Derbyshire based training company Mitre Group have been working with Shrewsbury Town Football Club to ensure its club stewards are supported and have received the very latest training to help support them with the introduction of the first pioneering ‘Safe Standing’ area in England and Wales.

The Shropshire market town club are leading the way following their pioneering campaign to see the return of standing areas at football clubs. 

The club recently unveiled 555 rail seats at Montgomery Waters Meadow stadium making the club the first in England to have the dual-purpose seating area and give fans the option to sit or stand.  The seats as used at Celtic FC, in the German Bundesliga and in the United States and have proved extremely popular with fans.

Jennie Bowmer, Managing Director of Maitre Group, who recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, spoke about the importance of continually evolving training programmes to ensure they are fit for purpose for the very specialist sector that is football.

“We are so proud to work with many of the UK’s leading clubs and stadia and have supported thousands of people through our stadia programmes,” she said.

“We are especially proud to be supporting Shrewsbury Town by ensuring all stewards are trained appropriately and that the training they receive also covers ‘Safe-Standing’. We have developed our programmes as the moving landscape of sport requires it too – safe-standing wasn’t an area we needed to include a year ago, now it’s high on the agenda for many other clubs – all of whom are watching the developments at Shrewsbury with great interest.”

Lawrence Ellerby, Safety Officer at Shrewsbury Town FC, added: “Mitre have been exceptional to work with and our partnership has been built on Mitre having a fantastic understanding of the sector and especially around the unique dynamics of standing supporters. 

“The training of our ‘Spectator Safety Stewards’ is unique in that we are the only club throughout England and Wales with a Safe Standing area and as such we have had to evolve the training of our stewards”.

He continued: “The safety of all our supporters is of the paramount importance to us whilst ensuring we also enhance the match day experience – the training our stewards has received has been extremely thorough and equips our staff with the prerequisite of skills they require to carry out their duties.”

Mitre have provided various accredited and non-accredited training programmes for sports clubs throughout the UK for over 20 years and work with clubs at all levels of football from the Premier League to non-league as well as rugby and cricket clubs.

Mitre has expanded its reach over the years with staff based throughout the UK and offices in both the Midlands and London. They continue to work with many of the country’s leading organisations to deliver a range of programmes from tailored training workshops and executive training consultancy to pre-employment and apprenticeship programmes.

As a recognised provider by the Government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency, Mitre is an approved supplier on the Register of Training Organisations (ROTO) and Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (ROATP) and are able to access Government funding for many of its programmes.

More information on Mitre’s work can be found on mitregroup.co.uk.