ENTERPRISE NATIONAL LEAGUE NORTH. SATURDAY 31st OCTOBER 2026.
Scary incident in crowd puts things in perspective at Morecambe.
Morecambe FC had an opportunity to extend a bit of its own history today on All Hallows Eve. They had just won six games on the spin at home for the first time since moving to what was then The Globe Arena from Christie Park in 2010.
The visitors today were Scarborough Athletic, successors to Scarborough FC, whose own history had been somewhat chequered over the years…
Morecambe and Scarborough have a lot in common – slightly faded seaside resorts to which Working Class people from all over particularly northern industrial England and the larger Scottish cities used to flock in the past. Then flights to exotic places such as Benidorm and Tenerife became affordable to the general public back in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, people stopped visiting in large numbers and both towns fell into a steady decline for the next few decades. Scarborough, though, is considerably bigger than Morecambe – about 62,000 people in the town and nearly 100,000 in the parliamentary constituency as opposed to just 35.000 maximum in the town on the Irish Sea Coast.
Scarborough also has a distinctly split personality: its two bays representing the way it has sustained itself over the years. South Bay is where the hotels, amusement arcades and other trappings of a traditional English seaside resort can be found. The now virtually defunct but once thriving fishing fleet and the communities which once manned these boats clustered around the far less gaudy North Bay.
Overlooking what was once known as The German Ocean, Scarborough has also played a historically significant part in resisting raiders and invaders from Scandinavia and greater Germany. The ruined Twelfth Century castle sits atop a cliff which has been – at various times in the past – an Iron Age settlement; a Roman Signals Station and then a Watchtower against Viking raids. During the First World War, seventeen Scarborians died as three of Kaiser Bill’s battle fleet deliberately targeted residential areas of the town and bombarded it on December 16th 1914. It caused absolute outrage at the time: wars were supposed to be fought between armies or navies; not against defenceless civilians.
Not all nautical associations with Scarborough have been quite as negative, though. Back in the 1960s, `pirate’ radio stations broadcast pop music from ships moored off the British coast to a population otherwise starved of this modern phenomenon by the always stuffy and conservative BBC – sorry: what am I saying? – our BBC.
The Establishment – and particularly Champagne Socialists such as the Second Viscount Stansgate (a.k.a. Tony Benn, the Postmaster General in charge of stamping-out the pirates) feared that the output of these pirate ships might rot the minds of the younger generation of Britons like myself and socially engineer a situation where `ordinary’ people might think for themselves and not do what the government – which had no control over this potentially revolutionary phenomenon – told them. They might even – god forbid – start writing impossibly long sentences…
So the Pirates had to be banned at all costs: and they were.
One of these stations was Radio 270. This was Scarborough’s very own…
When the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act was introduced on August 15th 1967, Radio 270 and the other rivals to Radio Caroline obeyed the law and stopped broadcasting. But I remember – with a very heavy heart – listening to the farewell broadcast from this boat on 269 metres in the Medium Wave. It drifted in and out of the ether from coast-to-coast as I listened via a transistor radio with batteries in it from under the sheets in the bedroom of my parents’ house in Bolton-le-Sands as a twelve-year-old.
The ship it had broadcast from – a former Dutch lugger called Oceaan 7 – was making its final journey into Scarborough harbour from Bridlington Bay where it had been moored during its short life to be permanently decommissioned.
It truly felt like the end of an era – and, in many ways, it was…
Initially part-time Radio One and such obviously really respectable influences on the minds of young people such as `Sir’ Jimmy Savile were appointed by Lord Reith’s successors at `our’ BBC to replace them. This officially-sanctioned substitute for the dynamic, modern music the pirate stations were broadcasting was frankly insipid, Middle of the Road and basically absolutely awful. And probably still is…
But I get carried away…
Two other things that would not necessarily last either concern the two towns’ football clubs. For, back in the day, Morecambe and Scarborough had a number of things in common: an inability to penetrate the Closed Shop of the Football League, for a start.
The creation of the Northern Premier League in 1968 was part of a process to put pressure on the old fossils who ran this exclusive fiefdom to change a totally moribund situation as far as all ambitious English football clubs outside it were concerned. Morecambe was an inaugural member, coming third in the table at the end of the season. Scarborough joined a year later and came fourth.
J.B. Christie gave our club a piece of land at Roseberry Park – later renamed Christie Park in his honour – where a Covenant stated that it could only be used for sporting purposes in perpetuity. That obviously worked really well although I’m not sure `Shopping at Sainsbury’s’ was one of the activities recently featured at the Commonwealth Games.
