Morecambe make history after avoiding extinction with loyal fans and staff rewarded

Elated football fans and staff described it as ‘one hell of a rollercoaster ride’ after finding out their beloved Morecambe FC had been saved from extinction with hours to spare. Just two days before potential expulsion from the National League, Morecambe FC were taken over by Panjab Warriors, a global sports investment firm.

Staff had been left in floods of tears without wages and things were so bad a local food bank offered to help employeesstruggling to make ends meet. But workers and fans of the cash-strapped Lancashire club have now gone from despair to joy with the "exciting new chapter" their new owners are promising.

The club's loyal kit man of 30 years, who turned down a pay rise and went without wages to stay loyal to ‘his club’, admits he’d been reduced to tears but said: “It’s come alive again.” As well as staying afloat they are also now making history."

Morecambe’s new manager is Ashvir Singh Johal, who is the first Sikh to take charge of a professional British club. At 30 he is also the youngest manager in the top five tiers of English football. He will certainly need plenty of energy as the struggling club has just eight professional players left and a match at home on Saturday against Altrincham.

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Lifelong fan David Freer, 62, and former club commentator, previously described the whole ordeal as "soul-destroying" but now says: “I am absolutely elated.”

He told The Mirror: “It’s been very much a roller coaster but to get through it we are all rejoicing. We are season ticket holders and thought we were going to be claiming it back on our credit card. It’s been a long haul and for sale for two years. We never thought this day would happen.”

About their new manager, he said: “It'll come as a shock to him, because he'll be suddenly finding himself 16 hours a day with his phone on. You know, he's got to get a squad together before Saturday. “

There are only around eight professional players left on their books as they face Altrincham FC this Saturday. But the opposition said the National League had told them the fixture was going ahead ‘as scheduled’.

David, who was a commentator at Morecambe for 12 years, jokes they may have to get some old players dusting their shin pads off if that's the case.

“If we were to sign ten people tomorrow and put a team out, I'd be pretty amazed, I really would. But I’m hopeful for the future now. At least the Saturday game is a later kick off, that gives us more time! The joke locally is ‘get your boots on’.

“I'm actually on the committee for the former players association and consequently I'm in touch with a lot of them and with our little WhatsApp room. They were all joking saying ‘I come down on Saturday and dig my shin pads out?’ Some are way older than me,” he laughs.

But on a serious note, he says it would have been “disastrous” if the town had lost their club as the stadium supports the whole town and is used by veterans, schools, charities and blood banks. Numerous proms had to be cancelled as the club struggled.

But David told of his immense pride for staff who stuck around, such as kit man Les Dewhirst, 64, who even went without pay and turned down a rise at another club to stay loyal to Morecambe.

When The Mirror spoke to Les, he told us why he’d turned that better offer down. “This is my club,” he told The Mirror. “I've been here for 30 years next month. I didn't want it to end like that and I needed to see this through.

“I would be the last one out of this club. They'd have to drag me out and I mean that. I really mean that.”

Explaining why it means so much, he said: “This is where I met my wife, Debbie - at the football. My daughter is a cleaner here and she’s been in floods of tears. We’ve got 16 grandchildren and most of them go home and away.

“This club is like my family, we're only a small club but we're a nice club. I do want to retire in two years and I didn't want it to end this way. For seven weeks it's been a downer, I'm usually quite a positive person but it drags you down.”

It's hardly surprising as Les had watched the 200 part time and casual staff reduced to a couple of dozen. While the workers who stayed saw only a third of their wages in June and none at all in July.

Les said he watched it eat into his own savings but he was one of the lucky ones as some workers struggled to pay their rent. Now, he says, they have been paid back since the takeover.

He described how emotional it was to “see people go, for the wrong reasons, it's not because they want to go, you've got to survive.

“You can't see the future, because I admit I thought it had ended. It’s been emotional, it has, even coming down to the ground when there's no one here. I’d just go and sit in my room for half an hour and say ‘what do I do next?’ There was an emptiness.”

But now he’s thrilled to be rushed off his feet once again and says: “It has come alive. It really has.I thought I'd lost it all. “We're just trying to get ready for Saturday now, the kit comes in tomorrow. We'll have a game on Saturday and Monday so we'll be planning two different kits. So I've got to get all that ready.

“I know there are worse things happening in the world, but when this is what you have, when it's your family and your club, you're born here, you know, you feel like you've lost it all.”

Local MP Lizzi Collinge, who has been part of the community campaign to save the club, said: “It’s such a relief to see the club sold and it’s positive that the club can now focus on football.

“I’m no expert on the game itself, I’ll leave that to others, but I’m really looking forward to getting back on the terraces with other fans and treating myself to a portion of the best pie in football.

“I'm so pleased to see this awful saga come to an end. Now we can look forward to focusing on the game. “

She thanked the fans and “everyone who has campaigned so hard for this outcome. “The Shrimps Trust in particular has played a central role. Their all-volunteer team has been working night and day and have gone above and beyond.”

Fan Julie Stanley described it as “one hell of a ride” and said the "sense of community has been increasingly obvious throughout this whole saga". She added that she had been left with "a renewed sense of pride in our club".

Pat Stoyles, chair of the Shrimps Trust, said it was "a huge relief that we're actually going to be able to play football this season". But he said they now need to find 16 players. "It's been a long road. Most people had given up any real hope of getting through this. Everybody only got paid a third of the wages in June, nobody got paid a penny at the end of July but they'd still stuck around for a month.

“There were people leaving in floods of tears but there’s nothing you could say or do. We couldn't tell them it was going to be all right because a big part of you felt it wasn’t going to be all right.Everyone is like an extended family. It’s just a huge relief.“