ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE NORTH. SATURDAY, 15th AUGUST 2026.

We start – yet again – with bad news from off the field. Last Tuesday, the National League North placed embargoes on six of their clubs: AFC Fylde. Aldershot, Altrincham; Halifax, Hornchurch and ourselves. All of them are accused of missing deadlines for submitting required financial information to the League’s administrators. Altrincham immediately provided the missing data and had their embargo lifted. Hornchurch promised to comply by Thursday last; Halifax and Fylde have also promised rapid submissions of the missing paperwork. Aldershot have remained silent but the Morecambe `leadership’ – as usual – haven’t even bothered to mention this latest crisis on their website. This is one situation that the Panjab Warriors can’t blame on the previous ownership: they’ve caused it and it is up to them to remedy it. So – off the field at least – the shambles which has been Morecambe Football Club ever since the Sikhs took over continues unabated as we as fans wait for further announcements from the Independent Football Regulator and the Pensions Regulator about transgressions by our apparently completely disorganised and incompetent owners which have also come to light in the previous few weeks.

Meanwhile, football on the field provided a welcome distraction. At the start of play today, the Shrimps were thirteenth in the National League North table, having drawn our inaugural fixture at home to Spennymoor last Saturday. At the same time, Harborough Town were drawing by the same score – one goal each – at King’s Lynne and started today’s game in eleventh spot in the rankings. This is what we knew about today’s hosts prior to the game:

I suppose the first question to ask about this club is: where is it?

The answer is: in the rather agreeable small Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. We can find this a mere 181 miles south of Morecambe on the edge of the Northamptonshire border in what is supposed to be a regional `Northern’ League. Maybe the `North’ element of `Northamptonshire’ was the clincher for this…

Whatever, the club wasn’t in any sort of northern league last season – we will be meeting them for the first time ever on the basis of Harborough becoming Southern League Premier Division Central Champions last time of asking. This is what their very politically-correct website tells us about them:

“Harborough FC is the realisation of the merger of Harborough Town Juniors, Harborough Spencers and Harborough Minis in 2007, which created one club for all ages, gender and ability for the Market Harborough Community.

We are based in Market Harborough, South Leicestershire where are our impressive facilities cater for all of the clubs teams. The club became an FA Charter Club in 2004 and through consistent development has achieved FA Charter Standard Community Club Status which is the highest accolade currently available and recognises best practice, on going development and positive impact within the local community. The club currently has teams that include Minis, Girls, Junior, Youth, Ladies, Inclusive, Senior and Veteran sides.

Harborough Town Juniors were formed in 1975, running two teams from U11 to U16. After initially playing at Symington’s, they developed facilities on Northampton Road in the 1990s. However, there was a desire to have senior football for the youngsters to move on to, consequently they formed links with Spencer United, and in 2007 they merged with Harborough Spencers, as they had become called. In the early 2000’s Harborough Minis had been formed to cater for U11s, and in 2007 they joined the merger to create Harborough Town FC

Former players at the club have included Richard Stearman (Leicester City FC + England), Chris Carruthers (Northampton Town FC, Bristol Rovers FC + England), Tom Fielding (Leicester City + Mansfield Town) and Martin Johnson (Leicester Tigers FC, England + British Lions). The club has also over recent years seen a number of players, boys and girls, progress into Centre of Excellence and Elite squads at local Professional Clubs and it is rewarding to hear of their individual progress.

Harborough Town FC is a company limited by guarantee # 09608591 (There are no shareholders).”

They list their honours so far thus:

“Southern League Champions 2025-2026; Southern League Play-Off semi Finalists  2024-2025; Northern Premier League Midlands Division Play-Off Winners 2023-24; United Counties Premier Division South Champions 2021-22; United Counties Champions Cup Winners 2021-22; Hinchingbrooke Cup Winners 2021-22; Northamptonshire Combination Premier Division Champions 2009-10; Leicester & District Mutual League Division Five Champions 1977-78.”

Wow! This is clearly one of the New Kids on the Block in exactly the same way we once were as a non-league club. The Bees have not taken any large scalps in the FA Cup nor won the FA Trophy but – given time – who knows what they might achieve?

We will meet them for the first time ever at Bowden Park on Saturday, 15^th Aug, at 15:00hrs. The home game will take place on Saturday 19^th December 2026, at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Do we share any former players? A.I. tells us that Lee Tomlin was a “Veteran English midfielder and former Premier League player (who) had a brief spell at Harborough Town and later managed National League side Morecambe”.

Well – I never knew that. It must be true, though: A.I. is never wrong, is it?

Prior to the game, Morecambe Manager Adam Lakeland said:

“They’re a good team. They got promoted quite comfortably in the end. They’ve got lots of experience in there and with it being their first home game at this level, I think it’s going to have another kind of opening day feel. We know exactly how they’re going to be and how they are going to go about it. The players will be well-versed on what to expect and it’s up to us to go down there and have calm heads and try and perform.”

