Back to the Future

On 29 April 2003, Shrewsbury Town lost 3-2 at home to Carlisle United. It was the result that confirmed, beyond mathematical doubt, our relegation from the Football League. As I walked from the Riverside onto the Wakeman End to make my way out of the ground, I’m not ashamed to say I shed a few tears.

I’m not an emotive man. I wish I was, but I tend to keep my feelings bottled up. My wife will tell you there weren’t even tears of joy on our wedding day. It’s just not my way. But, under the Gay Meadow lights that night, I welled up and tasted the salty tears that rolled slowly down my cheeks into my mouth. Football does this to us. Shrewsbury Town does this to us. It shouldn’t matter so much, but it does.

As this agonising, wretched season goes on, as we stumble from one gut-wrenching low to the next, I find myself thinking about that night more and more. The future isn’t written yet, of course, but we can all see that abyss opening up before us, and it leaves me feeling anxious. Helpless even.

I still firmly believe we have more than enough quality within our squad to retain our Football League status. That this is the sum total of our ambition right now is a whole other issue.

But I’m worried. Terrified, in fact. We hear so often that momentum is all-important in football. STFC has momentum in spades right now – sadly it is all heading in the wrong direction. This is a crisis two or three years in the making, and the club resembles a juggernaut abandoned on a steep hill with the handbrake left off.

The National League of 2025 is not the same division that we escaped, at the first time of asking, in 2004. Back then, many of the sides were part-time, our in-built professional advantage made it a foregone conclusion that we would at least challenge. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves (do we ever?!), but – with a few slices of luck along the way – we got over the line.

Should the worst happen again, it would be so much harder. Another demotion may not even represent the end of our descent. Just ask Stockport County, Scunthorpe United or Yeovil Town, who all dropped further to the regional level before starting to regroup. Or Torquay United – a club not so different in stature to ourselves – who remain marooned in National League South.

I don’t know how our chairman, Roland Wycherley, feels about all of this. He rarely feels the need to speak to the club’s supporters. I assume he is hurting. I know from the little I have heard from him that he resents the criticism he receives and feels personally stung by it.

But he is the only one who can do anything to shock the club out if its malaise. He is on record admitting the club needs significant investment to compete in the modern football climate. Investment that he, as a retired man, is no longer able to provide or generate. In short, he needs to go. He needs to pass the baton on to a new generation of owner who can give us a fighting chance. We know it. Hell, even he knows it.

But, like a drug addict who cannot resist that one further hit, he has stubbornly clung to power, with countless opportunities to sell coming and going in the past few years.

As Shrewsbury Town burns, so our Nero will fiddle. It is very possible that our ‘Head Coach’ will pay the price for the start to this season. It would be no surprise if Michael Appleton is handed his P45 by Wycherley and sent through the ever-revolving doors in the coming days or weeks. In the absence of the actual change we need, it is the only card we have to play. Appleton could hardly complain: while recent recruitment has been promising, results speak for themselves. He has overseen 21 matches since being appointed and won three – just two in the league.

But recent history says it will make no difference. In the last three-and-a-half years, Wycherley has sacked Steve Cotterill, Matt Taylor and Paul Hurst. He has seen Gareth Ainsworth walk out on him after losing seven of his last eight games in charge. Is there anyone out there who could turn this around in the current climate? I seriously have my doubts.

I have no idea if Roland Wycherley cried on the night we lost to Carlisle. I know it affected him deeply because he told us so.

"I think it was three months before I went out in public," he said in a rare media interview a few years after the event. "I wouldn't go to a dinner or a party. I offered my resignation to the Board. As chairman you feel personally responsible and that will live with me forever."

He's “offered his resignation” a few times since then – but he’s still here. And Shrewsbury Town are still on an irresistible decline.

Just thinking about it, I’m ready to cry again.