General manager Jon Harris today hailed Shrewsbury Town as an international venue – and floated the vision of playing a part in England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

Shrewsbury’s Prostar Stadium last night hosted an under-19s international friendly, with England beating Russia in front of a crowd of 3,043.

It was the fifth England game to be staged at the Prostar Stadium – with two women’s games, another under-19s match and a schoolboys’ fixture previously having taken place.

And Harris believes Town’s 10,000 all-seater base would be an ideal training base for one of the teams, should the world’s top tournament come to these shores in nine years’ time.

“Nights like last night can do us no harm whatsoever if we want to be part of the World Cup festival,” said Harris.

“There would be a lot of stadia that would be needed for training camps, and that will be part of the periphery for England’s 2018 bid.

“We’re talking a long way down the line here and we’ve made no decisions because it’s early days and I’m sure there will be many changes afoot before 2018.

“But it would be great for the town to be part of something like that.

“We wouldn’t be able to have a team like Brazil where 20,000 might turn up just to watch them train, but it be wonderful to host someone like Sweden or Russia at the Prostar.”

More than 30 scouts formed part of the crowd at last night’s international, with big names in attendance including Stoke City manager Tony Pulis and his assistant Peter Reid.

And Harris was delighted by the success of the event, which certainly went down well with the FA top brass.

“We were absolutely delighted to top 3,000 and that shows we’re a popular venue in terms of hosting these games,” he said.

“The FA were delighted. Their party was led by Peter Coates (chairman of Stoke), and he was very impressed.”