The Salop Diaries

January has been and gone – and for everyone connected to Shrewsbury Town, it was anything but quiet. I don’t know about you, but I think I need to go and sit in a dark room for a few days just to recover! So where to start? Well, let’s look at some of the key numbers. 1 – the number of wins we managed all month. The solitary success coming against fellow strugglers Harrogate. (Four defeats, by the way, including a 3-0 drubbing at home to Bristol Rovers and a 6-1 thrashing at Wolves in the FA Cup). 2 – the number of ‘Head Coaches’ we employed, with Michael Appleton getting the heave-ho on Wednesday last week, and Gavin Cowan appointed less than 17 hours later. 5 – the number of players to leave the club during January. Elyh Harrison returned to Manchester United, George Nurse moved to Cheltenham. Harrison Biggins was loaned to Newport County (because hey, why not help out a relegation rival?!), Alex Gilliead saw his loan at Carlisle extended to the end of the season, and Chuks An...

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. Helples...

It was Canadian writer Robin Sharma who said “change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end”. I don’t think he had Shrewsbury Town in mind when he penned these thought-provoking words, but there is little doubt that the last two years in SY2 have been both hard and messy. Sadly, we have seen little of the gorgeous. The biggest change came with the club’s first Director of Football. Life under Micky Moore was certainly both hard and messy. A chaotic game of pinball from one manager to the next, with a succession of squad overhauls and a seemingly inexorable downward trajectory. Moore’s departure came out of the blue and late in a transfer window when Shrewsbury had again sought to flip their squad in preparation for life in League 2. It left Head Coach Michael Appleton (should we now just call him manager?!) with a little over two weeks to take up the reins himself and seek to effect his own brand of change.     Storm clouds gathering over the Meadow - a...