Why Shrewsbury Town fans are used to suffering
These are anxious days for Shrewsbury fans but the latest number-crunching suggests they are used to it.
A new animated football comedy show 'Warren United', put together by Alan Partridge alter-ego Steve Coogan's company Bay Cow, hits the screens later this month and will feature the trials and tribulations of supporting a rubbish team.
And to give their baby a push at birth, ITV4 have done their digging.
Some 220,000 results since the 1880 dawn of the Football League have been indexed and if they are to be believed, Town fans are getting used to the pain.
The Index places Shrewsbury as the 62nd most long-suffering supporters across the divisions since the dawn of the Premier League age.
This actually represents an improvement in comparison to the earlier days of the Football League in which the Shrews were among the top 30 in 27th spot.
Just how much suffering they will go through over these final four games against Crewe, Preston, Peterborough and Gillingham remains to be seen but it could be worse.
They could, for example, be a supporter of Rochdale which the index declares as historically just about the most rubbish team in the country to support while Hartlepool United and Exeter City fans follow closely behind.
Locally, Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion supporters are generally content – not necessarily a point they would accept at this particular moment – sitting at 87 and 72 in the list of the all-time most miserable fans out of the 92 clubs and 84 and 83 in the Premier League era.
Wolves, meanwhile, are down in 75th in the list of the most long-suffering set of fans across the divisions with only one club of similar size and profile, Sheffield Wednesday, faring worse. This clearly is a reflection of their glory days of the 1950s, however, with a table based on results since the onset of the Premier League placing them much nearer the top in 13th place.
Walsall are 16th in the all-time list and 66th based on results since 1992-93.
Manchester United, surprise, surprise, apparently lay claim to the supporters with the most to smile about (see previous remark about Albion and Villa fans).
For the full tables visit warrenunited.net