By Nathan Jackson
November 12 2005

After a slightly belated absence, we see the return of the A-Z and this week, it's Shropshire's only league team. The side from "Salop" are our opponents on Saturday and here we talk about commentators who jinx the team, a Gay Meadow, a new Meadow and an invasion of a message board.

“And We’ll be back, and stronger, and we’ll do it in 12 months time” The Words spoken by the Shrewsbury Town PA bloke at the end of the 2001/2 season. Shrewsbury went into their final game of that season, needing a win to qualify for the playoffs (as well as several other results going their way), however, their opponents were already promoted, Luton Town. The men from Kenilworth Road beat Shrewsbury 2-0 and those were the words that the PA man came out with in an attempt to cheer the Shrewsbury fans up. 12 months later, they were relegated.

 

B Ben Herd is a 20 year old defender who has established himself in the first team after joining the club from Watford. He is highly rated by several Shrewsbury fans and scored his first goal for the club in a 2-2 draw with Barnet on September 27^th.

 

C Conference. Shrewsbury become the third side in history to get promoted back into the football league the season after being relegated. They were established as one of the favourites to return after winning 4 of their first 6 games and they only lost 4 league games in the 2003 part of the season which saw them end that year in 5^th position. They continued their good form into the new year, losing only 5 games after Christmas. This meant a playoff place and they faced Barnet. Despite losing the first leg 2-1 at Underhill, a 1-0 win at Gay Meadow meant extra time and penalties which the Shropshire side won 5-3. In the final, they met Aldershot Town. After falling behind, they equalised and forced another penalty shoot out. This time, winning 3-0 and making an immediate return to the league.

 

D DVDs. If you fancy a laugh, Shrewsbury Town will be selling DVDs of all their home games this season, including game between the two sides that will be played in April. All DVDs can be purchased (at a reasonable £7.99) here, https://www.footballwise.com/shop/index.php?club_id=102&inc=product&page_id=437136e042496&require=name&name=Match+DVD

 

E Enraged. If you remember me making certain pre-season predictions, you’ll remember that I predicted our lovely Shropshire friends to finish 23^rd, in other words, relegated. It’s fair to say that I didn’t get a nice reaction based on this. To be fair, looking at their results so far and seeing how crap half the teams in the relegation battle at the minute are, they should finish considerably higher than 23^rd. However, if you wish to view their reactions, please visit the message board, it actually made the message board looking busy)

 

F FA Cup. In 2002/3, four months before they were relegated, Everton were drawn against Premiership side, Everton at home in the 3^rd Round of the FA Cup and they caused the biggest upset in the competition that season, a 2-1 victory over a full strength top-flight team. In the next round however, they were drawn to face Chelsea, but in front of the BBC Match of the Day Live cameras, they were beaten 4-0 by what was then, a very average (compared to the rest of the Premiership) Claudio Ranieri side.

 

G Gay Meadow. There isn’t another ground in the country that has more jokes revolving around it’s name than Gay Meadow. Gay Meadow is one of the oldest grounds in the country and Shrewsbury Town have been playing their football their since 1909. Shrewsbury Corp brought the ground and leased it to Shrewsbury Town, despite of a local medical facility’s objections. The only major problem with Gay Meadow is that is located right next to a river that often floods, causing many games to be called off. If you wish to read our review of Gay Meadow, go here http://groundguide.tripod.com/id29.html

 

H Home Form. Shrewsbury’s home form so far this season has been fairly good, despite winning just 3 of their 9 home matches, they’ve only lost once. That defeat coming against Rochdale on the opening day of the season. There were however victories over Oxford, Notts County and local(ish) derby rivals, Chester City.

 

I Inconsistency. Last season’s inconsistency has continued into this season and they have only achieved back to back wins once this something, something that can't be said for City.

 

J Jake Sedgemore. The brother of former City player Ben. He left the club during the summer to go to Bury and I was told by several Shrewsbury fans that he was a good addition to the Shrewsbury squad, but as you can tell by what’s been said on the message board, certain people disagree with that.

 

K Kevin Sharp. Shrewsbury’s former Scunthorpe defender who is yet to get off the mark for his new club. The experienced defender has also played for Huddersfield, Wrexham, Wigan and Leeds.

 

L Luke Rodgers. Any team that’s been in this division within the last 3 or 4 years, knows exactly who Mr Rodgers is. He was the most consistent scorer in the division during the few seasons before Shrewsbury’s relegation to conference and since then, he changed into a different player. He had a habit of scoring against the Imps and was apparently all set to join City last season before Crewe made their move for the striker where he is warming the bench.

 

M Mark Stallard, a journeyman striker joined from Barnsley in summer. In an ironic way, Stallard is a perfect striker for Shrewsbury because he’s just an inconsistent as they are. Only 5 times in his career, has Stallard scored more than 10 goals in a season. His most prolific season was 3 years ago when he scored 24 goals in 45 league games.

 

N New Meadow, They have been set to move to a new ground for several years now but for a long time, it looked as though it would never happen. However, the plans have finally been approved but make it very awkward. The plans force Shrewsbury to build half the ground now and the other half about 3 years later.

 

P Peters, Gary, the current manager at Gay Meadow and a popular man amongst supporters. His last management job was at Exeter towards the end of the 2002/3 season and despite a 9 game unbeaten run, they were relegated. Before that, he was manager at Preston for 4 years. To date, he has managed 228 games for the 3 clubs and has won 92 matches and lost just 64. His record at Shrewsbury is 49 games with 15 wins, 17 draws and 17 defeats.

 

Q Quinton Rodgers. A striker who was on trial during the summer in 1994 and scored in all but 2 of the pre-season friendlies, however, the management at the time decided to he didn’t have what it took to be a Shrewsbury player.

 

R Relegations. Shrewsbury have been relegated 6 times in their history. Those relegations came in 57/58, 73/74, 88/89, 91/2, 96/97 and 02/03. On 3 of those occasions (the first 2 and last one), they were promoted straight back to their previous division.

 

S Salop, a word that is a shortened version of the name of the county, Shropshire. The official definition is Shropshire (abbreviated Salop or Shrops) is a county in the West Midlands region of England, bordering Cheshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and the Welsh counties of Powys and Clwyd.

 

T Telford. Until Telford’s recent financial troubles, they had a big rivalry with Shrewsbury and although they have re-emerged as AFC Telford, chances are they won’t play each other outside of the Shropshire County Cup for a long time. They have only played each other 4 times outside of that competition and all 4 came in 2003/4 season. There were 2 games in the league and 2 in the FA Trophy. Shrewsbury didn’t win any of these games, the first game was a 0-0 draw, the 2^nd was a 1-1 draw before Telford beat them twice in a few weeks with a 2-1 and a 1-0 victory.

 

U Unofficial message board. Shrewsbury have the most used, unofficial message board out of any League 2 side. It’s where most of my lovely critics in August came from and if you’re interested in seeing what they have to say, then go here http://blueandamber.proboards48.com/ 

 

V Victor Kasule, apparently he is a legend at Gay Meadow (according to a Shrewsbury fan I regularly talk to) but I can’t find a single record of him anywhere.

 

W Won any cup competitions (in other words, ones worth mentioning)? Nope.

 

X Xishi, an ancient Chinese spiritual leader who was around a long time before Shrewsbury Town

 

Y Yellow (if you want to be fussy, amber), a colour that forms the middle part of Shrewsbury’s currently home kit that consists of two blue sections with the yellow/amber part in the middle.

 

Z Zippy Di Do Dah. A song that is very very unlikely to be sung by Shrewsbury fans at a game.