Football is a glamorous job?

Working behind the scenes for a football club may not be glamorous but for one man it's a dream come true.

It's mid-morning at Shrewsbury Town training ground, it's belting down with rain and Pete Downward is chasing ill-struck footballs.

"No it's not a glamorous job," says Pete. "I do it more for the love of the job than for the money."

Pete, you see, is the kit man at Town and a more enthusiastic man you are unlikely to meet - which is helpful given that his job behind the scenes involves running back and forth to the laundrette, typically armed with 32 dirty football shirts, 16 pairs of smelly warm-up tops and sweatshirts, 18 pairs of socks and 20 towels.

So that when Saturday comes the team is well turned out, looking spick and span and ready for action.

"I'm a fetcher and a carrier," is the way he describes his job. "I have to make sure they've got decent kit to train with and that it's put away again afterwards. I wash and dry the bibs after training and get the dirty kit ready for the laundry."

When the team is announced, usually just an hour or so before kick-off, Pete puts out the kit on the players' pegs in the dressing room.

He is, of course, just one of the behind-the-scenes workers who help keep football ticking at grounds up and down the country, whether it's Sunday league or the Premiership.

It doesn't all happen by magic, and when supporters buy their hard-earned match tickets they are paying for people like Pete not just the players who get all the glory.

Other jobs that supporters might not have seen being done during the course of a typical match week are varied, from dashing down to Hereford in a van to buy a DVD of a previous Shrewsbury Town match to shopping for fruit and supplies for the training ground.

Pete is a ubiquitous fixture, a team member who's not in the team. Whenever the squad goes, so does Pete.

The pay-off is that Pete is also a life-long Town supporter, and has been since his dad took him to a game in the mid-1970s.

Pete was smitten and would later travel the length and breadth of the country to both home and away games. Now he's doing the same thing and getting paid for the pleasure.

Which can be a blessing, or a curse, in disguise.

"It means that I feel everything twice," says Pete. "If we win you get the high being a part of the staff and again as a supporter. On the other hand if you lose you get the low twice as well."

He continues: "I applied for the job and I wasn't expecting anything so when I got it I was over the moon. I was playing the supporter role one minute and working with the team the next. It was quite surreal.

"Sitting on the bench I had to remember that I was not just a supporter any more but an employee. There's a song that fans sing that goes 'Stand up if you support Shrewsbury' and I always stood up from the bench."

Tactics

Pete might be an avid supporter but he's no player, describing himself as having two left feet and not knowing the difference between tactics and Tic Tacs. So he's happy to stick with pumping up balls rather than kicking them.

He says: "If I see that the kit is as good as it can be and make sure they have got no excuses, then I have done my job."

And on match day that means being on hand with reserve bits of kit in case socks spring a hole or a player needs a training vest or a pair of gloves.

Boots are left to the players, however. "You wouldn't have a carpenter letting you mess with his tools, would you?" Pete says.

You might expect that once kick-off comes it's time to relax, but Pete lives every kick and is on hand with spare kit in case of accidents and emergencies.

But really it's his dream job, and one that has taken him to places he might never otherwise have gone.

Pete was there in the dug-out at Wembley when Shrewsbury made the play-off finals a couple of seasons ago, describing the occasion as "magnificent".

Then there are the less glamorous games. Rotherham away in midweek springs to mind.

At the mercy of the fixture list, his hours can be long and unsociable. He works Christmas Day and Bank Holidays, but fortunately Pete has an understanding family.

In fact he says that it's only because his wife, Gemma, is in a well-paid job that he can afford to do the job he loves.

"If she didn't have her job I probably wouldn't be able to keep this job because I've got a mortgage and a little one," says Pete.

"But I'm saving on not having to pay to go to away games like I did when I was just a supporter."

l Shrewsbury travel to Dagenham & Redbridge tomorrow needing a win to book their place in the play-offs. See today's Starsport for the big-match build-up.