Rock-bottom Shrewsbury Hockey Club men’s first team resume their desperate battle to avoid a second successive relegation with a tough trip to Hampton in Arden on Saturday.
Relegated from the top flight of Midlands hockey last term, the Meole Brace side have endured a difficult first half to the Bodykraft Midlands One campaign, winning only two and losing 10 of their dozen games.
With at least four teams facing the drop – maybe five depending on who comes down from the National League – Shrewsbury have it all to do to pull clear of the relegation zone.
But, boosted by an excellent 6-2 victory over Warwick in their last game before the Christmas break, manager Rob Furlong is still hopeful Shrewsbury can pull off a miraculous great escape even though the odds are firmly stacked against them.
“We’ve got to be optimistic,” he said. “The reality of it is in the last three or four years teams have been relegated from this division with anything between 23 and 26 points.
“We only currently have six and there are 10 games left so we’ve got to be looking to win seven or eight of them. We had a good win in our last game against Warwick and people are feeling good about that so we’ll see what happens.
“We’ve got to live in hope and if we do actually get out of it and avoid relegation then I’m sure there will be some celebration.”
Shrewsbury will be gunning for revenge this weekend having been well beaten 8-2 by Hampton in the home fixture earlier this season.