PLAY OFF CLUBS FROM THE WEST-MAINLY

I have written about Morecambe FC before, links with Eric Morecambe, of course, and other matters such as football! 

Today Morecambe FC, The Shrimpers, played in the League Two Play Off against  Newport County F.C, a team from South Wales. You see it's Geography all over the place. County was founded in 1912 and became known as the Ironsides, having formed out of a local steel works. They played in local leagues, the Southern League and joined the Football League in 1920. The big period was in the late 1970s-early 80s with Len Ashurst in charge. This was year when they won the Welsh FA Cup and then had to play in the European Cup Winners Cup, reaching the Quarter-finals.

This period in 1980-1 turned out to be quite eventful – the first round against Crusaders of Northern Ireland was won 4–0 on aggregate (4–0 at home and 0–0 away). The second round against SK Haugar from Norway was even more convincing: after a 0–0 draw away, the home leg was won 6–0, taking the club into the quarter-finals against Carl Zeiss Jena of East Germany. The quarter-final away leg was drawn 2–2 with Tommy Tynan scoring both goals, including his equaliser in the 90th minute. However, despite dominating the home leg, Newport lost 1–0 in front of 18,000 fans at Somerton Park, denying them a high-profile semi-final with SL Benfica. Carl Zeiss Jena went on to be the eventual cup runners-up, losing the final to Dinmao Tblisi.

Despite reaching the Welsh Cup final, County were relegated from the Third Division in 1987 and in 1988 finished bottom of the Fourth Division with a mere 25 points, meaning that their 60-season stay in the Football League was over. They failed to finish their first season in the Conference and finally went out of business on 27 February 1989 with debts of £330,000. They were then expelled from the Conference for failing to fulfil their fixtures. Their record (four wins, seven draws and 19 points from 29 games) was expunged. In 2013 the club recovered and won its way back into the Football League, now sharing Rodney Parade with the Rugby Union.

League Two has been decided, bar this game and Cheltenham Town were top with 82 pts, Cambridge Utd runners up with 80, Bolton W 3rd 79pts. Morecambe come 4th having scored 78 pts all season with 23 wins while Newport County could only muster 73 pts with 20 wins. These end of season games are exciting and at Wembley this play off ticked over nicely and after all that hard work through the season, hurdling Covid too, its a pity that somebody had to lose. On the 31st of May 2021, Morecambe beat Newport County 1-0 in the League Two Playoff Final at Wembley Stadium, winning by a singular penalty in the 107th minute scored by Carlos Mendes Gomes and were subsequently promoted to League One, the third tier of English football, for the first time in their history. 

Morecambe had got to this point beating Tranmere 3-2 and opponents Newport beat Forest Green Rovers 5-4 in two leg "semi-finals". I expect you have noticed that all these clubs are "western" apart from Cambridge United. The score has been 0-0 for most of the game, with late winner for the Shrimps, after Newport missed a goal area sitter. Quite exciting! Morecambe play at the Mazuma Stadium (phone company sponsors), formnally known as the Globe Stadium. It is one of those football league grounds that I have been to. The ESFA played their representative side, final trial there in their schools' Easter Festival.

The Shrimps' mascot is surprisingly not a shrimp, but Christie the cat. The cat was named after Morecambe's old Stadium, Christie Park. He once had an infamous friendly altercation with Dagenham and Redbridge FC goalkeeper Tony Roberts, for which Christie was sent off, even though the dispute had been started by Roberts.

Christie is now a regular at The Globe Arena, having reappeared after being stolen following the last game at Christie Park. A member of the public came into the Globe and offered to sell Christie to the club, but a nice policeman explained to the member of the public that he would be going home empty handed, having been congratulated for his community spirit. Morecambe FC was founded in 1920 (just over a hundred years ago!) playing in the Lancashire Combination, sharing grounds with the local cricket club. In 1974 they won the FA Trophy.

In 2007 Sammy McIlroy led the club into the Football League. They, along with AFC Wimbledon, are the only teams in the top four levels of the English game never to have been relegated in their entire history