Morecambe's Globe Arena

Morecambe moved into their new Globe Arena in the summer of 2010 following a lengthy spell at Christie Park. Whilst a lot of money has been spent on the ground, the ground isn't actually that much of an improvement on Christie Park and out of all the new grounds in recent years, it is arguably the worst.

DATES OF VISITS

13/11/2010 - Morecambe 1 Lincoln 2

A lot of new grounds have popped up in recent years. Chesterfield's Saltergate was replaced by the B2Net Stadium, Burton's Eton Park was replaced by the Pirelli, Milton Keynes' Don's NHS was replaced by Stadium:MK, and the list certainly goes on, and whilst the vast, vast majority were excellent new stadiums, I can't really include the Globe Arena in the list of "excellent"....or even good replacements.

Christie Park was an excellent away experience, an old school ground with a lot of character, unusual stands and a generally good all around day, the Globe Arena is the opposite. It was a surreal experience visiting the Globe Arena, there was an atmosphere of "look at us and our shiny new stadium" about the place and it seems a million miles away from the experience of Christie Park.

A tannoy bloke stated at one point "We'd like to welcome all Lincoln fans to our fantastic new stadium" and then there was a countdown to the new scoreboard being turned on. Not to forget the tiny club shop that only is 3/4 full of non-Morecambe FC related items

Getting to the ground was quite awkward. The road that the ground is on is brand new and therefore very few sat-navs have that road on there. Christie Way is not listed on any mapping system and sat-navs and Google think that you mean Christie Avenue, the road right next to the old ground, which has now been coverted into a Sainsburys. After asking directions, we eventually ended up at the ground, but it was one of the most awkward sessions of finding a ground that I've had in many years.

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The Terrarced Away End - The Bay Radio Stand

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The away end is split into two, a terraced stand behind one of the goals and a section of the large seated stand, however, the entrance to the seated stand is in the same turnstile set as the ones that get you into the terrace, something which they don't bother telling you. You assume that away fans would enter in the right hand turnstiles to get into the seated stand, but they tell you that you must have a ticket to get into that stand, so you walk to the ticket booth and they will eventually tell you where the turnstiles are. Surely an sign pointing in the general direction of the turnstiles would be in order.

Once inside the away seating section, you notice just how steep the stand is, very similar to the main stand at Carlisle and offering a similar view of the action. You get a decent view of the goal in front of the other away stand, and although it's quite far away, the view of the other end of the pitch is also excellent. 99% of the away section will also be able to see all of the pitch, only those in the top left hand corner (looking outwards) can't see the entire pitch. The rest of the stand is a pitch length stand of a decent stand, although the decision to make it so that there are seats where you can't see the other side of the pitch seems truly baffling.

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THE NORTH TERRACE

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Opposte away fans is a near identical stand to one that was at Christie Park, a very small pitch length terrace, which almost seems pointless in a new ground. There was no protection from the elements (and it was raining quite heavily during the game) and rather no-surprisingly, there weren't many fans in there. The TV Stand was also located at the top of this stand, covered by a bus shelter and with a camera man who just wanders off for half of the game.

The stand behind the nearest goal is for away fans and in something I have yet to see elsewhere, an elevated terraced. In a similar way to the seated away end at Cambridge, you have to climb up stairs to even get to the bottom of the terrace. I have been told by several friends that the view from this stand is good and also allows for a decent amount of noise to be created.

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WEST TERRACE

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The final stand is behind the other goal and is a larger terrace that it's opposite number, although this stand is not elevated. This, along with the Peter McGuigan stand, appeared to the popular housing for Morecambe's home fans, although it doesn't quite have the same intimidating look that the terrace did behind the goal at Christie Park. What limited atmosphere there was at the Globe Arena came from this stand.

Speaking of atmosphere, even when leading there didn't seem to any particular singing portion during the match, even though they were winning from the 5th minute until a few minutes into the second half. Unlike Christie Park, the fans didn't really seem up for the game and it was hard to believe that this was the same group of fans I had been so impressed with at Christie Park.

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THE PETER MCGUIGAN STAND - AWAY FANS GET FIRST BLOCK

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The programme is of a decent size and has some interesting articles, however, it is let down by a LOT of advertisements. Infact, there is one section of six pages which has nothing but advertising.

I must admit that I found the whole day a bit surreal, but in my opinion this is not a great improvement on Christie Park. It's quite a strange away experience, especially when you hear the tannoy person describe the ground as "fantastic". Out of all of the new grounds in the country, especially in the Football League, there are few that this is better than and in all honesty, other than a half-decent main stand, this ground wouldn't look out of place in the Conference.

It's certainly not the worst ground you'll visit, but to describe it as fantastic would certainly be pushing it a bit.