Town stars focus of match

A picture showing two Shrewsbury Town players shaking hands was the focus of a major footballing event at the City of Manchester Stadium at the weekend.

To celebrate 100 years of the Professional Footballers Association a special match was organised yesterday where managers Sven Goran Eriksson and Terry Venables went head-to-head managing a Rest of the World XI against an England legends XI.

The Rest of the World beat England legends 3-2. And sharing in the spotlight was none other than Shrewsbury Town FC’s Stuart Nicholson and winger Chris Humphrey who appeared on the front cover of a centenary souvenir book and matchday programme for the event, in a picture by former Shropshire Star photographer Matthew Ashton.

“The idea behind it was to create a real life logo of the Professional Footballers Association, showing two players shaking hands,” said Matthew, who teamed up designer Jim Lockwood to help him produce the recent book, Goodbye Gay Meadow.

“The souvenir book is a history of the PFA and Jim put a lot of work in researching for it. For all the hard work there was researching pictures and taking studio pictures of some amazing historical items like old medals and Sir Stanley Matthews’s football boots. Speaking as a Shrewsbury Town fan, I am very happy to say that we got Shrewsbury Town on the front cover.”

“The PFA are delighted with it, Gordon Taylor has said it is ‘the best thing they have ever produced’.” Matthew said that although it was an exciting event the real winners of the fixture would be sick and needy children in the North West.

He said: “All the proceeds from this fixture, and other events throughout the PFA’s Centenary Year, will be poured into the One Goal, One Million charity fund.”