'Totally torn apart' - how Morecambe decline threatens a whole community
"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."
"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 the 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 has 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 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.
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 apart 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.
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