Morecambe fan discusses impact National League relegation could have on the club

Morecambe fan @joelshooter47 discusses how much impact National League relegation could have on the club with survival looking unlikely.

The Shrimps fan joined Andy Bayes and Alan Kelly @keepingskills on BBC Lancashire Sport Post-Match, days on from a 2-0 defeat to Aldershot.

The result leaves Morecambe sitting 23rd in the table, with 34 points from 41 games played, 8 points from safety with 5 games to go.

🔴 As the threat of National League relegation becomes even more likely for Morecambe, Shrimps fan @joelshooter47 joined @AndyBayes & @keepingskills on Post-Match to discuss the impact it could have on the club

⚽ Full show HERE ➡️ https://t.co/NgfYIQj3NX#uts | #bbcfootball pic.twitter.com/tCVMXo55dN

— BBC Sport Lancashire (@BBCLancsSport) March 31, 2026

Andy Bayes: “I’m extremely concerned now about Morecambe. It looked like that one was a real sore one at the weekend and to be so close to safety two, three games ago to now being eight points adrift and the National League does finish earlier than the EFL, so we’re not talking about a long period of time at all now.

“41 football matches played for Morecambe and they are eight adrift. Their goal difference is relatively similar to the team just outside the relegation zone, but that undoubtedly is an enormous problem now, isn’t it?”

Alan Kelly: “It is and I watched the highlights of the game on Saturday and to lose in the 87th and 90th minute with two goals that all the shots scored, up until then they had a real goal.

“It was anything but a team that were down on the look or not giving everything for the manager or for the fans and for the club. They hit the bar early on, they had a clean 1v1 where Aziz was clean through and scuffed it wide.

“Those are the types of scenarios where when it’s going to go for you, when you are going to get a wondrous result that’s going to lift you to then stay in the league, they have to go in and it didn’t for them.

“But they kept going and as I said to you earlier, it was a performance where you’re thinking, God, they put so much into it, but when they switch off and it’s those vital little minutes, when you switch off once, twice, the second one was a penalty, the first one you switch off with a low cross to the back post and it’s a tap-in and then your dreams are shattered and as you say Andy, eight points adrift just seems a long way, doesn’t it?”

Andy Bayes: “It does. Truro, bottom of the table on 30 points, they’re 12 adrift. Then Morecambe, eight adrift. Braintree, seven points to make up. Brackley are the closest but they’ve still got four points to make up and I think, and we’ll talk to Joel in just a moment, who’s a Morecambe supporter, about the situation that they find themselves in, Alan, and it’s not just the points they’ve got to make up now, it’s the quality of opposition that they’re up against, isn’t it?”

Alan Kelly: “Well, we said the next two, Rochdale on Friday and then Carlisle, so it’s number one and two in the league really.

“Again, fighting to get back into the football league as well, so they’re going to be such hard games and as you say, the contrast between maybe 10 days ago being out of the relegation fight and then suddenly to be thrust back into it and then your next two opponents want to go for that number one spot, it’s a difficult ask, isn’t it?”

Andy Bayes: “It certainly is. So, goals on 87 and past the 90 which condemned Morecambe to defeat and they’ve now lost their last three games. I mean, the Achilles heel has been goals against all season and if you’re going to concede 86 goals, there’s only one place you’re going, isn’t there?”

Alan Kelly: “Yeah, throughout the entirety of the league and the season, as you said, 41 games, you know, it doesn’t lie, does it? The table doesn’t lie.

“I mean, you’ve got to look at that and say in terms of Jim Bentley, he’s only been there for a relatively short period of time and again, we were talking earlier, I think he’s got 13 points out of 13 games.

“This type of game on Saturday where he must have thought if we can nick a goal now because the balance of play was in Morecambe’s favour, the opportunities were in Morecambe’s favour, that’s where I think it’s not going to happen for us.

“It’s just one of those games where we’ve hit the bar, we’ve hit the goalkeeper instead of the corner of the net, we’ve missed clear chances and the two opportunities we give the opposition and they bury us and that leads to, as you said, three games on the balance losing.

“So, yeah, to be fair to Jim, I think he has got something out of them to give them that fighting chance, albeit the last three results have not reflected that.”

