POPULAR Morecambe boss Jim Harvey found himself in the spotlight this week - as he became the Shrimps longest standing manager.

Appointed in June 1994, he celebrated a milestone 500 games in charge at the nail-biting 3-2 win over Farnborough Town on Saturday and was presented with a plaque to commemorate the achievement.

Having joined the club as assistant to Leighton James, he took over as player manager at a time when Morecambe were placed ninth place in the old Northern Premier League and had an average crowd of 350.

Now, as one of the favourites for promotion to the Nationwide Football League, they pull in 1,650 for every home game.

Jim says: "I'm very proud of the strides we have made here over the last 10 years with the growth of the Academy, a full time first team and our progress on the field.

"We have never been a rich benefactor so we have had to work hard - and the journey has not finished yet. Our main desire is to get this club into the Football League and I hope to be here to see that through."

Turning to the present, he says: "This team can go further and the fans have got plenty more to come.

"Saturday was a very good win for us because we did not have the start we were looking for and that was a blow.

"When they scored the second we were stunned and it was a massive effort on our behalf to come back from two goals down. It speaks volumes about the character, talent and deter-mination of the team to go out and win the game in that fashion.

"I feel that there is more to come from the team. We can do better because we do create chances and now we have to start to hunt down the ball instead of standing around waiting for it to come to us. We have to be more assertive."