Public opinion and the hollier than thou brigade

[sgt major]

Not wanting to stir up a hornets nest but if we were in a bigger town/city would the press not now be calling for things to be done at the club - or - are we always playing on the family club image that sees nothing wrong in the present predicament.

I believe if we continue on this present spiral we will go into free fall at a time when we need to be a league 2 team in the new stadium.

The Morecambe way as I have found out in the four years I have been back is one of "The team is playing crap so let's get into JB's and get pissed". What we actually need are fans that can grow up really quickly and get behind the team and bloody well join in to make those players out there look up to the North Stand and realize we are a passionate bunch of supporters.

Remember some of our team now have been used to massive passionate crowds getting behind their team. The Conference days are over - we are a league 2 team - let's give the players that lift on Saturday, even if it is a bit partisan and intimidating - that's what wins matches.

[Crooky MFC]

Well said!

[Abbo]

The thing is though and i get sick of reading it "were a small town club, fighting above our weight" this is an excuse that is used far to much and the sooner we realise we are a second division club that deservers to be in the league the better and we change our mentality, as for telling the fans to get behind the players i think we do that anyway, but it will be interesting to see just how many bother to turn up for our second home game.

[campdave]

The thing is though and i get sick of reading it "were a small town club, fighting above our weight" this is an excuse that is used far to much and the sooner we realise we are a second division club that deservers to be in the league the better

It's the truth though - geographically and financially we simply can't compete with some of the teams in the league in terms of making signings.

[Duffman]

I agree no team with a population of 100,000 or under can compete at any level... oh wait Blackburn only has a population of 100,000 and they're in the Premier League. Our local area has a population of 130,000.

No one will join us as we are (were) a mid-table league 2 club and there are plenty of those around. We have one of the smallest grounds and we're going to build an even smaller ground next season. Financially we're good as we don't have massive debts to our name and the new ground will produce more revenue. However we're not ambitious, we're happy to have a safe mid-table position this season and what player wants that?

[shrimper]

Not wanting to stir up a hornets nest but if we were in a bigger town/city would the press not now be calling for things to be done at the club - or - are we always playing on the family club image that sees nothing wrong in the present predicament.

I believe if we continue on this present spiral we will go into free fall at a time when we need to be a league 2 team in the new stadium.

The Morecambe way as I have found out in the four years I have been back is one of "The team is playing crap so let's get into JB's and get pissed". What we actually need are fans that can grow up really quickly and get behind the team and bloody well join in to make those players out there look up to the North Stand and realize we are a passionate bunch of supporters.

Remember some of our team now have been used to massive passionate crowds getting behind their team. The Conference days are over - we are a league 2 team - let's give the players that lift on Saturday, even if it is a bit partisan and intimidating - that's what wins matches.

Bit of a mixed post there so I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting.

First paragraph answers itself really. IF we were in a big city - say Bradford - with a record of a much higher standard of football and massive crowds to please week in, week out, then yes, you're right, the press would be calling for action because one point from three games and a place at the bottom of League Two would be unacceptable and would be something they've not experienced before.

But we're not. We are from a small town and, apart from the last two seasons' positions - which have come courtesy of the current board and manager - we are still in a far higher position than we have ever been. We have also had a few sticky patches during our time under the current manager and he has turned things round very successfully.

We are not a big enough club to guarantee going through a season with a consistent run of results throughout.

Are you suggesting we should ignore all that and call for Sammy's head after three games? If not what do you mean by your first paragraph, Mick?

No-one is happy with the current predicament and to suggest they are - or that if they aren't
joining the calls demanding someone's head, they are being 'holier than thou' - is a bit patronising, to be honest.

Some apparently think the board should be looking for a new manager right now, others think that he should be given time to do what he's proved on a number of occasions he is capable of doing successfully, that's all.

The rest of your post, I assume, just suggests we get behind the team - or are you suggesting we should intimidate them into playing better?

Callum - we're not ambitious? Why bother with a new ground then? Why should the board put thousands of their own pounds into the club? Why not just let the amount we get through the gates pay for whatever level of football that can sustain?

There's sensible ambition and then there's ridiculous expectation - not ever to have tough times is a ridiculous expectation at a club like Morecambe.