Morecambe supporter Joel Shooter: “I mean, the only way we’re going to have some sort of chance is if we win every game between now and the end of the season. And obviously that’s quite a tough set of fixtures. Maybe a couple of them will take their foot off the gas being in the playoffs with no chance of going up automatically or dropping out of the playoffs.

“But yeah, I think it’s highly unlikely and look, even if we do get, you know, get five wins, shoot up, I think it would be to 49 points given the rest of the table. That’s not actually a guarantee that we’d actually stay up. So yeah, it’s pretty perilous. Obviously, look, you know, you keep fighting until it’s mathematically done. But yeah, it’s not looking great.”

Andy Bayes: “This might sound a really sort of naive question for me to ask here, Joel. When you look at the players’ names that you have at Morecambe, do you believe you should be doing better than you are?”

🔴 "I see what they're like in the dressing room after the last couple of games…it's not a nice place."#Morecambe manager Jim Bentley reflects on a home defeat by Aldershot.#uts | #bbcfootball pic.twitter.com/cj1XKoYq4g

— BBC Sport Lancashire (@BBCLancsSport) March 28, 2026

Joel Shooter: “Absolutely. I think, don’t get me wrong, it’s a bit mismatched a squad. It’s maybe strong in some areas, being a bit weak in other areas, et cetera, bit here and there with some things. But overall, you know, when you’ve got players of the quality of Jack Nolan, Miguel Aziz, Yann Songo’o, vastly experienced in the football league, Jamal Blackman, really high quality goalkeeper for this level, you know, players like Gwion Edwards as well, you know, he’s a really good player.

“And you know, you look at that and it’s not, don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect through and through the squad, but the quality of that, that’s at our disposal.

“And you look at, compare that to some of the teams around us, we shouldn’t be in this position and obviously, not to pour over all ground, but obviously a key issue is the fact that we made the managerial change at the start of the season.

“We got rid of Derek Adams, somebody who’s got four career promotions, vastly experienced manager, got in Ash who had a, I guess an okay start, but then things quite quickly went off the rails and we took far too long to act over that. And I think we’re, we’re feeling the repercussions of that.

“Obviously Jim’s done his best. I think he’s, I think he’s gotten a better performance level out of the team. I think he’s probably been a bit unlucky in a few games, gates in the way when we have two penalties go against us that weren’t penalties, few bits like that.

“But at the end of the day, it feels like the wind’s just gone out of our sails now a little bit, which is sad to see, obviously in the last three games, which have been three defeats.”

Andy Bayes: “Alan Kelly, when you look at that from a supporter’s point of view, it must be all the more frustrating. We just heard Joel mention a load of names there who potentially could be playing higher up the chain than they are doing.

“And to know that in the view of Joel and other Morecambe fans as well, they, they feel that they had a head coach or manager at the back end of last season, Derek Adams, who’d had three spells in charge. “Yes, they were, let’s get it right. Derek Adam relegated twice in league one and two.

So it wasn’t all a bed of roses, but Derek was respected by the supporters. I mean, we can’t replay this season. It’s not like a championship manager where you save your game and load it again. But do you think it would have made a difference?”

Alan Kelly: “I will never know in terms of whether it could have impacted the team. Would they have had the same turnover of players? Would the quality of player have been slightly different in terms of profile? Would they play a different type of football?

“All these questions will come against the comparison between the two managers. The question I would ask is, should Jim Bentley have come in earlier? We’ve said 13 games. I think Joel has said he seems to have got a better level of performance out of it.

“Joel, I don’t know if you were at the game on Saturday, but again, looking at the highlights, Morecambe, I think they gave everything in that game on Saturday. It would be interesting, one, to see what you thought about that game on Saturday, but two, do you think that if Jim Bentley had been brought in, let’s say, and hadn’t given 20 games, would they be in the same position?”

Joel Shooter: Yes, I think we’d be in a better position. Going back to Saturday’s game, I thought it was a very tense game. Obviously, Aldershot had a bit of a bad losing run. They needed to ideally win the game to put themselves in a bit more of an advantageous position in terms of their relegation battle.