A similar Covenant also covered Scarborough’s Athletic Ground, where the original Scarborough FC (founded 1879) once played. In time, it became the McCain Stadium. The site is now occupied by a rival supermarket to Sainsbury’s in the shape of Lidl. (So maybe Competitive Shopping is a genuine `sporting activity’ after all…)
When Morecambe moved from Christie Park to its new ground, the local Council did not intervene. But at Scarborough, the traditionally Conservative Council apparently felt a civic responsibility to uphold the Covenant on the Athletic stadium. So when the original cub lined-up a deal with a property developer to sell the ground for sufficient money to wipe out its own debts (reputedly about two and a half million pounds at the time) and secure enough spare cash to build a new stadium elsewhere, the elected representatives of the local people stepped in.
As a result, one of England’s oldest football clubs went bust. Scarborough FC was founded in 1879 but simply disappeared in 2007. Yes – very sadly, the chips were well and truly down at the McCain Stadium... (I apologise wholeheartedly to any Seadog fans who might be reading this for the latter utterly crass but irresistible remark…)
Whatever the Council’s intentions actually were at the time, the repercussions for the club – and therefore the town itself – were dire. The stadium became derelict. Arsonists targeted the decaying stands after two of them were sold and shipped to Rugby League Featherstone Rovers who – very ironically – are sadly no longer with us either. The populace lost a Football League club – and had nobody else to support in the locality.
So who really benefited from the Council intervention?
I have no idea.
(Actually, I do: individual Councillors who wanted a slice of the action might have preferred to see the club disappear altogether rather than fail to make a profit out of its sorry state. But I can’t prove this very cynical thesis. If you can, please share that knowledge with us…)
So at this point, we look at a depressingly familiar scenario as far as so many ex-EFL clubs are concerned.
Locals came together to plan and organise a new club. It started life as a member of the Northern Counties East League in 2007. It won this in 2009 to be promoted to the Premier Division and then went up again to the Northern Premier League First Division during 2013. Five years later, they were promoted again to the Premier Division of the NPL and – following the Covid pandemic – went up to where they are now – the National League North – in 2022. So life has gradually got better and better for the latest iteration of Scarborough. Last season, they ended-up sixth in the table. They then fell at the first hurdle in the Play-Offs when they were beaten 4-2 by Buxton.
Richie Bennett is the only player I am aware of who has played for both clubs.
Morecambe will host Athletic on Halloween, Saturday 31st October 2026 at 15:00hrs. The Shrimps will then travel 151 miles to Scarborough on Saturday 13th February for a kick-off at 15:00hrs.
Here’s a reminder of happier times for the original Scarborough’s supporters:
(Scarborough won the first match; 1-2 – and the second one 1-3.)
Morecambe started the fixture today in tenth position in the National League North and on the back of three wins and a draw in their last six league games. Following their victory over Darlington last Tuesday night, Manager Adam Lakeland had this to say about today’s fixture:
“It will be another tough game. Boring old response but listen: I know this division like the back of my hand and Scarborough are a good team. They’ve always got energy. They always play good football. They’ve brave. They’ve got some good individual players. They generally score goals and create chances. So we have to be ready. But every game in this league is difficult.”
Boro started the game looking over their shoulders at the relegation pack as they lay in nineteenth place in National League North, safe only on goal difference from top of the Legion of the Damned Radcliffe. They have won only one of their last six league games (0-2 at Hebburn two weeks ago), drawing three of the others. Seven days ago, they were beaten at home by Oxford City by two goals to one.
It’s been unseasonably sunny for the last couple of days in north Lancashire. So today’s game started in weak sunshine under an almost cloudless sky.
Prior to kick-off, the dead of two world wars and countless other conflicts were remembered; the Last Post played superbly by a female bugler and then the crowd stood in silence for two minutes in tribute to the fallen.
Scarborough must have won the toss because they chose to change ends and force the Shrimps to play towards their own fans during the first half. Much good did it do them: Morecambe started like a house on fire again with lots of forward movement, some slick interplay and a clear plan to take the game to the visitors.
It took the hosts just five minutes to go ahead. The approach play was again really impressive but young Marcus Neil’s header past huge goalkeeper Ryan Whitley as he got on the end of a cross from Ruben Curley was exceptional. As Morecambe asked all the questions, they were denied a second goal after almost quarter of an hour only by a brilliant block by Keiran Weledji.
Sunderland loanee Neil was denied a brace by the away stopper as Whitley did well to hold his diving header on the goal-line with 21 minutes played. A minute later, perhaps Morecambe’s most improved player this term – and unlikeliest regular scorer – Paul Lewis got a second for the Shrimps. The Seadogs just couldn’t clear their lines as a succession of crosses peppered their area until Paul finally connected with one. Whitley’s anger was palpable as the giant slammed the ball into the turf in sheer frustration as it bounced back out of the net into his hands. The big man then did well to save a shot from Cameron Coxe in the fortieth minute.
