Shropshire Star comment: Shrewsbury Town must reach for the stars
A truly gratifying aspect of Shrewsbury Town’s exploits this season is that this is a relatively small community club which has not bought its success, but has earned it through endeavour and good management.
The gulf between the giants of the cash-rich Premier League who thanks to spendalot owners can afford to splash out many millions on a single star, and the clubs in the lower divisions which, in some cases, are just about holding things together, is huge and stark.
So it’s great to see that Shrewsbury Town are fighting fit both on the pitch and, as shown by the dry account books, off it as well.
There is many a club that has found that having a good team on the field needs to be matched by a good team off it as well to create the conditions for success. A club is not 11 players (plus subs) on the pitch. It is the whole caboodle.
See also:
The players earn the cheers and chants of the fans, but the “management players” rarely get cheers from the seats and terraces, although there have been plenty of cases where they have got jeers when things have gone wrong.
Shrewsbury Town’s newly-released accounts reveal nothing spectacular. They show a comforting stability in the club’s financial affairs, with a useful profit of £409,294, and some astute transactions, including the sale of two acres of land to supermarket firm Lidl. The club has no debt, owns its own stadium, and has its training ground as an asset.
These accounts span the year to June 30, 2017, so we shall have to wait to see what financial bonus flows through their League One status over this season, their forthcoming visit to Wembley, and their place high in the table which will, crossed fingers, see them to promotion to the Championship.
That would mark a return to that golden era when Shrewsbury Town defied gravity for years in the 1980s in the old Second Division, just one down from the top flight, during which many legends of the game were seen by the crowds at the Gay Meadow.
What a prospect that would be, and what a challenge too for a team which has triumphantly exceeded all expectations this season.
Things are going very nicely for the Town at the moment. Long may that continue and, if the team does win promotion, flourish as well through growing and attracting more and new fans to the Montgomery Waters Meadow.
As things stand, the club is performing a neat trick – reaching for the stars while keeping its feet on the ground.