“So, I think it was tense. There was a lot of errors. I think we made a lot. We were pretty poor defensively at times. We didn’t defend our box particularly well. I think that’s something that’s probably slipped off in the last few games.

“It feels like when we can see that late, late equaliser, it’s brain treaty of the week. That would have made it three wins in the bounce and put us right. Actually, it would have lifted us out of the relegation zone.

“It just feels like from then on, the wind’s kind of gone out of our sails. We’ve lost a lot of confidence and momentum, which is a shame.

“But looking at the bigger picture, yeah, I think we performed much, much better. I do wholeheartedly think that we’d probably be comfortably mid-table if Derek had been in for the whole season.

“I don’t think we would have burned through around 40 players a season, which is financial wastage we probably could have done without.

“To answer your question about Jim, look, Jim’s such a big character around the club. He’s galvanised everybody. He obviously hasn’t been managing too much recently. And obviously, most recently, he was in the National League North.

“But broadly speaking, knows the level, knows just… I think what he’s instilled is kind of like some of the basic fundamentals to grind out results at this level.

“Obviously, it’s been a bit more steely at the back, going a bit more direct at times. And I’m not saying that you can’t do some of the things that Ash was doing with the kind of playing out from the back. Because you see good teams in this league do it.

“But you need your fundamentals underpinning it. You need to have a bit of steel. You need to have that character and that belief in each other that when a couple of things don’t go your way, you can see a couple of goals here and there.

“Like we did at the start of the season, it doesn’t just fall apart, and you can bounce back. And yeah, it feels like when Ash built the side at the start of the season, he was trying to create this super football kind of side without… It was like skipping over those real fundamentals that make a successful team at a lower league level. And I feel that’s probably what Jim’s addressed a bit more.

“But like you say, just not enough time. It probably took a bit too long, unfortunately, to get those standards drilled into the players. And that’s not a criticism of Jim. I think that’s how long it takes sometimes.

“I look at John Coleman when he went in an older shot. I think they lost his first six or seven games under John Coleman. And then I think they’ve gone one defeat from eight after that. So it’s not always instantaneous.

“So yeah, just very frustrating. Like you say, if he’d been given 20 games instead of 13 now, we’d probably be in a better position.”

Andy Bayes: “Joel, just a final one. And please don’t think this is too depressing a question, but the reality of the situation is it is. I can’t think of a group of football fans who’ve been through quite as much as Morecambe fans in the last few years now.

“Do you see an end to this? It must feel like right now that every year you’re heading in one direction. And that for a football fan of your team, that must be ever so painful.”

Joel Shooter: “Yeah. I mean, you see a lot of discourse online on Twitter and everything, social media about, oh, which fan base has had it worse.

“And I’ve seen a few articles flying about a few days ago. Obviously, clubs like Sheffield Wednesday had a very tough time, no doubt on that. But I do wonder if we might take the prize, two relegations.

“Initially looking like we’ve been saying, look, don’t get me wrong, Panjab Warriors, they put the money in, they did save the club.

“But now we’ve gotten to a point where we have the winding, well, lots of really poor decisions around the club, both on the pitch and off it. We’ve had the winding up petition, which we understand is now resolved. But that was for a bill that was hanging over from last May for sorting the pitch out.

“It just feels like you’re moving from one battle to another, really. You know, it just feels a bit endless. And look, is there a way back? Yeah, sure. Look, Panjab Warriors have put in money to the club, no doubt about that. We’ve looked at the amount of players we’ve had through.

“But we’ve also seen the fact that we’ve had this bill from last May not be paid until, well, issues paying that. So I think we just, the house needs to get in order. I think we need to get a bit of football experience in the building. People can make good decisions around the club, whether that’s keeping Jim in a kind of off field role going into the next season, who knows?

“But like, there is a way to salvage this. It could be quite fun in the National League North. Should we end up there? You know, I’ve been looking at some of the potential away games. It could be a bit of a laugh.

“But yeah, I think there is a way back. There’s always a way back, but we need to see the house sorted out first. Things need to be, you know, sorted out behind the scenes.

“Unfortunately, first season, the Panjab Warriors, I guess it’s their first time at a football club. It’s been difficult. Hopefully, they’ve learned some pretty harsh lessons and wrongs can be righted going into next season.”