It was a pleasant, sunny day with no hint of rain in Leicestershire as the match started. The home team asked all the questions for the first ten minutes or so, favouring attacking down their right flank but not troubling Joe Young in the away goal. Almost quarter of an hour had gone before Morecambe had even a sniff of a chance: Jake Cain forced a good save from Elliot Taylor after an attempt by Matty Daly had been blocked. Cain took the Shrimps’ first corner of the game after 26 minutes which Paul Lewis headed just over the bar. Big Riley O’Sullivan then put the ball in the net for Town after half an hour but the linesman had already flagged for Off-Side. Ronnie Blois was then hurt and was carried off on a stretcher after extensive treatment on the field with a cut head after 41 minutes. There were ten minutes of added-on time as a result and during them, Sam Osborne forced a decent save from Young. The visiting goalkeeper did even better to react to a deflection from one of his own men after another set-piece from the Bees with eight minutes left. Harborough were relying on long throws and corner kicks in a pretty physical approach to the game which lacked any finesse. So a pretty boring contest got to half time without goals – or many signs of any to be brutally honest.

With just three minutes of the second half played, George Carline launched a long ball into the Morecambe area. As a result, Young was forced into a really good save. But the referee had spotted an offence in the away box and pointed to the penalty spot. O’Sullivan scored easily as Young dived the wrong way. From another Carline howitzer, Liam Hogan struggled to clear after 54 minutes and Osborne took the opportunity to wallop the ball just over the bar. With almost an hour played, the Bees had another chance as a header from a precise cross from the Town right also went over the bar. Connor Kennedy then had a decent chance after yet another long throw but missed the target when he had time to set himself and do a lot better. With nothing sticking up-front, Morecambe kept losing possession. Teddy Collis came on after just over an hour and at least forced the Harborough stopper into a save after 66 minutes. But still Town dominated by being more aggressive and far more direct. From a free-kick, Rory McAuley had a chance after a flick-on by Morris with seventy minutes on the clock – but missed. Morris himself had just headed wide from a cross by the impressive O’Sullivan. Morris then hit the post with a shot with 75 minutes on the clock and Eliot Putman should have swept the rebound home but missed the target altogether. Young then did really well to save an excellent shot from substitute Britt Assombalonga in the eighty-sixth minute. It said a lot about Morecambe’s performance that it took until injury time at the end of the game for anyone in a red shirt to put the ball into the danger area: substitute Elijah Buckley-Ricketts slung over a fine cross which none of his team-mates got anywhere near.

So that was that. Morecambe looked too physically weak to give big lads like Harborough a proper contest this afternoon. They made too many mistakes at the back; lacked any creativity in midfield and were toothless up-front. This was really poor from the Shrimps. If they continue to play like this, they are going to really struggle in this league.

With two games played. Morecambe fell to sixteenth in the National League North. Harborough went up to tenth. The Shrimps’ Manager was probably struggling to put any sort of positive spin about how his team had performed straight after the match. As soon as he had gathered his thoughts, he told us the following:

“I’m incredibly disappointed obviously with the result. But I think the result was warranted to be honest because we were second best, particularly in the second half. It’s very frustrating and disappointing for me to stand here and say that we were second best everywhere today. We were out-fought – first balls; second balls… (We) made so many poor decisions. Our quality in most of the game was quite, quite poor and overall, we got exactly what we deserved: nothing. They were just far more aggressive, determined and stronger than us. And that’s something we need to address really quickly.”

Harborough Town: 1 Elliot Taylor; 2 George Carline (Y); 3 Eliot Putman; 5 Rory McAuley; 6 Alex Morris; 7 Devon Kelly-Evans; 8 Connor Kennedy; 9 Riley O’Sullivan (27 Britt Assombalonga 84’) ; 10 Sam Osborne (29 Michael Jacobs 84’); 28 Prince Mancinelli (20 Silvio Bello 93’); 30 Callum Powell (Y) (4 Josh Walsh 78’).

Subs Not Used: 11 Dempsey Arlott-John; 19 Liam Dolman; 16 Paul Malone.

Morecambe: 1 Joe Young; 2 Cameron Coxe; 3 Ben Williams 4 Liam Hogan; 5 Will Smith (C) (Y); 6 Lewis Baines (7 Teddy Collis 62‘); 10 Matty Daly (Y); 11 Elliot Newby; 17 Paul Lewis; 19 Ronnie Blois (14 Elijah Buckley-Ricketts 41’); 20 Jake Cain.

Subs Not Used: 13 Myles Boney; 9 Joe Garner; 27 Adam Fairclough; 30 Corey Goodyear.

Att: 1,109.