The form so far this season has been to use this column to write about the opposition’s trust and compare and contrast the way our counterparts operate at their respective clubs. Today is no exception, but unfortunately this article won’t be as comprehensive as I would have liked, simply because there isn’t that much information out there about the shrewsTRUST at the moment.

The problem is that they’re currently in the process of re-vamping their website (www.shrewstrust.org.uk), having recently appointed an IT Director, and the only information posted on it at present relates just to the last few months. What I do know is that shrewsTRUST was formed in 2005 and that its aims are similar to our own and pretty much standard for supporters trusts in general, namely:

1) To represent supporters, maintain and improve communication with the club

2) To play our part in protecting the future of the club

3) To harness and engage the skills and energy of our fanbase

4) To raise money for the benefit of the club and its fans

5) To promote football and STFC to the wider community.

A trawl through Google reveals a few other snippets of information. For instance, they were involved in the stadium liaison group prior to Shrewsbury Town’s move away from the ground named back in the day when the word ‘gay’ meant something entirely different. And since the shift to new premises they have arranged coach transport from the pubs in the vicinity of Gay Meadow, so that supporters can still enjoy their old pre-match haunts. (Perhaps this is something the Imp/Blundell Park Hotel and other nearby hostelries should bear in mind when the move is finally made to Great Coates?!)

They also gathered feedback from away supporters regarding the facilities at the new ProStar (I think I preferred the name Gay Meadow) Stadium, but apart from the fact that there have been a few ins and outs on the ShrewsTRUST board this year, that’s about all I could find.

Not wishing to be a Trust elitist, I should also say that Shrewsbury has an official supporters club, which states on its website that it acts as “the mouthpiece of the fans” and also as a fundraising body for the club. As well as providing travel to away games, they have in the past done the catering in the buffets, sold lottery tickets, painted the walls of Gay Meadow and hosted question and answer sessions with the club. So whilst they are a supporters club rather than a trust, they do appear to share similar aims to the trust movement and as we have seen elsewhere, there is usually room for more than one supporter organisation at any club. I’m not sure what the relationship is between the shrewsTRUST and the official supporters club (it may mean nothing that neither website links to the other), but it is to be hoped that they manage to work together for the good of the club they both support.

In closing today, the Trust was pleased to hear from our friend and GTST member Raphael Axiak from Malta again recently.

The Maltese Mariners team, which consists of Raphael, Tony Borg, Mark Mizzi, Melcior Caruana, Frans Saliba and Etienne Grech, continues to do well and is currently second in the five-a-side league it plays in every Thursday. Raphael, pictured here (front row, right) with four of his team-mates, hopes to visit Blundell Park again next season, by which time the original Mariners will hopefully be doing as well in the league as their Maltese counterparts.