SHRIMPS' DEMISE WAS PREDICTED

A FEW weeks ago, I was driving home up the Al after watching Doncaster Rovers beat Bradford City to seal promotion to League One.

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Up ahead, the traffic slowed, crawled and eventually stopped. Unfortunately, the car in front of me didn’t.

I watched the whole catastrophe unfold in what felt like slow motion; the rapidly diminishing gap, the eventual blaze of brake lights, the inevitable screech and thump. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

It’s an odd feeling to see an accident coming yet be powerless to prevent it, and one that supporters of Morecambe know painfully well.

Their tyres have been skidding down the tarmac for a good three years now, the engine revving with nobody at the wheel. Points deductions, transfer embargoes, shrivelling investment — all of them were desperately swerved, but it was only a matter of time until the Lancastrians ploughed into a ditch.

Whoopsie aisle

Eagle-eyed readers may even remember that I predicted Morecambe’s descent into the National League this time last year, though it didn’t exactly take a savant. Anyone with a rudimentary grasp of economics could have told you what was coming.