Players' homes

[telfordSHREWS]

theriverside said:

The club could always buy a block of flats in Hadley Castle for £99 and put the players there.

Never worth that much

[Llanelian]

Just been reading about players homes etc. Whilst i agree that in an ideal world players and management should live in the town, it is a myth to suggest that they always used to.
The club did in fact own houses on Copthorne Rise, on land retained in ownership after the sale of the old ground, but these were gradually sold off to service debts etc. The last players that I can remember living in them were Frank Clarke and George Andrews. The club also had property in Monkmoor Road, Norman Hobson living there for many years.
In the days of Harry gregg and before, the club established a realtionship with Abbey Gardens and a lot the players lived there. We also had four players living with us, Oggy, Gary Stevens, Alan Brown, Pettsy,Robbo and others.
The fact is it is a smaller world and travelling is much easier, unless of course you use the M6. The Richie Barker brigade, which everyone annoyingly keeps giving Turner credit for, were mostly young lads anyway, Aker lived with the Gregory's at their Post Office in Belle Vue, poorly Mags lived in Monkmoor Road etc etc, so they were all in the town at the same time, and built up strong personal relationships. There were the occasional d... heads like Ross Maclaren, Andy Kerr and others, that's a story for another day, but mostly they behaved themselves.