Previously best known for providing comedian Eric Bartholomew's stage name, the seaside resort could soon have a Football League team. Geoff Walters reports
Until 1995 my experience of watching Morecambe had been restricted to the Northern Premier League. Memories are of high-scoring games in dilapidated grounds featuring players who would have looked more at home on Blackpool beach, and the peculiar habit Morecambe had of scoring every time I decided to move to another position in the ground.
Dear WSC
I’m glad Brian Gibbs can gain pleasure from hearing Ray Wilkins (Letters, WSC 192). Us QPR supporters can’t help remembering Ray Wilkins presiding over the start of the long decline we’ve had to endure at Loftus Road. Ned Zelic is the “versatile as an egg” player referred to. Wilkins wasted a big chunk of the money QPR got for Les Ferdinand on buying him. What was Wilkins thinking of? Ferdinand was approaching his peak, you could guarantee 25 goals (and probably more) from him in a season. He was incredibly popular with QPR fans, even when he scored for Newcastle at Loftus Road a couple of months later in what turned out to be the first of the relegations QPR would suffer all too quickly. Zelic turned out to be a very bad egg, not versatile at all. We could forgive him for not being any use. It was the fact that he didn’t even try that annoyed us.
Pete Harris, via email
Every Saturday three men decide the results of postponed matches. If you don't want to find out why and how, look away now, because Al Needham met them
Whenever I have an argument with anyone about the innate superiority of British football over any other sporting entity in the world, I always keep one killer argument in reserve: the fact that we have a Pools Panel. It gives off the impression to foreigners that our game is so important that when matches can’t be played, we actually have a platoon of experts who decide the result for us. Of course, they could counter this fact by pointing out that if every team in the country had the kind of facilities that they should have in the 21st century, there would be no need for a Pools Panel, but I counter that by stating that, even if there was a nuclear holocaust, the Pools Panel are probably on standby to decide entire seasons until civilisation recovered. That shuts them up a treat.
Brian Kerr may not be the household name some were expecting to be the new manager of the Republic of Ireland, but Paul Doyle is delighted at the choice
“O shite and onions!” James Joyce once bawled when asked about the ongoing troubles in his homeland. “When is this bloody state of affairs going to an end?” That was in 1920 and the irritant was war; but you can be sure that in recent weeks, were he not worm-fodder, the writer would have lent his haughty voice to those of his many compatriots who were expressing similar sentiments. Because the Roy Keane Affair, regardless of the profundity of its principles, eventually became horribly tedious. And who would have believed it would be the Football Association of Ireland, in a deeply uncharacteristic moment of lucidity, who would consign the whole sorry saga to history and finally refocus Irish football on the future? But that’s just what they did when they named Brian Kerr as the new manager of the Republic of Ireland.
With ground criteria set too high for Falkirk and rivals Inverness, the Scottish First Division champions could be going nowhere this summer, reports Neil White
As soon as the Scottish Cup third-round draw handed Hearts a trip to Falkirk’s dilapidated Brockville Park, the tie was flagged up as a possible shock. The Edinburgh side sat third in the Scottish Premier League, but this was their first game back after the winter break. Falkirk were leading the First Division and in fine form. More importantly, the tie was at Brockville, the symbol of their ongoing struggle against the footballing elite.