THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MURRAY

Morecambe (A) - Friendly - 1st August 2026

"I am an optimist. It does not seem to be much use being anything else."

Winston Churchill

Hope, football, and ‘Meet the Board’ nights spring eternal. As the faithful, sceptical, and hopeful gathered, we wondered how this one would come across. That’s not to imply any lack of sincerity, just that there’s only a certain number of ways this could be presented, and unless the three amigos were about to deliver their thoughts in the medium of French mime, or perhaps a Sanskrit mantra, we’d likely seen similar before.

Not to duck a challenge, however, Rickie had gone unplugged with a stripped-down acoustic set. Out had gone the Circus Maximus-style staging from last time. There was no MC to review the wreckage of last season with their own spin. Round tables remained, and even a microphone had been discarded as Adam, Frazer, and Paul eased themselves onto stools in front of fifty or so zealots.

The atmosphere was optimistic. The Trust fixture cards sat on the table, with our new/old foes lined up in front of us like a promise as we chatted. Subjects covered: wearing club shirts on historical sites, goat curry in Barnard Castle, Altrincham away, and a little nostalgia for Boston’s old ground.

Reset is an overused word, but there is no doubt that after disaster, we have emerged blinking from the wreckage with a raft of decent decisions.

It was certainly that line in the sand that seemed to have first attracted Adam (ex-Besiktas and Eastbourne Borough) Murray post-relegation.

‘In the statement from Paul, I was like, wow, that's incredible, because it's not very, very often you see football people take ownership.’

Adam Murray comes across well. Direct, driven, and experienced. He was certainly direct regarding having warned directors he needed to take a ‘wrecking ball’ to the entire operation. He’d liked the ambition from Paul Hornby and the rest of the board to get back to the Football League and sensed an opportunity to push on.

Bonds have been formed. The overall age has been lowered, and any jaded lack of hunger has been removed. It’s clear he has a way of playing, and words like ‘intensity’ and ‘mentality’ peppered the conversation.

Everyone in the room acknowledged the positive start, relishing the performance against Blackpool in particular. Adam Murray confessed to some enjoyment at forcing Blackpool away from their own style into going long and attempting to mix it. Not to mention long and noisy complaints to the referee.

So, big lads who run a lot and won’t care a jot about purists at away grounds wailing about our approach to the game. All stirring stuff, and a wonderful moment as he described how we would lie in wait ‘like wolves’ licking our chops at Holker Street as mistaken fancy Dans arrived to be feasted upon.

‘If you are Barrow, you’ve got to have an identity,’ he said, and we had gone miles away from ours. Hard work, hard place to go, expect a fight. That’s what he’d experienced as a player who ‘hated coming to Barrow’, and that’s what he wanted again.

Now, we’ve heard all this before, but the way he described and understood it felt different, I’d be surprised if anyone there disagreed. And these few friendlies certainly seemed to bear it out, as do the size and style of some of the men he has recruited.

However, it wasn’t just an entertaining Paul Cox retread with a dash of Daz and Dave. As we delved into the squad, there was a subtler, but equally honest plea to allow those still on the books from last year the same fresh start. In fact, he relished it.

Murray delved firstly into Ben Jackson’s desire to improve; having lost his way, he has been spending endless hours with staff, looking to recapture undoubted belief and ability. A great question regarding Rakeem Harper brought a thoughtful response. No one disagreed he had ‘all the attributes’, but the issue must be between his ears, and that needed both directness and a change in role and mentality.

He was honest about players he felt needed to leave, but also those like MJ Williams, who, he said from their first conversation, was ‘desperate to put things right’. The message was clear: if we could allow them to make the same mistakes as the new arrivals at the start, we’d reap rewards. A polite but firm gauntlet laid down, then. Let’s make it horrible for others, but not each other.

And a refreshing promise that at times this will all backfire, as a good technical set of counterpunchers may sometimes take us apart when we chase the game. What I liked about this was the clarity of vision. Again, yes, we’ve heard it before, but the explanations were better, clearer, deeper.

Paul Hornby was encouraged and happy to pay warm tribute to Tony Shearer, which was very richly deserved. He has indeed been a godfather to us, and for absolutely nothing but wanting the best for our town, has shouldered the largest part of the burden, even though eight years was ‘never on the tin’.

We then got down to the nitty-gritty. In a sense, Paul Hornby has a harder task, as he can change approach but isn’t allowed the freshness of being a new broom. He’s been a part of the rough as well as the smooth, but he’s not ducked it.

As he said, we will always lose money as a football club. The take seems to be we’ve got a couple of seasons to reset, with this one being by a distance the best opportunity to bounce back unspoken but obvious. Given there’s a good few years been put in by him and Kris Wilkes...

