Luke Shelley aims to keep AFC Telford ticking over

Shelley officially started in the role yesterday, taking up the duties of football secretary Joe Murphy who has left the club. He has served the Bucks in a variety of roles over the past several years and is aiming to allow boss Gavin Cowan to focus solely on the team and getting results.

“It is a case of Gav picking up the phone if he needs stuff doing, making sure that all runs smoothly,” said Shelley. “It’s about doing as much off the field to make sure the players have got everything sorted for them on the field.”

And Shelley insists he is not alone in being determined to make things easy for Cowan, the rest of the coaches and players.

“You’ve got people like (managing director) Ian Dosser here, who’s been here through thick and thin – travels up from down south every week,” he said.

“(Chairman) Andy Pryce comes to the club every day, (associate board member) Carolyn (Hornby) has done a fantastic job behind the scenes with running the club shop.

“Luke (Fearnall) puts so much work in, he’s been a great fan liaison officer, so we’ve got a good group – staff here day-to-day and directors on the end of phone, or on emails, that are there to speak to daily. We’re all looking forward to the season now.”

Shelley was kitman last season, as well as being head of youth and overlooking the club’s community coaching.

On what his new position entails, he added: “The main part of the role is to take over from Joe, his capacity in terms of signing players. At this time of the year until when the season starts, we have to make sure contracts are signed, National League paperwork is done, FA paperwork is all done and sent in correctly.

“I expect it to be busy now. Once the fixtures come out on Wednesday, we’ll start to liaise with opposition and book referees – co-ordinate all that information.”