Farewell Shrewsbury, we hardly knew ye

After ten years in League One, its longest-serving inmates will be playing League Two football next season.

The shortcomings of other clubs near the foot of League One had kept them in it for longer than they possibly deserved to be, but with four games of the season still to play they finally fell. A goalless draw for Burton Albion at Exeter City was enough to relegate Shrewsbury Town to League Two on Good Friday; the longest serving inhabitants of League One, with relegation coming after ten years of playing at this level, are on their way back down to League Two.

It’s no understatement to say that it’s been coming. With Burton’s result coming in a live, lunchtime kickoff for the benefit of television, the Shrews already knew their fate by the time they kicked off at three at home to Wigan. They lost this match 1-0, but their fate had already been decided. And it was hardly as though they’d been building up a head of steam in order to pull off an unlikely survival bid. This was also their 14th consecutive League match without a win, during which they’d picked up just four points.

The defining moment of their season came towards the end of March, when it was announced that manager Gareth Ainsworth was upping sticks and departing for Gillingham. Ainsworth had only been in the position for less than five months and it would be a stretch to describe those months as ‘stellar’ in any way. But it did feel as though this moment was symbolic in terms of making a statement about the predicament in which the club currently finds itself.

Gillingham aren’t a club to whom Ainsworth had any prior sentimental attachment. He never played for them and he’s never managed them before, either. And this means that it’ll have been a sobering thought for Shrewsbury supporters that their club’s position must have seemed so poor to Ainsworth that dropping a division to move to a club who were 19th in League Two at the time of his appointment must have felt worthwhile.

If there was a hint to why Ainsworth decided to jump ship when she did, it came less than a week later when a club statement confirmed that a takeover deal with an anonymous American investment group had fallen through. The manager’s departure had already been widely considered to be a precursor to this imminent collapse, which officially followed less than a week later. The explanation given for this collapse was, “a lengthy and complex legal dispute unrelated to football”. The rumour mill is now connecting TNS owner Mike Harris with the club.

A change of ownership would bring to an end one of the EFL’s longer-standing ownerships. Roland Wycherley has been the chairman of the club for 29 years since stepping up from the vice-chair, and it hasn’t been without success. He oversaw the club’s move from the charming but flood-prone Gay Meadow in 2007 to the New Meadow and was running the place when they knocked Everton out of the FA Cup in 2003, while remaining in League One for a full decade is an achievement for a club of their size and they took Liverpool to a replay in the FA Cup Fourth Round in 2020 after coming from two down to snatch a 2-2 draw in the first match.

But his record can hardly be considered spotless, either. He was running the place when they were relegated from the EFL just four months after that Everton win, spending a year in the National League before returning via the playoffs after having finished third. If finishing as high as third in League One can be considered an overachievement, then that relegation can surely be viewed as something approaching the opposite, considering that it ended 53 years unbroken EFL service following their entry in 1950.

Shrewsbury’s ten-year stint in League One was largely a story of fighting to stay at that level, but it didn’t come without highlights. The obvious standout season was 2017/18, when they were in the automatic promotion places until almost the end of March before finishing third behind Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers and losing in the playoff final to Rotherham United after extra-time.

But perhaps these levels of over and underachievement are indicative of the limits that smaller clubs have placed on their ambitions. In 2018, Shrewsbury missed out on automatic promotion to two clubs who’d both played Premier League football within the previous decade. And it’s true to say that both Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers had been enfeebled by mismanagement over the intervening years, but that they were there in the first place—and they’re far from the only former Premier League club to have fallen to this level in recent years—speaks volumes about the challenges facing smaller clubs playing at this level face if they’re to keep growing. For clubs the size of Shrewsbury Town, these opportunities may occasionally come around. But you have to seize them when they arrive, because you cannot guarantee that you’ll get another.

Accordingly, they haven’t reached such heights again since. In the six seasons since they’ve only finished above 15th once, and it is worth remembering that relegation can even be a palate cleanser sometimes for clubs who’ve been struggling near the bottom of a division for some years. “At least we’ll win a few more games next season” is a familiar refrain from supporters of clubs who are heading down through a trapdoor, though it should be added that this is never guaranteed. With takeover rumours swirling, it’s likely to be an unsettled summer at the New Meadow. Any new owners will be needing to hit the ground running, to arrest the team’s dismal 2024/25 season and give those fans some more wins, next time around.

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