Shrewsbury Town fans flag up great idea for Meadow
Shrewsbury Town fans are raising money to replicate the vibrant atmosphere of the Bundesliga at Montgomery Waters Meadow stadium.
From the start of next season, there will be a dozen huge flags in the safe standing area of the ground that will have been specifically designed for Town.
Club legends will be honoured on the flags, as will the iconic scrambled egg shirt. Organisers have already raised £825 towards the idea.
Justin Gill, 24, who watches on from block nine of the safe standing area, helped set up the project.
“I’ve been to a lot of German games and I’ve seen how these pre-match displays have helped improve the atmosphere,” he said.
“It’s about making the most of the safe standing area, we want people to be involved in generating the atmosphere. The flag displays before the game should help with that.
“We started a crowdfunder a couple of weeks ago, and hit our £500 target in less than two days, so we extended it to £1,000.
“We’re well on our way. The money’s there, we’re now getting designs made. We’re 100 per cent certain it will be ready to go for the start of the season.”
Gill has been working with the club on producing some iconic images from down the years, but he wants to keep the final designs a secret.
He added: “We want proper blue and amber on the flags which is easier said than done! Some will be basic designs, a few stripy ones, but with the additional money that we’ve raised we’re going to honour some club legends.
“We met with the club and they were really supportive, the media team are helping us out with some of images.
“We want to keep it a little bit of a surprise. We’re hoping for a dozen larger ones, like Liverpool have.
“We’ll buy a load of smaller ones for however much money is left.
“We’re hoping to fill the safe standing area, if possible, we’d love to fill the whole stand.
“We’ve had a lot of people chipping in a fiver or a tenner, a lot have given even more than that.
“We’ve had great feedback online with what we’re doing. People buy into what we do to improve the atmosphere.”
If you want to contribute visit crowdfunder.co.uk/southstandflags. Fans can keep tabs on the project by following @southstandflags on Twitter or by visiting southstandflags.com.
