere, Eastleigh, Brackley and Aldershot were all losing but this wouldn’t matter if the Shrimps couldn’t find a way to turn the game on its head during the second period.

Drewe was booked for a foul on Paul Lewis in the 52nd minute but Nolan’s resulting free-kick was missed by all of his team-mates. Matt Ward then took a shot for the hosts in the fifty-sixth minute which whistled narrowly over the bar. He was then almost immediately shown a Yellow Card for time-wasting as he played-on well after the Referee’s whistle. With an hour gone though, Morecambe were showing little threat of getting back into a game they simply had to win. Up front, Chris Popov was having little impact, as has sadly been the case too often in recent times. Paul Lewis was making little impact. Edwards was playing too deep and Nolan was in and out of the match. But Jack did force another poor stop from the home goalkeeper with a shot which was caught by the wind in the 67th minute. Azeez took the resultant corner, from which Gwion hit the crossbar with a shot which bounced down just the wrong side of the line from a Shrimp point of view and was then cleared.

Both teams shook things up with a couple of changes with about a quarter of an hour left. Then Woking provided a rare highlight of a poor match when Olly Sanderson scored a third goal for the hosts in the 78th minute as Jääskeläinen hoofed the ball long for him to run on to and the Shrimps’ defence was a.w.o.l. yet again this season. Once again, Blackman should have done better as he seemed to assume the Woking man would hit the ball one way only for Sanderson to knock it past him far too easily the other. As Morecambe remained absolutely toothless going forward, the Cards had a couple more half-chances. Then Azeez was caught in possession, made no attempt to retrieve the ball and allowed substitute Sam Ashford to run forwards and score again in injury time. Sanderson fluffed an excellent chance to score his brace when he then missed the target as the away defence seemed to have already given up and gone home. But he redeemed himself before the end of the match and smashed the ball home to give Jermain Defoe his first win as a Manager; Woking a double over the hopeless Shrimps and Morecambe the most ignominious exit from the National League in the wrong direction. Jim Bentley has repeatedly talked about the nadir of his second time in charge of Morecambe – the 5-1 hammering at Southend. Objectively, this was even worse. The Shrimpers are a good team but the Cardinals are at best mediocre.

For the record, all Morecambe’s rivals for the drop lost 1-0 this afternoon: Brackley at Scunthorpe; Eastleigh at Altrincham and Aldershot at home against Gateshead. But the latter two are now safe: Brackley will join us and even worse Braintree and Truro in the National Leagues North or South next season. For these clubs – all promoted to the National League in recent times and Brackley and Truro rookies this season – relegation is no disgrace: they are all small outfits with no history of success in the EFL. But for Morecambe, this third relegation in four years cannot be explained away so simply. This is the result of mismanagement of the club off the field for years. All we can hope for, as loyal Shrimps fans, is that the rot finally stops here. For now, we must leave the final word with the Manager. Jim Bentley must be secretly furious by the way his men tamely threw in the towel today. They let him down. But this is what a very despondent-looking Jimbo said for the benefit of the cameras after the match:

“I’m gutted, I have to honest. It’s a sad day for the club. I think the game typified where we’re at for the season. I didn’t see enough if I’m being perfectly honest. That typified where we’re at. Some players have had a decent enough season; there’s some that’s average; there’s some have been poor. There’s some that aren’t good enough and there are some that have contributed nothing at all. You can’t expect to be up the table if that’s the case- and it’s been the case. I need to choose my words… We can’t go down with a whimper. Ultimately, we haven’t been good enough. Relegation is confirmed today.  I’ve had some difficult times in football but this is the lowest point of my managerial career because it’s a club that I love and it’s sad to see.”

Woking: 22 Will Jääskeläinen; 2 Aaron Drewe (Y); 3 Caleb Richards; 4 Chinwike Okoli; 7 Harry Beautyman (C) (29 Tommy Taylor 82’); 11 Matt Ward (Y) (20 Sam Ashford); 16 Olaunji Oluwasehun Akinola (Y); 24 Steven Turner (6 Jamie Andrews 74’); 25 Jake Forster-Caskey (8 Dale Gorman 74’); 28 Kian Pennant (26 Joe Gbodé 64’); 30 Olly Sanderson.

Subs not used: 13 Craig Ross; 23 Timothy Olaoluwa Akinola.

Morecambe: 40 Jamal Blackman; 2 Lewis Payne; 5 Harlee Dean; 7 Gwion Edwards; 8 Miguel Azeez; 12 Kyle Jameson (18 Ben Tollitt 74’); 16 Liam Hogan; 17 Paul Lewis; 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (20 Mo Sangare 74’); 36 Jack Nolan; 42 Chris Popov (23 Dan Ogwuru 84’).

Subs not used: 41 Myles Boney; 3 Raheem Conte; 32 George Thomas; 33 Timothy Akindileni.

Ref:  Kirsty Dowle.

Att: 2,292 (153 from Morecambe.)