I thought putting up this piece taken from the BBC site might give those who in the past had little feeling for Morecambe some idea of the impact of what is happening to its football club is having on the community.

by Daniel Austin
BBC Sport senior journalist
Published4 August 2025

In its post-war heyday, the town of Morecambe was one of the UK's foremost seaside holiday destinations, with a thriving local economy and prestigious reputation.

Since the decline of the domestic tourism industry which underpinned Morecambe's boon, its 105-year-old football club has filled the gap - providing jobs, powering local businesses, and offering a sense of community, identity, and spirit.

But now, Morecambe FC faces the imminent prospect of shutting down due to a deepening financial crisis, with owner Jason Whittingham's failure to sell the club leading to suspension from the National League.

For proud local people, the impact is enormous.

"It's absolutely horrible", says Alison Williamson, a Morecambe resident who began supporting the club in 1974. "The football club gives so much to the town. It's just so sad that Whittingham is down in Essex and allowed to take it all away from us.

"It's kind of a grieving process. It's like losing a member of your family that has always been there. Even if you don't see them all the time, when they're not there anymore, you suffer and you feel the loss."

The club's players were sent home a week ago and are unable to train because of a lack of insurance cover. The academy has now also stopped functioning.

For some, the slow, painful deterioration of their football club threatens the cohesion of the community and mimics the previous era's erosion of the local economy.

For people like Morecambe kitman Les Dewhirst, the club's current plight is scarcely bearable

"Morecambe used to be fantastic in its heyday," says Les Dewhirst, the club's kit man for the past 30 years. "It had everything from small zoos to fairgrounds to theatres and piers. We've not got much of that now, but it's still a cracking place and football is such a big part of it.

"I met my wife at the football. We were second-timers and our kids have grown up coming to this ground together. Strangers stop me in the street and say 'hiya Les' and it feels good.

"I don't know all the names of the people who come here, but I know all the faces. We all come here for the same reason - because we care."

That level of care means supporters, led by fans group The Shrimps' Trust, have been protesting against Whittingham's ownership of the club and demanding he sell up for years.

Takeover deals have been agreed in the past but nothing has come to fruition and fans face the prospect of having no club to support in the upcoming season.

"This place is half of my life", says Kate Barker, a fan and former chief steward for 20 years who was subsequently made honorary life vice-president. "All my good friends are here. It's a cliche, but we are a family and we look after each other.

"We always look forward to seeing each other on a Tuesday and a Saturday, and going to see a match. We might win, lose, or draw - the result doesn't really matter. We've never let football get in the way of a good day out."

Kate Barker says Morecambe FC hasn't just been her career, but the foundation of her social life and friendships

"We'll still gather together and talk about the old times, what we've done and where we've been. But we should still be able to do it here, every week," adds Barker.

"Inside I'm being absolutely torn apart."

Where once on the town's seafront there were multiple fairgrounds, theatres, piers and miniature zoos, there are now a smattering of bars and restaurants, many of which are funded by matchday income and travelling away supporters.

The club's peril means local businesses are now at risk.

"The winter months are the hardest here, because it's the seaside," says Chris Donaldson, owner of The Royal Hotel on the seafront. "The football season sees us through that.

"I've got 19 bedrooms here and away fans are coming from all over fully booking them weeks in advance. The whole town can be full.

"It'll cost us tens of thousands, easily. It's crazy what it'll do to the town to lose that kind of money. Everyone will feel the effect of it."

For staff at the fans' matchday pub, the difference in demeanour is already stark.

"We get around 400, 500 people on a matchday," says Michael Woolworth, manager of the Hurley Flyer opposite the stadium. "It feels like everyone in Morecambe is in here.

"It's a ritual every weekend. In here we see that football really brings people together.

"But in the last few months we've seen the happiness taken away from them. We have regulars who have come in visibly upset."

Morecambe FC has been one of the area's biggest employers in recent times. But the club's financial issues mean that salaries paid to staff and players have been delayed or not paid at all in some months. Dewhirst was last paid in May.

"I'm eating into my savings now," he says. "Some people aren't lucky enough to have savings - some are going to food banks because they can't afford to buy their shopping.

"It's been hard watching players leave. There was another one gone yesterday. I've known lots of them for years.

"I feel broken. Numbness has set in."

The club offers far more than football to local residents. Its facilities host a variety of events, fun days and fundraisers for the community and causes close to people's hearts.

