Cod Almighty | Article

by Various

7 May 2025

They put a supermarket on a piece of land where the old Shrimps used to stand and their new home ground doesn't look the same, but though the paint is cracked and dry they were still standing when we took a jolly trip into the past.

Such sweet Morecambe memories: Crazy Legs Crane on his banjo, Dulux Cup delight and Padriag Amond thrown back into the sea. So long Shrimps and thanks for all the fish

Not Now Arthur

There is no dark side to the Lune Valley, as a matter of fact it's all dark. Poor old Morecambe, financial gravity eventually sucks. We all know the answer to the question on everyone’s lips about their season:

“What do you think of it so far?”

And we all know what their reaction to every Eric and Ernie reference will be. A bit like ours when some mediocre journeyman content filler thinks it’s oh-so clever to do fish puns. Now fish buns, that would be funny. Well, they’d taste funny.

We’ve had a funny old relationship with the poor old Shrimps, perhaps we see echoes of ourselves. As our Rough Guide had it in the build up to Town’s grand Football League return in 2016:

“Morecambe is a slightly browbeaten, English seaside resort on an estuary. It has a prom, a boating lake, some old-style bed and breakfasts, arcades and ice cream shops. It is Cleethorpes but with different tide times.”

The game itself? Let's just cut out the waffles and get to the ice cream. It all went so wonderfully well, the tide came in for Hursty’s Heroes (Mrk I):

“After five minutes of fitful fury Berrett dribbled and nibbled infield, flicking and flipping across the face of the penalty area. The ball snuckled off arms and legs and a monochrome chest, Jackson spun and swung low across and through Roche into the bottomish right corner.

Can you feel it? Can you feel it? Can you feel it? Feel it in the air, the wind is taking it everywhere and Denmark's rocking now. Town are back in the small big time with a bang.”

Despite the presence of Ellison the ancient non-Mariner, about whom our match reporter once noted "He rubs on Vick where he used to splash Brut, Kev's the oldest swinger in town" half way through the second half in a bound we were free of all worries as Danny Andrew tumbled like dice over red feet:

“Summerfield hung around hoping for a game of rock-paper-scissors. Davies eschewed childish games, took two steps back as Roche hopped left and right, and coiled delightfully, deliciously over the wall and into the toppish right side of the goal.”

Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap-clap, FISH. Local clapping for local people.

It was at least a more satisfying occasion than the first meeting, a Football League Trophy tie in 2005, a game neither side seemed to want to play, or win and turned our match reporter’s mind to mush:

“Oh, do we have to start? I was counting the lights on the ferry. My spoon bent when I stirred my hot chocolate, just like a Kingsley Black free kick. Morecambe kicked off towards their supporters...that's it, I've finished reading the programme. What's going on out there? Why is Serpico in the Upper?

Did I miss something while you were thinking about Jack Lewis's sideburns?

I've just realised: no Gliding Glen. We all know that the mature man needs a mature whisky: Glen Downey, available at your local off licence this Christmas while stocks last.

If a convoy moves at the pace of the slowest ship, this game is the Lusitania.”

I think you get the drift of a game that drifted out of sight and out of mind even before it didn’t happen. Town lost on penalties as Terry Barwick and Crazy Legs Crane conspired to make the 45 travelling Shrimps happy bunnies:

“Settle down at the back and write a thousand-word essay on the spatial awareness of cows and their relationship to Tony Crane's banjo.”

Those were the days, eh.

And these were days too, those mad seven days in the winter of 2008 when we played each other three times, twice in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Northern Final, once in the League. Morecambe didn’t lay a glove on Town, well, they threw a load of them, but kept missing. Perhaps they crossed paths with a black cat? Perhaps they shouldn’t have changed horses mid-stream. As Mike Worden reported in the league game:

“Just before the teams came out, 20 shivering cheerleading girls formed a guard of honour to welcome the home side's new signing. Surely not another ex-Chester player? No - Christie the cat, the new mascot, was introduced to the crowd.”

Still a little underwhelmed by the charms of this old ground, Mike noticed:

“From the comfort of his coach the driver responded to calls for a wave, for at Christie Park the view from the supporters' coach in the car park is one of the best in the whole ground.”

And those were in the dying days of Morecambe’s grand old ground. Well, the cynical and mean spirited among us called it grand because that’s how much we guess it cost to build.

Named after the club chairman of the 1920s, JB Christie, it was a community asset long before such phrases became fashionable. Alderman Christie purchased the Roseberry Park ground and bequeathed the land to Morecambe council on the understanding that the club could play its home games there, and that should it ever disband or expand then the land would "become a playground for the children of the resort".

It's now a supermarket. Perhaps they’ve got a soft play area.

Ooh, you know who was playing in those games for Morecambe? Big Dave Artell. Fun fact fact fans – as Sarah Barber noted as she desperately searched for something to write about last February - the last goalscorer ever at Christie Park was Our Man Artell. Remember that if you ever go on Masterchef.

But mostly the games and the memories of these games have been as random as a duck on a tandem, summed up in the 2019 snorefest in what is now regarded as the point of peak Jolley:

“No alarms, no surprises. Silent. Silent.

And then it was like for a moment, oh my brothers and sisters, some great bird had flown into the away end and I felt all the little hairs on my plot standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow lanky lizards and then down again. Town had a shot.”

Dull, lifeless and flat: that's football for you, that’s Lincolnshire for you.

Oh, by the way, just one more thing. It’s just a little detail. Nothing to worry about, but the little things are important. No, it’s not about Arthur Gnahoua, the elusive butterfly. Thanks again for Padriag Amond, we had a wonderful year together. We still appreciate the Shrimping lack of foresight that allowed us to see that if you get knocked down you can get up again.

These are the full versions of the Cod Almighty programme articles for the 2024/25 season. An edited version was published in The Mariner on 5 April 2025