So Morecambe were well in control and good vale for a two-nil lead at the break.
But after just two minutes of the re-start, the game came to a sudden – and unexpected – halt.
There was sudden commotion in the Away section of the Main stand; Seadogs’ Skipper Will Thornton crossed the pitch to face them – and Referee Ben Robinson stopped the match.
There had been a `Medical Emergency’ among the visitors. As the stadium announcer asked all visiting supports to vacate their seats and gather downstairs, medical staff worked on the victim where the incident had happened.
The players finally left the field and there was a delay of perhaps half an hour as medics struggled to literally save somebody’s life: and succeeded as the patient was finally taken away in an ambulance, `breathing and alive’.
Incidents like these serve to put lots of things in perspective. We have already considered the bad fortunes of both Morecambe and Scarborough football clubs but however dire these have been, nobody died.
Halloween is supposed to be scary – but for the victim and the people who care about them – few things can be scarier than what happened this afternoon.
As a survivor of major heart surgery myself, I realise that one of the best – if `best’ is the right word – places to have a cardiac episode is at a football ground. There are doctors and other medics on hand and things like defibrillators without which victims might not survive otherwise – or elsewhere.
The atmosphere in the ground inevitably changed after the long delay. Morecambe totally lost the momentum they had built up in the first half and Scarborough had most of the play. The Shrimps played on the back foot much of the time as the Seadogs dominated possession. But – seemingly devoid of any cutting edge – they didn’t do a lot with it.
Adam Lakeland shook things up with wholesale changes towards the end. And whilst Myles Boney’s most taxing save was from a header by Seadogs’ Skipper Thornton after an hour and he dealt with whatever else was thrown at him at one end, Whitley was beaten twice at the other.
Substitute Isaac Buckley-Ricketts had a perfect opportunity to score as he bore down on goal from the left after 81 minutes. But he leant back at the crucial moment and got his foot under the ball so that his shot cannoned back off the angle of post and bar to Whitley’s left. The goalkeeper was beaten again after 84 minutes when another shot from Curley bounced back into play from his crossbar. He also pulled off a truly tremendous save with four minutes scheduled to play; pushing a powerful shot by sub Teddy Collis up against the bar to keep the score down.
So – far later than any other fixture in the National League North today – the game finally ended with a record-breaking seventh victory in a row at the Halo Aerospace stadium. The victory propelled the Shrimps into eight place in the Division.
This is how our Manager reacted to the latest win at home:
“Obviously, we’re delighted with yet another win at home to nil but I think probably the most important thing – you know – is there’s more important things in life than football. I think we all wish the very best to the unfortunate Scarborough supporter who was taken ill just after half time.”
I’m sure all Shrimps’ fans identify with clubs that – like ourselves – have fallen on hard times because of failures off the field which we are powerless to affect. We also have a shared history with the Seadogs going back an awfully long time when the non-league football horizon in this country ended at the Berlin Wall of the Fourth Division.
So All The Best to Scarborough Athletic – except in our inaugural visit next year, of course…
Boro fans who departed for the other side of England after the game would certainly be more be concerned with the health and wellbeing of one of their own who is in hospital this evening rather than the result, which saw the club slip into the relegation zone in twenty-first position.
Some things are even more scary than Halloween and I’m sure that everybody at Morecambe wishes the visitor and the family member who went with them to hospital tonight well.
Safe journey home to the rest of them.
Morecambe: 13 Myles Boney; 2 Cameron Coxe; 3 Ben Williams (Y); 4 Liam Hogan (C); 6 Lewis Baines; 10 Matty Daly (18 Taelor O’Kane 70’); 11 Elliot Newby (24 Luca Davis 89’); 16 Marcus Neil (19 Ronnie Blois (Y) 70’); 17 Paul Lewis (14 Isaac Buckley-Ricketts 70’); 20 Jake Cain (7 Teddy Collis 82’); 22 Ruben Curley.
Subs Not Used: 1 Joe Young; 26 Lennon Dobson.
Scarborough: 1 Ryan Whitley; 2 Keiran Weledji; 5 Will Thornton (C); 7 Rio Allan; 8 Alex Purver Hannan (Y) (10 Harry Green 86’); 11 Luca Colville; 14 Alex Wiles; 18 Mo Fadera (17 Dom Tear 45’); 21 Alex Brown; 22 Jack Waldron (27 Harvey Vincent 70’); 28 Jake Hull.
Subs Not Used: 4 Lewis Maloney; 12 Luca Stuttard; 23 Alfie Bradshaw.
Ref: Ben Robinson.
Att: 2,428 (143 initially from Scarborough.)
