Morecambe's troubles

Morecambe are bottom of League Two, the fourth and last tier of English league football.  Never the biggest of EFL clubs, and rather fittingly nicknamed the Shrimps as a nod to the local fishing industry on the Lancashire coast in the north-west of England, Morecambe have been particularly hamstrung in recent years by their majority owners’ inability — or refusal — to fund them adequately.

This happens, unfortunately, but normally owners suck it up, sell the club and move on. The Bond Group, however, has spent the past 26 months trying to sell Morecambe to people who clearly cannot afford the inflated price the Bond Group wants.

For much of that period, the intended buyer was Sarbjot Johal, a 21-year-old from Birmingham, in the English Midlands, who claims to have made millions in soft drinks, property and crypto.

The Bond Group, where the sole director is a businessman called Jason Whittingham, eventually gave up on Johal ever being able to convince the EFL he had the money to run a club and moved on to a new mystery bidder.

In an interview with British radio station talkSPORT in June, Whittingham, who bought the club in 2018 with his business partner Colin Goldring, said he hoped to announce a sale to this bidder within two weeks (narrator: he did not).

The situation has been deteriorating at Morecambe for years, with the EFL docking the club three points last season for late payments to players and putting them under embargo for tax issues. This would have been alarming enough at any club but it caused real concern at Morecambe as the Bond Group’s first foray into professional sport had ended in 2022 with the bankruptcy of English rugby-union side Worcester Warriors.

The embargo has been lifted and they have so far managed to avoid any further disciplinary action this season but the club’s fans are thoroughly fed up with the Bond Group and its mystery bidder.

Last Saturday, there was a protest march to the home game against Port Vale, with black balloons released as the players took the pitch. And then, as the clock hit 26 minutes, fans turned their backs on the game for two minutes.  Unfortunately, that meant they had turned around again in time to see the visitors score on their way to a 1-0 win.

“The protest showed how important the club’s future is to the fans and the people of our town,” said Tarnia Elsworth, the chair of fans’ group the Shrimps Trust.

“This isn’t just about a team playing on a Saturday, this is about one man mishandling a community asset. Bond Group need to sell the club quickly — if the current interested buyers cannot provide the paperwork needed to the EFL, they need to move aside so the club can be sold to someone who can.

“Fan efforts will increase, this protest is just the start… pressure will continue until the club is sold to an appropriate new owner.”

I wish their fans every success, but paradoxically relegation to the National League may make them a more attractive purchase and they can build again.