Vital Statistics
Founded: 1920
Chairman: Peter McGuigan
Last Season: League Two - 21st
Nickname: The Shrimps
Rivals: Lancaster City, Southport, Accrington Stanley
Major Honours
None
Scheduled Matches
Portsmouth vs Morecambe: Tuesday, February 28th (7:45pm)
Morecambe vs Portsmouth: Tuesday, August 16th (7:45pm)
Morecambe: A brief history
Formed in 1920, the vast majority of Morecambe's history was spent in non-league struggling to stay afloat. The "glory years" for the Shrimps came in the 60's and 70's when they won the Lancashire Senior Cup and the FA Trophy.
Promotion to the Conference finally came in 1996 and the club became mainstays there until 2007 when, after a couple of narrow misses, Morecambe became a Football League club with a play-off final win over Exeter under the management of Sammy McIlroy.
The Shrimps lost 7-2 on aggregate to Dagenham & Redbridge in the League Two play-offs of 2010 and then moved from long-time home Christie Park to the new Globe Arena where the club have found things tough despite increased income from the new stadium.
The Manager: Jim Bentley
A Morecambe legend, Bentley started his career at Telford before moving to the Shrimps to play 328 times for the club. When Sammy McIlroy left Morecambe in 2011, The 39-year-old was appointed as player-manager but hung up his boots to concentrate on the top job.
The Ground: The Globe Arena (Capacity: 6,476 - Away: 1,700)
Morecambe moved from Christie Park to their new ground in 2010 but it still has a "non-league" feel about it, even though the exterior of their main stand shows differently.
The nearest pub is The Hurley Flyer which is conveniently right next to the ground and is decent enough, although it has no screens showing any live football. Away fans are situated in the Bay Radio Stand with the very similar looking West Terrace housing some of the more vocal Shrimps fans opposite.
The North Terrace is a very strange and shallow open terrace which looks bare.
On the other side is the Peter McGuigan stand which is the dominant stand in the stadium. A portion of this can be allocated to away fans but the terrace behind the goal where the below picture was taken from is one of the better ones in the division, barring the lack of space and service kiosks behind it.
Overall, Morecambe is an average away day. Their fans like to boast about the quality of their pies but the one I had was average at best which just about sums up the stadium. However, expectations shouldn't be too high given that Morecambe are one of the smallest clubs in the division and there are certainly worse stadiums in League Two than the Globe Arena.