Club has embarked on an ambitious refurbishment programme at last. Our building is now over 40 years old and we work it very hard. Signs of advancing age and creaking joints are pretty clear.  As you would expect, we have started with repairs to the roof – some of them urgent and requiring the occasional bucket to catch the drips! And we have completed phase 1, the areas of roof covering the gym and the main club.

Our small building sub group is currently planning and writing up a Masterplan, after which we will get underway with a serious Appeal for Funds to refurbish a lot of the Club facilities.  This will include a new Gym floor, some reordering of the spaces in the club and a major refurbishment of our jaded accommodation in the Hostel.

In all of this we have had excellent ‘Angels’ who have come to our aid. This has included the magnificent help from ex-club member Damien Cummings and his company Altrad NSG, who have provided the scaffolding for our initial roof work, entirely free of charge.

We also have help from Jon France, retired from a senior career in the retail sector, who has been busy exploring all his contacts in that world to see what can be gleaned free of charge for the Shewsy.  Jon has already bagged some highly prized gifts and is working his way towards more.

We are extremely grateful for these brilliant offers of help. It has set us wondering how many more ex members and contacts MAY be able to support the current club’s work, recalling their time in the club and looking back with gratitude. Please DO get in touch if you can and could become a Shewsy ‘Angel’.

By the way our next Friends of Shrewsbury House dinner event is on the evening of Friday 24th April 2020 at Hope University, Shaw street campus when our guest speaker will be Judy Moody Stuart. Do get in touch if you would like to attend.

‘Everton has one of the highest levels of deprivation in the UK and in many instances there are generations of families who have never been legitimately employed’ writes Team leader John Dumbell.

‘The Early Intervention Youth Fund (EIYF) programme is largely based around confidence and decision making using moral dilemmas as tools to provoke thought and mimic real life situations and the pressures and emotions felt by the decisions made. The feedback from the initial cohort of young people was really positive and all of the group have remained engaged in activities provided at the club since their completion of the programme.

‘There has been an increase in confidence from the group as a whole and some real individual progress too. This has been measured throughout the course as has the young peoples attendances at School. One of the main risk factors for this group is their attendance, and with this in mind we held the programme on a Friday with the understanding that in order to attend Fridays they had to attend for the remainder of the week. This seemed to have a positive impact on their attendance as 11 out the 12 attended every session.

‘As a result of the funding received by the EIYF, this has enabled us to take on 2 additional full time members of staff to work on the programme. Once again, we are working in close partnership with the local police and this time we have identified a group of 12 young Shewsy members who attend Everton free school and have all had previous dealings with the police, many of whom have already signed ABC’s (acceptable behaviour contracts). The additional funding has also allowed us to open up on a Friday evening. This has seen an additional 185 individuals engaged regularly on a Friday evening many of whom have now become regular users of the centre during regular youth club sessions.

‘The feedback we have had for the Friday evenings has all been positive both from local businesses to the local police informing us that there has been a significant drop in anti-social behaviour calls around the area.

‘The additional activities offered has seen our membership rise to the highest we have had in my 15 years here averaging between 50-70 young people per session aged between 11-19.’

We have started on a new project in our Archives group titled ‘Shrewsbury House – The Football Story’.  We are trying to gather as much material as possible that tells the story of the club’s football since 1903.  We haven’t managed to get quite that far back but we do have a photo of a club football team in 1907!

We’re not quite sure whether this turns into a book or what at this stage, but we have an impressive collection of records, words and pictures already. Below are a couple of extracts.

Both Chris and Billy Lloyd, who later famously signed for Tranmere Rovers, could write a book about the Shewsy, remembering stories like old Billy Dalrymple, the storekeeper who predated Alf in the mid 1960’s, and his dishing out the footy gym kit and of course the ex-army issue brown pumps. “You were lucky to get two pumps the same size with laces and no holes before kicking off in top gym” says Billy Lloyd.

There were success stories  – winning the first ICI regional 7 a side tournament in Widnes – team: Arthur Rawlings, Chris Gallagher, big Billy Jones, Arthur Towers, Ian McElwee, Davie Hunt, Stan Coleman, all Shewsy stalwarts in their day.