We go through all of this about twice a season on average. Everything's rosy until we hit a bad patch of a few games then everyone calls for 'questions to be asked' or accuses us of lacking ambition.

One day, fair enough, then this knee-jerk gloom may prove to be founded.

But we'll have a lot more unfounded panics before that day, I reckon.

I think the score is about 16-1 to the 'don't panic' brigade so far.

[nobbyshrimp]

I agree no team with a population of 100,000 or under can compete at any level... oh wait Blackburn only has a population of 100,000 and they're in the Premier League. Our local area has a population of 130,000.

No one will join us as we are (were) a mid-table league 2 club and there are plenty of those around. We have one of the smallest grounds and we're going to build an even smaller ground next season. Financially we're good as we don't have massive debts to our name and the new ground will produce more revenue. However we're not ambitious, we're happy to have a safe mid-table position this season and what player wants that?

What a load of bo---cks!
No1
Morecambe has a population of around 50,000 (including Heysham).
Lancaster has a population of around 50,000
Local rural areas are about 35,000

For a start off you can't include any other towns if you're going to have a moan except Morecambe as Chester has a population of around 77,000 but do you include Liverpool of 436,000? I know you're going to say but the other areas don't have a succesful league football team but that doesn't matter. They are either Morecambe fans or they follow any number of other clubs and are either arm chair fans are they travel to Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool, Burnley, Bolton, Blackburn etc etc etc. Morecambe have only had a league team for 2 previous seasons and so fans who wanted to watch league football travelled. The catchment area for Morecambe can only be based on the immediate Morecambe area. And as for not being ambitious.. There are no two ways about it Morecambe are and always will be a small football club so get use to it. Its a small town! We have a very succesful and very clever board and management team. Our management team in Sammy and Mark are admirred by alot of other football clubs. The way we play football is admirred by alot of other football clubs. Its a long process building up a succesful football club and we are going just fine as I have seen us grow over many seasons. We need to be a football league team next season thats a priority. I think we'll pick up very soon as we have some very good individual footballers, they just need to gell but I'm still a bit concerned about our striking options. Keep the faith because as a football club we're heading in the right direction

[ockers]

Hereford, we should have had three points no question....no panic
or am i missing something here
Preston Carling Cup...irrelevant.....no panic

Burton Albion...on another day 5 4 a bad day at the office seem to remember crawley 4 morecambe 0 very bad day at office....we won promotion....still no panic

barnet 2 morecambe 0 having been there on another night three points to us we wee unlucky not to get something if not the win...still no panic after three league games
pointless post to be honest and yes just stirring up a hornets nest
have a little patience perhaps
question answered
not a holier than thou response not sure what thats referring to but a realistic response

Mark Lillis and the team arent panicing so why should we????

three points saturday and we will be three points better off than we were at this stage last season

[Duffman]

I agree no team with a population of 100,000 or under can compete at any level... oh wait Blackburn only has a population of 100,000 and they're in the Premier League. Our local area has a population of 130,000.

No one will join us as we are (were) a mid-table league 2 club and there are plenty of those around. We have one of the smallest grounds and we're going to build an even smaller ground next season. Financially we're good as we don't have massive debts to our name and the new ground will produce more revenue. However we're not ambitious, we're happy to have a safe mid-table position this season and what player wants that?

What a load of bo---cks!
No1
Morecambe has a population of around 50,000 (including Heysham).
Lancaster has a population of around 50,000
Local rural areas are about 35,000

Thank you for confirming my population of the local area. The reason why I included Lancaster etc. is because they don't have a professional club..

For a start off you can't include any other towns if you're going to have a moan except Morecambe as Chester has a population of around 77,000 but do you include Liverpool of 436,000? I know you're going to say but the other areas don't have a succesful league football team but that doesn't matter. They are either Morecambe fans or they follow any number of other clubs and are either arm chair fans are they travel to Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool, Burnley, Bolton, Blackburn etc etc etc. Morecambe have only had a league team for 2 previous seasons and so fans who wanted to watch league football travelled. The catchment area for Morecambe can only be based on the immediate Morecambe area.