However, it was very hard to disagree with the assertion that we had lost our way and were now starting to feel more like us again. You could sense the palpable need to do that throughout the room, and a relish to get stuck back in and enjoy it. Off the pitch: stripped down, fewer layers of decision-making, and being better at what we do, do. This desire seems to fit the manager and players very well. Earliest of days, but cause for hope.

On the Road Again

Carrying that hope from the evening, we set off for a gentle loosener around The Bay. The support, that is. Our team probably came ashore at night like SAS Rogue Heroes, cheerfully garrotting any unwise Shrimps who had ventured onto Marine Road West.

Speaking of The Prom, it was a breezy but pleasant day when we got there via the A6, memorable for two dear friends disgracing themselves while caught short in Hest Bank a few years back.

With sobriety comes the search for variety, and food was our vehicle. The highlight was a visit to Bruciani's for a Knickerbocker Glory for pudding.

Scooping up a few Northern Rail desperados, and amid rumours of balaclava-clad 14-year-olds causing amusement, we headed up to the ground where a pretty reasonable few hundred had gathered. Drinkers edged furtively to their seats with their Carlsberg pints, as the Conference North must allow.

Down we settled, for many of us our first sight of them away from the peninsula this season. What would we see?

Impressions: clever and attritional, with a few bits of football up our sleeve. Firstly, the dark arts. The man-for-man was very much in evidence, a brave move, but with clear instructions to never allow your opponent to escape with the ball.

This manifested itself in several wrestling moves masquerading as falls off balance, which inexplicably were always across the player about to break free. Another favourite is 'the clutch', where if someone had the temerity to win the ball, the collision forced one of our players to stick out an arm like an oar to follow progress.

Then, good old 'there to be won' mentality saw small crumples of red lying prone on the turf, accompanied by incredulity to the ref if a foul was given, and dog's abuse to the ref from the away support.

But there’s clever play too. This business of overloading sides and then sweeping a cross-field diagonal won’t always work, but it gets you up the park, unsettles, and pins your opponent. And we press. By God, we press. We’ve got pace and endeavour and no little guile. The way we play means there’s no hiding place for our players. Or the opposition.

This will backfire, as Murray warned last night. Morecambe got behind us a couple of times and Winterbottom made another of his good saves with his feet, which are becoming a trademark. We had plenty of territory and some possession, but there's work to be done on delivery and relationships.

Grinding Them Down

Half time, enjoying the sunshine out the back of the stand, we reflected. Murray had mentioned the Red Bull style of play: intense in training and matches, running hard, and always forward. When we lose it, sure, there's the gegen (counter) pressing, but also gegenpulling, gegenpushing, and gegendragging. Add a dash of Paul Cox mentality and dark arts, not to mention Chris Wilder structure and pragmatism. But there are thoughtful patterns and expectations to manage the football too. It’s a heady brew.

And as the second half wore on, prone Shrimps increased as we ground them down mentally and physically. MJ absolutely cleaning one out. For them, Elliot Newby missed a couple of chances and flickered fitfully as ever.

Next, a slew of subs. Whereas they lost heart and focus, we kept running, hassling, and pushing. Ben Whitfield adding value with a wicked cross that just eluded Cameron, but also by being a constant pest, beefed up and a nightmare to manage. The pressure piled on, the corners increased, and our grip on Morecambe’s throat tightened.

Then we struck late on. Scott Smith wriggled onto a clever ball, and a Morecambe defender made a grab for his shirt. Down he went, and the referee, who’d been inconsistent and irritating throughout, pointed to the spot. Ollie Crankshaw grabbed the ball and dispatched it to general delight, despite it being ‘only a friendly’.

It wasn’t very friendly at the end, as Morecambe, by now wound up and dispirited, lost their heads, and little pockets of handbags broke out before the final whistle. We were, of course, perfectly delighted with this turn of events, cheerily ready for all comers.

It looks like we’ve got a well-drilled, hardworking, tough group of players here, though there’s plenty to do. But ones who know how to connect with fans too, as Kalambayi led the team for a mass selfie with one young lad in the crowd at the end amid the warm applause, while Ben Winterbottom gave someone else his shirt.

And that was that. Writing this as we zipped back home, I felt genuine astonishment at football’s capacity to renew. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong, yet again. Somehow, though, we’ve managed to turn the mentality and momentum around, and most I spoke to can’t wait for next weekend.

Our team wouldn’t just hang a monkey, as Hartlepool legend has it; they’d hang, draw, and quarter it, only pausing to drink its blood.

Bring it on. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!