THE SHRIMPS HIT ROCK BOTTOM
Club anthem is Bring Me Sunshine... but a long, hard winter is coming
In MorecaMbe, they have grown accustomed to making the best of relatively little.
West end — the road which leads from the football ground to the sea front — seems like an ironic commentary on the decaying properties, though the works of sculptor eric Gill and the statue of eric Morecambe are still drawing visitors — despite someone once trying to saw off one of the comedian’s legs.
It’s the same at the club’s Globe arena. Morecambe have by far the lowest budget and lowest attendances in League Two and like bury, bolton and blackpool — other clubs within the old Lancashire county boundary — have found themselves in the shark-infested waters of seeking a new owner these past five years or so.
along came brazilian Diego Lemos, who milked the fans’ applause before a home game with carlisle and was barely seen again, leaving behind a financial hole as wide as the estuary. current owners colin Goldring and Jason Whittingham also run Worcester rugby union club and are ‘not football guys’, according to Goldring. They’ll sell if they get a half- decent offer. There’s no money to speak of.
Through it all, manager Jim bentley has been the constant. The longest-serving manager in the top four divisions has seen off a transfer embargo, late payment of wages and inadequate training facilities to oversee a 13-season unbroken hold on Football League status.
That grip is becoming more fragile. Half of the teams in the national League have a bigger budget than Morecambe and if more evidence of the gulf between the club and their high-flying visitors was needed, consider two second-half substitutions. bradford bring on an electrifying 21year- old QPr loanee up front. bentley turns to Kevin ellison, who will be 41 in February. The Lancashire side who get all the plaudits are accrington, under John coleman, though the accomplishments of bentley, his fellow Liverpudlian, are arguably greater. coleman has businessman andy Holt to bankroll him. bentley stitches a team together from thin air. In eight years, he’s never paid a transfer fee. ‘We deal in cast-offs,’ he said last week.
Irish forward John o’Sullivan, picked up from blackpool, starts this game like a train. He plays off a- Jay Leitch-Smith, who’s also been around the houses in an 11-year career, yet when fit has never been more effective than in the last year at Morecambe.
Sam Lavelle, released by bolton, provides quiet authority at the back. There’s talk of scouts being here to view him. George Tanner, a 19-year- old on loan from Manchester United, feints impressively to create space and shoot narrowly wide early on. by half-time there is little to separate two sides whose respective average home attendances — bradford 14,000-plus, Morecambe 1,600 or so — tell a story.
even at parity, there’s gallows humour. Stevenage, the only club keeping Morecambe off the bottom, are ahead at home to Grimsby at half-time. ‘oh dear,’ says the stadium announcer, after disclosing this. ‘Don’t look at the league table.’ The goal which sends a packed bradford away end into euphoria just after the break is avoidable.
Defender Steve old, a new Zealand international, seems to have a shot by Hope akpan covered on the goal- line but it trickles between his legs. aramide oteh, the QPr loanee, is just too much to handle when he slides in the second.
ellison, arriving before the hour mark after Leitch-Smith pulls up with a hamstring injury, debunks the usual notions about 40-yearold footballers. He lifts the others, who take great delight in slapping him on his shaven head during breaks in play.
He nods against the bar. He is the fulcrum as bentley’s players drive bradford back to finish strongly, hitting a post and seeing a chance cleared off the line.
after Tom brewitt’s 94thminute consolation, Morecambe’s fans stay to applaud off a team whose defeat sees them drop to rock bottom of the Football League. With the exception of a two-week spell a few years back, it is the first time in bentley’s time at the helm that the club have ever propped up the rest.
‘You’ve got to turn the corner quickly because other teams will get a lead on you,’ he tells
Sportsmail. ‘You can’t dwell on it. We won’t do that. I’ve been a battler all my life.’
The club’s anthem is eric Morecambe’s Bring Me Sunshine and the late- afternoon sky above bentley is almost cloudless as he speaks. but winter is coming. It will be a hard and unremitting one.