Shrewsbury Town chairman Roland Wycherley preparing to step down after 25 years
- Published
Shrewsbury Town chairman Roland Wycherley has been in charge at the Shropshire club since 1996
Shrewsbury Town manager Steve Cotterill says the club's long-serving chairman Roland Wycherley is right to be planning to find a successor.
Wycherley, who turned 80 last month, has now spent 25 years at the helm with the Shropshire club after succeeding Ray Bailey as chairman in 1996.
In that time, he has stabilised Town's finances, built a new home at Oteley Road in 2007 and a new training ground.
"Roland is one of the gooduns," Cotterill told BBC Radio Shropshire.
"If there were a lot more like him around the Football League, there wouldn't be so many clubs with issues.
"We see lots of clubs in trouble at the moment. Why? Because they haven't thought about succession planning, only the here and now.
"Having succession planning is the right thing to do. It has to be, otherwise he's not a responsible owner."
Cotterill only became Shrewsbury's manager in November 2020 - but he had been on Wycherley's radar for a long time and had several times been linked with the job before the Town chairman finally got this man.
And Cotterill knows well from his past experiences visiting Town's old flood-risk home at the Gay Meadow with some of his previous clubs just how important it was that they made the move to the New Meadow - an 10,000 all-seater home now known, since 2017, as the Montgomery Waters Meadow.
Paul Delves, managing director of Montgomery Waters, as well as local supermarket and petrol station chain Tuffins, another of Town's main sponsors, has been touted as Wycherley's likely successor.
He became a Town director in February 2020 before being appointed vice chairman in April 2021
Roland Wycherley supervised Shrewsbury Town's move from the Gay Meadow to the 'new' Meadow, now the Montgomery Waters Meadow, in 2007
Following much press speculation on that subject last weekend, Town released a club statement dismissing "any talk of an imminent takeover".
But the statement did add that "the chairman has always considered the future of the club and the importance of any decision for the club long-term" while also pointing out that "this does not mean that any decisions are close to being made".
After twice ending up in hospital last season after contracting Covid-pneumonia, at a time when Town had got off to a great start under his management, Cotterill's side have made a frustratingly poor start this season.
They sit 23rd in League One ahead of Saturday's home game with MK Dons, but Cotterill insists that the future is bright, once Wycherley has assured himself that the club will be in the right hands going forward.
"I'm not speaking out of turn here but I would imagine that, once you get to 80 years of age, you do wake up and wonder how many years you're going to be around," he added.
"Roland deserves to enjoy his life. He's done everything for this football club.
"He's taken them away from an old stadium that was the heartbeat of the club. No one will forget the atmosphere there, but you also can't forget that it used to flood a lot. And he was right to think about the future.
"They have to go through fit and proper testing and I know 100 per cent he'll want to get that right otherwise he won't go anywhere. But when he does decide he wants to put his feet to, my God he's earned it."
Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill was talking to BBC Radio Shropshire sports editor James Bond