Blue is the colour for this season

 

Loggerheads fans will have seen the recent decision by Shrewsbury Town Football Club to revert to a blue-only shirt (see above), and dump the usual blue-and-yellow shirt, as a sad day.

The blue-and-yellow colours are the long time colours of the loggerheads-arms of the town of Shrewsbury; and are even associated with the first Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived one thousand years ago. So… a link between the town and the town’s football club is now broken.

The only consolation is that the club’s second shirt (its ‘away’ shirt) will be in the traditional blue-and-yellow (though the club insists on saying “blue-and-amber”).  Well, thank goodness at least for that.

(Photo courtesy of Shrewsbury Town Football Club official webpage)

 A book has been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Bridge in loggerheads colours

We talk a lot on this blog about the blue-gold colouring of the loggerheads’ design – gold for the leopards' faces, blue for the background. It has been a constant feature of the emblem all down the centuries.
So it is natural that Shrewsbury Town Council, the direct ‘descendants’ of the original Shrewsbury Corporation, which first created and adopted the loggerheads, should also sport blue-gold as their colours. By extension, anything that wants to feel ‘Shrewsbury’, should also come in that combination.

This explains the slightly garish painting on the railings of this pedestrian bridge in Shrewsbury which crosses the Rea Brook stream into Meole Brace village. The decorative colour-work, which has just appeared - in time for the loggerheads' 600th anniversary year -, tells us that this is the work of an organisation, Shrewsbury Town Council, that is proud to demonstrate the traditional blue-gold of Shrewsbury.

Actually, it's doubly clever to have painted this bridge in blue-gold. This bridge is on the route that Shrewsbury Town Football Club supporters use when they want to walk back into town from the club's stadium. 
And the colours of Shrewsbury Town Football Club are... of course... gold and blue!

A new book has now been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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It's Loggerheads Day!

 

Today (May 2nd) is Loggerheads Day… at least, so far as Shrewsbury Town Football Club supporters are concerned.  It was on this day in 2015 that the Shrewsbury loggerheads were rightfully restored to the club’s badge, after a hiatus in which a rather ordinary lion had replaced them (Lord knows why!).

It only happened however because of a year-long and very loud campaign by fans (which was of course dubbed the Bring Back The Loggerheads Campaign). To their credit, the club’s owners listened, and then agreed with the fans. 

The campaign is remembered in a lovely poem, a framed copy of which is to be found in The Loggerheads Pub in central Shrewsbury.  It’s a funny pastiche on the stirring St Crispian's Day speech by the king in Shakespeare's play of Henry V.  It’s really clever.

The mystery is:  who was the author?

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Earl Roger the overlord

The tomb of Earl Roger de Montgomery in Shrewsbury Abbey is one of the town's most precious heritage assets.  Earl Roger was the Norman lord who was installed as the first Earl of Shrewsbury by William The Conqueror following the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

It's said that the reason that the traditional colours of loggerheads/Shrewsbury are gold & blue is because these were Earl Roger's colours. In fact, though Roger's wife and his son seemed to have arms of gold & blue bars, I can't find a direct link between Roger himself and any gold & blue colouring.  Can anyone help me find out more about this?

The gold & blue colours-combination has persisted for nearly one thousand years in Shrewsbury.  Today, the town's football club play in these same exact colours!

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