WHITCHURCH Alport Football Club held a hugely-successful 70th anniversary celebration event on Friday at the Civic Centre. 

The town’s football team were founded just after the Second World War and around 200 people enjoyed a very well-organised evening.

Throughout the day, volunteers had decorated the room in the club’s red and white colours. 

There were archived press cuttings, old programme covers and photographs projected on a loop on to a wall to give supporters a chance to take a walk down memory lane.

The evening began with BBC Radio Shropshire’s Stuart Dunn inviting joint managers Luke Goddard and Carl Everall on to the stage to hold an impromptu Q&A session, and this was quickly followed by seven members of the late Eddie Morris’s Welsh Amateur Cup squad reminiscing with Stuart, about their famous 2-1 win over Cardiff University.

Lester Crabtree was the comedian and the Mancunian had the audience in stitches.

Local band The Review soon had the assembled masses on their feet dancing and there was a silent auction and a heads and tails event held which helped to cover the club’s costs. One of the successful bidders was Tom Sheridan, a season-ticket holder at Yockings Park, who won a Bentley gift pack

Other auctioned items included a signed Shrewsbury Town shirt, signed Derby County shirt and ball, Alport season ticket, replica kits and tickets to a Shrewsbury game for a family of four.

The club’s welfare officer Andy Forrester couldn’t believe his luck when Zac Harris’s mum Charlene pulled his raffle ticket number out of a hat which saw him land a 40-inch TV!

Stuart – who is the anchorman on Saturday afternoons on 96FM and who has been the voice of Shrewsbury Town live commentaries more than 1,000 times – said: “I was delighted to be invited along to help the club celebrate their 70th anniversary. It’s not difficult to see why the club are going places.

“I will definitely be visiting Yockings when it doesn’t clash with my obligations at Town.”

A  committee had been working hard for the past three months to ensure the occasion was marked properly and the organiser Neil Spencer was delighted to see it all come together: “The night’s celebration was a great success, and it was brilliant to see so many of our supporters and people from the town enjoying themselves. 

“We were all delighted to welcome some of the 73/74 squad who won the Welsh Amateur Cup and everybody gave them a rousing reception.”

The presentation of awards dovetailed nicely into the event and were

Committee’s player of season: Nick Marley. Top scorer: Mike Blundell Players’ player: Marley. Young player: Ryan Thomas. Managers’ player: Simon Everall/Elliot Ledwards (joint).

*For a double-page spread of pictures from the event, see this week's Whitchurch Herald.