Lime and sawdust days of grassroots football
As the World Cup gets under way, with its highly paid stars strutting their stuff on the global stage in top-class stadiums, far away is another world of grass roots football.
And we're turning back the clock with this picture with memories of one Shropshire football side, Stirchley United FC.
The official photo, taken outside the Rose and Crown pub in the village on June 23, 1956, after they won the Wellington League Cup in the 1955/56 season, was loaned by Mrs Bess Edwards, of Shifnal, whose late father Sam Harris was one of the players and who kept a diary for 40 years. Sam is on the far right at the back.
He and wife Dorothy farmed at Sunnymede Farm, Naird, near Shifnal, until retiring to Victoria Road, Shifnal, in 1972.
"The only player I know who is definitely still with us is my cousin Jim Harris, in the middle of the middle row. He lives in Fellows Close, Little Dawley, and is now 82," said Mrs Edwards.