Fair point but we can both agree there are plenty of people in the area that are football fans. It's up to the players to put on a show and attract fans. If Preston were playing poorly and we were playing well, the fickle nature of football fans would see a few fans coming down to CP instead. But out of the local area how many people actually travel to all these clubs each week?

And as for not being ambitious.. There are no two ways about it Morecambe are and always will be a small football club so get use to it. Its a small town!

We are a small team and I am used to it. I've been a fan for as long as I can remember. What I was saying is there are more teams in the league that are more ambitious than us. If 14 teams in the league are saying they're going for promotion/ a play-off place and we're happy to be mid-table, that automatically makes 14 teams a more exciting prospect for a player.

We have a very succesful and very clever board and management team. Our management team in Sammy and Mark are admirred by alot of other football clubs. The way we play football is admirred by alot of other football clubs.

I would disagree with this, my personal opinion is that the football we play can be dull (not all the time) and sometimes tactics away are a little negative.

Its a long process building up a succesful football club and we are going just fine as I have seen us grow over many seasons. We need to be a football league team next season thats a priority.

Something we agree on! However this could prove our downfall this season. Not that we will get relegated but I think we might struggle.

I think we'll pick up very soon as we have some very good individual footballers, they just need to gell but I'm still a bit concerned about our striking options. Keep the faith because as a football club we're heading in the right direction

Burton started with 9 new players on Saturday. Perhaps they've gelled better/quicker and/or were on a high for their first home game but overall I think we have a largely unchanged squad from last season compared to others in the league.

[Bryan]

Mick's right to call for more passion on the terraces. As long as it's to get behind the players. Shrimper's basically saying it's where you end up in May that counts. I ain't aurguing with either. All i'm saying is the fans must play their part and the players hopefully respond to that. I suspect we'll finish above Burton and Barnet forty odd games down the line anyway.

[nobbyshrimp]

I agree no team with a population of 100,000 or under can compete at any level... oh wait Blackburn only has a population of 100,000 and they're in the Premier League. Our local area has a population of 130,000.

No one will join us as we are (were) a mid-table league 2 club and there are plenty of those around. We have one of the smallest grounds and we're going to build an even smaller ground next season. Financially we're good as we don't have massive debts to our name and the new ground will produce more revenue. However we're not ambitious, we're happy to have a safe mid-table position this season and what player wants that?

What a load of bo---cks!
No1
Morecambe has a population of around 50,000 (including Heysham).
Lancaster has a population of around 50,000
Local rural areas are about 35,000

Thank you for confirming my population of the local area. The reason why I included Lancaster etc. is because they don't have a professional club..

For a start off you can't include any other towns if you're going to have a moan except Morecambe as Chester has a population of around 77,000 but do you include Liverpool of 436,000? I know you're going to say but the other areas don't have a succesful league football team but that doesn't matter. They are either Morecambe fans or they follow any number of other clubs and are either arm chair fans are they travel to Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool, Burnley, Bolton, Blackburn etc etc etc. Morecambe have only had a league team for 2 previous seasons and so fans who wanted to watch league football travelled. The catchment area for Morecambe can only be based on the immediate Morecambe area.

Fair point but we can both agree there are plenty of people in the area that are football fans. It's up to the players to put on a show and attract fans. If Preston were playing poorly and we were playing well, the fickle nature of football fans would see a few fans coming down to CP instead. But out of the local area how many people actually travel to all these clubs each week?

And as for not being ambitious.. There are no two ways about it Morecambe are and always will be a small football club so get use to it. Its a small town!

We are a small team and I am used to it. I've been a fan for as long as I can remember. What I was saying is there are more teams in the league that are more ambitious than us. If 14 teams in the league are saying they're going for promotion/ a play-off place and we're happy to be mid-table, that automatically makes 14 teams a more exciting prospect for a player.

We have a very succesful and very clever board and management team. Our management team in Sammy and Mark are admirred by alot of other football clubs. The way we play football is admirred by alot of other football clubs.

I would disagree with this, my personal opinion is that the football we play can be dull (not all the time) and sometimes tactics away are a little negative.

Its a long process building up a succesful football club and we are going just fine as I have seen us grow over many seasons. We need to be a football league team next season thats a priority.

Something we agree on! However this could prove our downfall this season. Not that we will get relegated but I think we might struggle.