"The club does major work in the community, including sessions here for the elderly people and sessions in care homes," says former co-chairman Rod Taylor, who was removed from the board earlier this summer in a video call hastily arranged by Whittingham.

"We've got a pre- and post-cancer group that meet regularly, we go into schools to deliver sessions. You can't put a price on that. A high percentage of the population of this town is touched by more than football in some way."

That idea of connection across the community, and across generations, is something which typifies the essence of Morecambe's supporter base.

"Football is that release from normality," Taylor says. "It's a generational thing. My granddad took me to our old stadium Christie Park when I was about five or six years of age. It stays with you. It's ingrained. It's in your DNA.

"I feel Whittingham probably has to raise more money to settle some of his personal debts. I think he's trying to squeeze more money."

The BBC has repeatedly attempted to contact Whittingham, but received no response.

bBC Sport approached Morecambe owner Jason Whittingham outside his home on Monday, but he did not answer questions.

Chair of The Shrimps' Trust, Pat Stoyles, has dedicated swathes of his spare time to trying to protect the club's status and long-term future in recent years.

"The lack of communication from Jason Whittingham has been the biggest problem," he says. "The turmoil has been going on for weeks and weeks on end.

"The start of the EFL season last weekend was difficult. Normally we'd be glued to that sort of thing, but seeing live football again shows to people what we're going to be missing.

"The social part of football is the biggest part. What goes on the pitch - that's fine. It's about the people you travel with, you drink with, you stand with, the community that you feel a part of. For a lot of people, losing that is going to have a big impact on their whole wellbeing, their mental health.

"Some people are already asking if, should the worst come to the worst, we can still go to places together."

The National League will meet again on 20 August and, unless convinced Morecambe have the financial means to complete the season, will formally expel them from the division.

Now fans, staff, and players wait anxiously to see if Whittingham will finally sell the club before it is too late.

On a personal note I'd like to thank TheMaclad for keeping this alive on Babble. Football itself should be up in arms. When an ownership issue such as this occurs ,if the rest of football stood together and DEMANDED that as Whittingham is a serial wrecker of sporting clubs the authorities themselves bear responsibility in Morecambe's case and THEY should be taking steps to ensure the club's survival. If Morecambe dies it won't just be Whittingham's responsibility it will be down to the silence and inaction of those with the power and the voice to do something about it.

I’m not sure if anyone saw it but Allan Ahlberg, wonderful children’s author and longtime Baggies fan, died last week.
For those of us with kids and grandkids, it’s more than possible that we’ve read to them such classics as “Each Peach Pear Plum”, “Burglar Bill”, “The Jolly Postman”, “Funny Bones” or our favourite “Peepo”. These are just glorious books and all written by one of our own.
Thank you Allan….. boing! boing!

2 points for correct result
4 points for correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score   (correct score on a joker would give you 8 points)
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Badger gives you 2 points

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. However, if you do predict a draw and it's a match that won't be going to a replay, you can get a possible extra point by stating which of the two teams you think will eventually win.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  


At the end of the season, the winner of group 2 and the bottom of group 1 will swap places in what is commonly known as "promotion" and "relegation". It's something that most football fans will be familiar with, unless you're a fan of Liverpool or Arsenal or one of those other fashionable clubs.

The second placed player in group 2 will then have a play off with the player who finishes second from the bottom in group 1 to decide whether they will be going up, down or staying where they are.

We're going to have two seasons in one though, just to try and make it a bit more interesting and not so long drawn out. The first season will end on the Boxing Day fixtures, with the play offs being on the dates of the Twixtmas fixtures and the NYD fixtures.

The second season will start the following week, which is usually the FA Cup 3rd round, finishing on the last game of the League One season. Then another period of relegation/promotion play off games, taking in such fixtures as the EFL play offs, FA Cup Final, UEFA finals and such like.

Each group will have it's own set of fixtures. Both groups will have the Town games, with scorers to predict as before. Then it will be a split of League One fixtures and bonus matches, hopefully around ten, eleven or twelve games per Matchday.

The random badger is restricted to three goal scorers in any of the fixtures in your group.

Here's how that will appear at the end of the fixture list. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.......


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Any of those will score two points if correct. No minus points for getting it wrong.

Postponed matches will only count if the match is re-played before the next Matchday is under way. Abandoned matches will be awarded half the points for the score at the time of abandonment, so 1 point if you have the correct result, 2 points if you have the correct score.

