Shrewsbury Town's Micky Moore discusses the role of a director of football

The 51-year-old left Cheltenham back in 2023 to become Town's first-ever director of football as the club went down a different route.

Moore saw Salop move away from a manager towards employing a head coach instead.

The former Robins man is responsible for all aspects of the football side of the club, whereas the head coach's focus is solely on the first-team squad and getting results on weekends.  

The position, which can be referred to as a sporting director or technical director, is very prevalent in England now. 

Moore says this is because the game is now too big for one person to have complete autonomy over every aspect of a football club. 

He said: "I think whether it's a sporting director, director of football or a technical director. If you look now, I'd say 70 to 80 per cent of the teams have all got one.

"The job of a head coach or a manager is too big - you cannot possibly do everything. It's becoming impossible.

"My job is to aid, help and facilitate, it is not to hinder Gareth (Ainsworth) and Richard (Dobson) in terms of what they do.

"I've been a manager, I've been an assistant manager, so I understand what they go through, I want to be a support mechanism.

"I think Sir Jim Ratcliffe got asked before the sacking of Erik ten Hag who will make the decision, and he said even though he is one of the owners, he does not make that decision, that was down to Dan Ashworth and his team.

"This role is here to stay. People have got to come on board with it because football is so massive.

"The job as a head coach or manager is so diverse, you're pulled from pillar to post, and you can't do everything.

"There's a lot for Gareth to do as well as then worry about what's going on from a football club point of view.

"There's some good people here, we are all here to support him, we're all here to aid him, and we're all here to help him."

League One is an expanding division, and this season, the level of competitiveness has gone through the roof. 

And Moore recognises the division is getting more difficult to compete in but he wants Shrewsbury to develop and grow with it. 

He said: "I think if you go back to 2014, exactly 10 years ago, I think you can count on one hand how many foreign owners were in the league.

"I think if you look at it now I think you'll find five or six who are English-based, all the rest have got foreign ownership or foreign money.

"I went to Birmingham v Wrexham on a Monday night, it was Hollywood. It was literally unbelievable, 28,000 people, fireworks, so that's League One, it is mega.

"There's a lot of investment coming into the level, the profile is getting bigger and bigger, which could only be good for the game, don't get me wrong, and the standard now has gone to another level as well.

"We're trying to compete, and we want to compete, and we believe we can compete again it's going to take a lot of hard work.

"But this is a very good football club, when we stay in League One, we will grow and develop and grow with it."