I think we'll pick up very soon as we have some very good individual footballers, they just need to gell but I'm still a bit concerned about our striking options. Keep the faith because as a football club we're heading in the right direction

Burton started with 9 new players on Saturday. Perhaps they've gelled better/quicker and/or were on a high for their first home game but overall I think we have a largely unchanged squad from last season compared to others in the league.

I'm not going to argue with you anymore as I think its a bit of a silly thread

Fair point but we can both agree there are plenty of people in the area that are football fans. It's up to the players to put on a show and attract fans. If Preston were playing poorly and we were playing well, the fickle nature of football fans would see a few fans coming down to CP instead. But out of the local area how many people actually travel to all these clubs each week?

I think you'll find that quite a few travel from the Lancaster area because they want to watch League football and have therefore had to travel to home games for many years. Just because little old Morecambe surprisingly got promoted at Wembley they're not going to stop travelling and come to Morecambe, although quite a few probably went with us to Wembley. The most Morecambe can hope for 'if' they were to have a consistently good run in league 2 is an average of around 2,500 but I think you'll see a few hundred extra regularly attend once we move to a new stadium.

Burton started with 9 new players on Saturday. Perhaps they've gelled better/quicker and/or were on a high for their first home game but overall I think we have a largely unchanged squad from last season compared to others in the league

50% of our 1st team squad have changed and most quite recently. Yes others have had more, less and some hardly any, and??
I give up Bored now

[Keith]

Hereford should have had three points no question....

Did anyone else read this three or four times before they realised it was an Ockers post and then they started to insert their own extra words or punctuation until it made sense?

Hereford, we should have had three points no question.... ???

[RedRedWine1]

Who are the holier-than-thou brigade, and what do you mean by such a comment?

For me a rather predictable thread, "lets sing louder and the team will win". Has anybody stopped to access this rather ridiculous statement? Yes, I'm sure an atmosphere can help the team, but personally (and I think logically) I can't connect some of the recent defensive howlers with peoples reluctance to join in with "Twist and shout".

We have lost two league games on the spin, nowhere near panic stations yet. We are three games into the season, and whilst the defence is clearly an issue I believe Sammy will sort it out. The first name on the team sheet (Jim Bentley) is not match fit at the moment. We have new personnel at the club, some being asked to perform roles that they are not used to. It will take time for them to get used to that position and the way that we play (can't think of many other teams at this level that use the same formation as us). It is going to take time, but I think going forward we have looked much more enterprising than last season already. As soon as we cut out the silly errors we will be fine. Some perspective please, keep the faith.

[Heysham_Shrimp]

We all show our support in different ways.

not everyone wants to sing songs.

Dagenham arent exactly noted for singing fans but they have 9 points and scored more league goals than we have conceded.

As long as the fans stay with the team and don't boo and single out players then things will improve.

The only diabolical performance out of the 4 games was at Burton and these things happen, remember Leek !

[ockers]

Hereford should have had three points no question....

Did anyone else read this three or four times before they realised it was an Ockers post and then they started to insert their own extra words or punctuation until it made sense?

Hereford, we should have had three points no question.... ???

edited....

[P/T Indie]

Yes but why didn't we because you have to defend properly for 90+ minuites and we didn't.

[Posh]

What we actually need are fans that can grow up really quickly and get behind the team and bloody well join in to make those players out there look up to the North Stand and realize we are a passionate bunch of supporters.

Remember some of our team now have been used to massive passionate crowds getting behind their team. The Conference days are over - we are a league 2 team - let's give the players that lift on Saturday, even if it is a bit partisan and intimidating - that's what wins matches.

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of getting behind our team and being passionate.

To my mind that means singing songs that are positive about our own team and individual players. Listening to Newcastle and Liverpool fans on TV about 95% of the songs were backing their players and team. However we sing things like 'small town in..', 'do you..', 'we hate Stanley (despite having a player with that name)', 'you're the s*** of wherever' about 50% of the time and to me that's not passion its humourless abuse and it certainly isn't getting behind the team.

If we were to come up with some original songs (i.e. not nicked wholesale from Old Trafford) that are clever / funny / hypnotic and ditched the abusive one you might get more people joining in and hence it would lift the noise and passion.

Just a suggestion.