Substitute or scorer in one of the Town games:- These will be only be allowed if you change them before the match involved has kicked off.

Prediction League Archive: https://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=12830

Division One table after Matchday 1:

1. ritchiebaby = 28 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 24 pts
   
3. SHEP_HTAFC = 18 pts
   
4. jjamez = 16 pts
   
5. neonfoxinthebox = 16 pts
   
6. Lord Snooty = 14 pts
   

Thursday 7th August:
Port Vale v Cardiff City

Saturday 9th August:
Reading v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Reading scorers:

Peterborough United v Luton Town (12:30)
Mansfield Town v Doncaster Rovers
Northampton Town v Bradford City
Stevenage v Rotherham United
Wycombe Wanderers v Stockport County

EFL Cup 1st rd:
Tuesday 12th August:
West Bromwich Albion v Derby County
Wrexham v Hull City

Wednesday 13th August:
Town v Leicester
Town scorers:
Leicester scorers:

Birmingham City v Sheffield United

Bonus matches:
Sunday:
Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v Kilmarnock

Community Shield:
Crystal Palace v Liverpool (15:00)


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

1. Devongone = 26 pts
   
2. themaclad = 24 pts
   
3. theo_luddite = 22 pts
   
4. Amelia Chaffinch = 18 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 4 pts
   
6. St Charles Owl = 0 pts
   

Saturday 9th August:
Reading v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Reading scorers:

AFC Wimbledon v Lincoln City
Barnsley v Burton Albion
Bolton Wanderers v Plymouth Argyle
Exeter City v Blackpool
Leyton Orient v Wigan Athletic

EFL Cup 1st rd:
Tuesday 12th August:
Barrow v Preston North End
Coventry City v Luton Town
Chesterfield v Mansfield Town
Northampton Town v Southampton

Wednesday 13th August:
Town v Leicester
Town scorers:
Leicester scorers:

Bolton Wanderers v Sheffield Wednesday

Bonus match:
Sunday:
Community Shield:
Crystal Palace v Liverpool (15:00)


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

A new season starts today with a trip to Dundee, managed by beardy mcfudface Steven Pressley a man who incredibly has a managerial career....a bizarre decision from that club.

We have had a decent pre-season, and were very unlucky to get put out of the Europa by Midjytlland who needed 2 absolute screamers to get past us after a good result for us in the away leg.

Squad wise we have made some good additions, but still some loose ends. Will Triantis come back ? Will we sign Grant Hanley? There might be outgoings to come too.

We should be winning this one today, but we had a very hard game midweek and another european trip next week so the manager might opt to change it up a bit.. He will have to get those changes right to get the win.

THE MATCH

SUNDAY 10TH AUGUST KO 4:30PM

v

LAST MATCH

I have decided to go ahead with a match thread, but at the moment it looks 50/50 if the game will go ahead. Well, what can I say about the off season. SHAMBOLIC, DISGRACE, LAUGHABLE. After the Watford game and Danny's interview which was practically a goodbye message, the managers position should have been sorted then but DC let it drag on until less than 2 weeks before the season starts. Henrik Pedersen has now been appointed as the boss on a 3 year deal, he will do well to last 3 months with what he has to work with. The squad is wafer thin with just 15 first team players and one of those is injured, and with the possibility of other players leaving via transfers or having there contracts terminated, the future looks bleak. And with the embargos and transfer restrictions, bringing in anyone decent is highly unlikely. Relegation is a certainty and the possibility of the lowest points total ever in the Championship, currently held by Rotherham who got a misely 23 points. Apart from that everything is rosy

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Our first game of the season see's us travel to relegated Leicester. The Foxes like most newly promoted clubs to the Premier League, struggled mightily and were relegated with games to spare. Ruud Van Nistelrooy was sacked following the season and has been replaced by Marti Cifuentes who had been in charge at QPR last season. They will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season, but might have to deal with a points deduction due to previous financial mis-management. They have lost Jamie Vardy, Connor Coady & Danny Ward with Begovic there only signing so far.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 42
LEIC 41
DRAW 29

CURRENT FORM

OWLS     N/A                                                                

LEIC N/A

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  



THE TEAM

I've gone with a 433 formation

Charles
Valery Iorfa Otegbayo Palmer
Fusire Ingelsson Bannan
Kobacki Cadamarteri Ugbo

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

6-1 Cadamarteri

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

56

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Imre
SCO
Maddix
Washington
Owlkev

BMPL

Stateside
Wereham -12
Southey -12
Pei -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Southampton v Wrexham
Oxford v Portsmouth
Peterborough v Luton
Barrow v MK Dons
York v Sutton

HHDAH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

Crawley Town have been taken over by KB Sports and Leisure, 11 days after the club's co-owner resigned in protest at their summer recruitment.

