Bumper crowd expected for Eric Morecambe Trophy clash

As of Thursday afternoon, Luton had sold around 700 tickets for the game at the Globe Arena.

And with the Shrimps playing in their first home game in a month having been without a game last week, Morecambe boss Jim Bentley is hoping for a good atmosphere for the League 2 clash.

He said: “They’re a big club who’ve come up from the Conference last year.

“They’ll bring a 1,000 fans and it should make for a great atmosphere.

“They’re going well and are in good form. Myself and Ken (McKenna, assistant manager) went to watch them last week in the FA Cup and they looked good.

“They have plenty legs up top and some experience so it’ll be a tough match.

“We’re looking forward to it because we’ve missed our football over the last couple of weeks.

“The last time we were here was a great game for us against Bury so I’m sure the fans are looking forward to a bit of a football fix.”

The week off on FA Cup second round weekend has given Bentley the chance to work on things on the training ground and nurse some of the Shrimps’ walking wounded back to health.

Having struggled to fill the bench last time out at Stevenage, the Shrimps boss is expected to have something of a selection headache for the visit of the Hatters.

His players got a run out against Liverpool’s Under 21s on Tuesday with the majority of the squad getting 45 minutes of competitive action.

Bentley said: “I was very jealous looking round at all the clubs playing in the FA Cup.

“The only good thing that’s come out of it is that it’s given us a chance to work on a few things and get quite a few of the injured lads and the suspended lads back.

“It’s seems like a long time since we played and we’re really looking forward to it.”