Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury Town's Dave Edwards eyes historic season

Midfielder Dave Edwards has praised the atmosphere in the Shrewsbury Town squad and urged his team-mates to write their names in the club’s history.

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The Welshman has returned to action after a three-month injury lay-off following ankle surgery in April and played 90 minutes in the 2-1 victory over Dundee United on Saturday.

And Edwards, 33, says there is a different vibe around the club’s Sundorne Castle training base after an influx of nine new players and a new coaching staff underneath boss Sam Ricketts.

The Pontesbury man also explained the desire for Ricketts’ men to vastly improve on last season’s flirt with relegation.

“It’s exciting. The manager has a way of playing and the players he’s brought in fit into that system,” said Edwards, who returned to his boyhood club in January but had his comeback broken up by injury and suspension.

“I’ve got to say there is such a good atmosphere in the squad at the moment. At times last year we were on a difficult run and things weren’t going our way.

“But it seems like we’ve come back in, there’s some new staff in – it was a shame to lose (first-team coach) Eric (Ramsay) obviously – but everyone seems to be pulling in the right direction and singing off the same hymn sheet.

“You go into the training ground and it’s smiles everywhere. Everybody is really determined for this to be a good season.

“We don’t want to be languishing down the bottom of the table, we want to be pushing into that top half and trying to make an impact in this league.”

Town’s class of 2018 were fractions from repeating the heroics of the 1978/79 team in promotion to the second tier.

Edwards has been reminding his team-mates what success would mean.

“I keep telling the lads in there, if we get promoted or are up or around it at the end of the season, you saw what happened a couple of years ago – but if we’re the group of players that do it, then you’ll go down in history,” he said.

“You look at the team of ‘79 who got promoted to the Championship, I know they had a sustained run there, but they went down in history. We could be a group of players 40 years on who could write their names as well.”