The club announced that the company, headed by Raphael Khalili, has completed a majority buyout of the League Two club from former owners WAGMI United LLC.

Khalili will be joined on the new board by Daniel Khalili, Ryan Gilbert and Maxwell Strongman which they say is "a group with extensive experience in commercial strategy, professional sports, financial services and governance".

KB Sports take over the running of the club from US cryptocurrency investors WAGMI, who bought the Red Devils in 2022
Preston Johnson, who resigned as co-owner and chief executive officer (CEO) earlier this month, has been replaced as CEO by Tom Allman, previously the club's general manager.

Crawley was promoted to League One in 2023-24 but relegated back to League Two last season, despite promotion-winning manager Scott Lindsey re-joining them.

WAGMI co-founder Johnson resigned as co-chairman in May 2024 and last month announced he was also quitting as chief executive and co-owner with a takeover looming.

He claimed the new owners have "a different vision of the future" and criticised their player recruitment strategy, veering away from the "data-driven approach that has powered our success".

Crawley responded with a statement, external thanking Johnson for his service but added that "data will continue to play a key role in our decision making, alongside other critical considerations".

The club has made eight signings already this summer, including former Chelsea midfielder Kyle Scott.

'New owners understand what Crawley can become'
KB Sports lists its interests as real estate, sport and leisure and have laid out their own vision for the club, saying there will be "a focus on sustainable growth, fan engagement, and competitive ambition".

In a statement , externalon the club website, Raphael Khalili said: "This club has an incredibly loyal fanbase and a rich identity, and we're committed to building something truly special, something sustainable, ambitious and rooted in the community.

"Our vision is to create a modern football club that balances on-pitch success with long-term stability.

"We will invest in infrastructure, prioritise data and innovation, and ensure Crawley Town is a club that reflects the values and energy of its supporters."

Khalili, who was an shareholder in the club under the previous ownership, said work has already begun on upgrading Broadfield Stadium, improving the training facilities and "development of a long-term operational strategy built around performance, sustainability, and innovation".

The new owner claimed to have a hand in the re-appointment of Lindsey in March 2025.

Lindsey said: "There's a real sense of excitement and direction around the club right now.

"Raphael and the new board clearly understand what Crawley Town represents, and more importantly, what it can become. Raphael has a strong grasp of both football and people, and in my 30-plus years in the game, I can confidently say the club couldn't be in better hands.

"Their backing, ambition, and clear vision will give us everything we need to keep progressing, on and off the pitch."

Crawley begin the new League Two season away to Grimsby Town on Saturday, 2 August.

Gamball:
Stoke - Derby

Others:
Charlton - Watford
Middlesbrough - Swansea
Southampton - Wrexham
Oxford - Portsmouth
QPR - Preston
WBA - Blackburn
Reading - Huddersfield
Bolton - Plymouth
Wycombe - Stockport

Reminder of the scoring:
Gamball optional : 8 points correct score; 4 points correct result; -1 point incorrect result.
Bonus compulsory. 6 points correct score; 3 points correct result; -3 points incorrect result.
Others 4 points correct score; 2 points correct result; 0 points incorrect result
Scoreball 1 point if both teams score; 0 points if only 1 team scores; -1 point if it's 0-0.

Good luck and have fun!

I watched all the Lionesses games of the Euros and in some ways I enjoy watching the England Women's team more than the Men's because of how they play. What people need to stop doing though is comparing the Women's game to the Men's game, it's the same game played at different levels. You can't compare non-league to Champions League so why do it with the Women's and the Men's game.

The younger generation of Girls and Women will follow Women's football at club level and support a team maybe the same team as the Men's or maybe where they live or because of their favourite player but the problem is how do you get Women who watch the Euros or World Cup every 2 years supporting the Lionesses who don't follow club football interested in club football and through the turnstiles? It's a bit like people who watch Wimbledon once a year because it's on TV but don't necessarily follow all the other grand slams.