Morecambe: 'I visited what is now Lancashire's best seaside town'

£15 flights to Ibiza and abundant package deals make it harder than ever to opt for a break in Blackpool or Skegness, especially once you tot up the price of eating or drinking out in the UK.

Who in their right mind would splash out more to have a holiday spent anxiously looking at the sky, waiting for the inevitable downpour?

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got plenty of towns by the coast worthy of a visit, Lytham St Annes on Lancashire’s Fylde Coast for example, but they’re never usually larger than village or small town status.

Morecambe is somewhere I’ve always just assumed follows the usual largish seaside resort trend: closed-down shop fronts, building exteriors peeling off, dodgy boozers lined with dodgy bouncers, but my assumption was seriously wide of the mark.

I’ve lived in Lancashire my entire life, and never been to Morecambe until my recent trip to watch the football at the town’s Mazuma Mobile Stadium.

It’s by no means easy to get to on the train mind, Accrington to Preston, Preston to Lancaster, and then finally Lancaster to Morecambe – and that’s without delays, which let’s face it, are likely to happen.

I was slightly bemused on the journey by Northern's idea of a dryer being an air vent (Image: NQ) My first impression of the place when stepping off was that it looked pretty pleasant, I was anticipating that ‘end of the line’ feel, and to be greeted by another depressing example as to why, as a nation, we should just give up on pretending to have coastal ‘resorts’.

But no, if you’d have said I was arriving at a well-off town in the Lakes I’d have believed you.

I’m not trying to claim I’ve found Britain’s answer to Monte Carlo, although that would make for a great headline.

There were still the tell-tale signs I was in good old Lancs, a bus stop with “Shaz was here” graffitied all over it brought me straight back down to Earth.

Heading over to the seafront, again, I was pleasantly surprised, ‘this is alright actually’ I thought to myself.

Morecambe's pleasant seafront and promenade (Image: Google Maps)The beach was clean, the buildings weren’t empty, and the pubs and cafes were full (and looked decent). What more could you want?

Top it off with Eric Morecambe’s statue to give the place its own feel and I’d found myself a good place for a day trip.

The promenade stretches right around the bay, with fantastic views of Cumbria’s rugged and hilly skyline.

My first memory of hearing about Morecambe was about how the bay’s quicksand can eat you up and catch you at a moment's notice.

With this sinister thought in my head, I barely strayed more than ten metres into the beach.

The sand was littered with crabs, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in the UK before, although most of them were dead. I guess you can't have everything.

Further along the front and I was still yet to find any Blackpoolisms, no decrepit hotels or weird waxworks.

I did notice that Morecambe clearly attracts a different crowd, the average age being about 65, so it does lack a certain wackiness that you could get in other places, it’s a bit like Clitheroe, only plonked next to the Irish Sea.

Feeling peckish, I then went into the King’s Arms opposite Eric’s statue.

It’s a good cheap and cheerful place for a burger and a pint at around £10, plus it comes with a good view of the seafront.

Weirdly though one punter at the bar asked if the menu’s chicken tikka was “real”, which gave me a worrying insight into the possibility that fake chickens exist in Morecambe.

It was around 2pm so time to head to the ground for a 3pm kick-off.

This was the real test, the ‘touristy’ area might look good, but what’s it like on the outskirts?

The trip to my new favourite destination concluded at the town's football ground (Image: NQ) Morecambe continued to surprise with some pretty leafy-looking suburbia and huge static caravan sites dotted in between.

Okay, it had some unkept corners and a few overgrown paths but where doesn’t?

I have thought since, was it that Morecambe is properly nice, or am I just comparing it to failing seaside resorts and seeing one that’s failing slower? But no, I don’t know how, but the town seems to be bucking the trend.

So Morecambe, with its grey-hued stone seafront buildings and litter-free beach, might just be Lancashire’s final hope when it comes to battling Ryanair and EasyJet once again next summer. Okay, maybe I've taken it a tad too far there.