Under-achievers? We don’t think so

Thursday 23rd October 2008, 1:42PM BST

Shrewsbury Town Football Club is one of English football’s biggest underachievers, according to a new survey.

Despite the wealth and glittering trophy cabinets of Premiership giants Chelsea and Manchester United, the country’s biggest winners are in fact Doncaster Rovers, according to the report by New Football Pools.

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The report was greeted with some surprise from fans and former Town legends today.

Shrewsbury’s appearance in the bottom 10 comes despite two trips to Wembley, a victory in the Conference Play-Off final and a celebrated triumph over Premiership giants Everton, who then had Wayne Rooney playing for them, in the FA Cup. 

The club has also moved to a £15 million stadium and received big transfer fees for players like goalkeeper Joe Hart, now an England international, and defender Dave Walton.

Frank Clarke, a striker who scored 79 goals for the club in 218 appearances between 1961 and 1968, said: “It has really surprised me to be honest. I think they have done quite well in the last 16 years and have had some good runs in the FA Cup.”

Shrewsbury still managed to finish above the world’s richest club, Manchester City, the fifth worst under-achievers. It was City who took Shropshire-born Hart to the Premiership when they signed him from  Shrewsbury.

Championship battlers Doncaster have achieved more with what they have got than any other English team since the Premiership began in 1992, according to the Achievers Report 2008. Arsenal were the best in the Premiership at 27th, Man Utd were 29th, Chelsea 33rd, Everton, 38th and Liverpool 45. The biggest under-achievers were Sheffield Wednesday and Wolverhampton Wanderers. 

Thousands of results, league tables and club records were studied for the report, along with financial data, size of each club, stadium capacity, average attendances, club investment and player transfers compared with what  has been achieved since 1992.

By Russell Roberts

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3 Comments

  1. gandy said: Oct 23rd, 2008 at 16:28

    HA HA

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  2. John Larsen said: Oct 24th, 2008 at 06:54

    It’s always the same with collected data, you can make it look like what you want.
    One can get one thing out of it, and another, something else.
    It’s very difficult to compare data like these, unlike data about top goalscores in the league right now – if you can follow me.
    I would say that the results are complete useless.

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  3. davey boy said: Oct 24th, 2008 at 09:59

    Doncaster are over achieving but look at Leeds – they gambled everything on the Champs league and are now in League One losing at Millwall and so on !

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