Shropshire Star

Boss Richards sure Shawbury will fire

Joint boss Dave Richards insists there is no reason to panic despite Shawbury United’s slow start to life back in the West Midlands Premier.

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United, relegated from the Midland Premier Division last season, head to second-placed Tividale tomorrow sitting in the bottom three having recorded just one win from their opening four games.

Yet Richards remains confident things will eventually come good and believes their current position is a false one, caused in part by a fixture list which has seen Shawbury play the fewest games of any team in the division and pitted them against several of the promotion favourites.

He said: “We’ve gone to Black Country Rangers and Malvern Town in our last two games, now we are heading to Tividale. As fixture lists go, that is pretty tough.

“There are also teams around us who have played a lot more games.

“Sometimes people panic after starts like this but I have been in the game a long time.

“I remember one season when I was in charge of Wem when we lost the first seven games and still ended up missing out on promotion by only a point.

“I still think the team I have here is good enough to finish in the top half of the table.”

Richards, who together with fellow joint boss Stu Lewis carried out a major overhaul of the playing squad suring the summer, expects winger Sean Evans and defender James Askey to return from injury in the next few weeks.

“They are both key players,” he said. “Once they are back it will hopefully give us the spark to push on.

“It’s worth remembering we had a complete rebuild of the squad over the summer.

“It was always going to take a little time for things to settle down. The pleasing thing is a number of the young players we brought in have not looked out of place in this league.”

Shifnal Town will be aiming to build on last weekend’s 6-0 win at Pershore Town when they visit county rivals Wem.

Haughmond, who sit fifth in the table, travel to struggling Cradley Town, while AFC Bridgnorth will be aiming to improve a record of just one win from their opening six games when they host Pegasus Juniors.