Panjab Warriors 'feel blessed' after ending Morecambe takeover 'nightmare'

Just two days before potential expulsion from the National League, and the extinction which would almost certainly have followed, Morecambe FC's financial crisis has finally led to a completed takeover.

New owners Panjab Warriors arrived at the club's stadium for their first day in charge on Monday, having purchased the shares of former owner Jason Whittingham.

The group had initially agreed a takeover deal in June, before a protracted period of flurried public dispute between the two parties led to widespread concern that the club would not be sold and ultimately cease operations.

Now that the club's new ownership is official, BBC Sport returned to the town to ask Panjab Warriors, club staff, and the fans about what has been going on behind the scenes and how they are approaching the future.

Morecambe's pitch was being mowed on Monday by a groundsman whose partner gave birth during the period in which the club's staff went unpaid

"We can't thank everybody here enough because it's been a difficult and very long journey," Morecambe's new chief executive and Panjab Warriors member Ropinder Singh told BBC Sport. "The last seven, eight weeks have been horrendous for everybody involved, ourselves included, but it's shown a lot of collectiveness, a lot of true grit.

"At first [completing the deal] was a sense of relief. It's now turned into a feeling of pride, and a sense of gratitude and humility. We feel blessed to be given the role of custodians of this club.

"We don't want to go too much into how the takeover process [was finalised], but this is a nightmare that has finished. Now we move forward, we don't look back."

Panjab Warriors must now pay off various debts and creditors in order to fully resolve Morecambe's financial issues.

The BBC was told by staff that they received their June wages on Monday – the first time they have been paid their salaries in 10 weeks - and that they expect to be paid July's instalment later this week.

"First and foremost we wanted to make sure that all the staff, players, everybody involved, is paid their wages because that has been so long overdue," Ropinder Singh added. "Then it is the liabilities with HMRC and other stuff.

"Nine o'clock on Tuesday morning the real work starts, turning things around on and off the pitch."

Shrimps' Trust chair Pat Stoyles says that the work fans have put in to save the club from going under is a source of huge pride

That will be no easy task given that Morecambe currently have a squad of five first-team players, no manager, and are due to face Altrincham at 12:30pm on Saturday.

The BBC was informed that the team's kit will only be delivered later this week, and that players are still not insured to play or train, meaning that a postponement - just like their opening three fixtures of the season - is possible.

Earlier this summer, when Panjab Warriors first agreed to take over the club, the BBC learned that the group planned to remove manager Derek Adams from his position and replace him with 30-year-old former Notts Country, Wigan Athletic and Como coach Ashvir Singh Johal, who has never managed a senior first team side.

Singh Johal even conducted an interview with the BBC in which he thanked Panjab Warriors for hiring him. But the takeover wasn't completed at the time, and so Adams remained in post, unpaid and with no squad to coach.

Adams has now been removed from his position, with his sacking announced while the BBC was interviewing the new owners on Monday evening. Singh Johal is expected to be his successor.

The 50-year-old Adams has become a hugely popular figure among the fanbase, having managed the club three times and led them to League One for the first time in their history.

When asked on Monday - while Adams' sacking was being finalised by another member of the ownership group in an adjacent room - whether they still planned to let him go and install Singh Johal in his place, Panjab Warriors head of communications Gurpreet Singh said: "All we want to say is, trust us.

"There are going to be changes. We went from League One all the way down to the National League. But we are here for the betterment of the club, so trust us."

Adams declined to speak to the BBC.

Labour MP Lizzi Collinge says the campaign to save Morecambe has been a "huge community effort" and believes fans "want to think about football and not HMRC bills"

For a fanbase already scorned by Whittingham's catastrophic ownership, cautious optimism is blended with a desire to hold Panjab Warriors to account.

"To say I'm convinced by them is a difficult thing to fully commit to," says Pat Stoyles, chair of fans' group The Shrimps' Trust, whose volunteers have given up time and energy for months in order to try and help seal a takeover.

"But, since last Thursday, they've been in daily contact with me, asking little bits of advice, and they're keeping us updated with what's actually going on. That is communication from a level we've not had in many years.

"It feels amazing to know we can get back to playing matches, to our friendships, our banter.

"I can't wait to see the atmosphere in that first home game because I think it'll be immense."

At a political level, local MP Lizzi Collinge says pressure will be put on the new owners to run the club correctly, and insists that the government's new independent football regulator should prevent similar cases from happening in future.

"It feels like there's been this huge black cloud over the town for the last couple of months and we've had moments of hope and that hope has been dashed," she said. "It is such a relief to know that Jason Whittingham no longer owns the club.

"I have had some contact with Panjab Warriors - they have an opportunity now to run a fantastic local football club. I will be closely watching what they are doing."

Morecambe kitman Les Dewhirst says he will feel optimistic about the future "when we get the turnstiles open and we see that first ball kicked"

Whether Panjab Warriors are the guiding hand fans hope can lead the club back into the English Football League remains to be seen. They insist that they have funded the club in order to prevent it collapsing for a year, and say that all creditors will be paid off within days.

But questions persist over how the club will become sustainable in the long term and how they can build a new squad at such notice.

For staff members who have received their first salaries since May, though, the ability to breathe again is a huge source of comfort.

"I've been in my savings, but others had it tougher than me," says Les Dewhirst, the club's kit man for 30 years. "They know that they can be normal again, not borrowing off friends, not thinking they have to go to the food banks or rely on donations."

That level of certainty in the present is a help, then. But the trust Panjab Warriors are asking for will have to be earned over time.

"Why do these people want to own our club?" Dewhirst asks. "I hope it's for the right reasons."