The Reason Why The New Saints Have To Play Their UEFA Conference League Home Games At League One Shrewsbury Town

The TNS home games in the 2024/25 UEFA Conference League will be played at Shrewsbury Town’s Croud Meadow Stadium. 

Ahead of their maiden European adventure, TNS will welcome Djurgarden, Astana and Panathinaikos to the League One ground in Shropshire.

The Welsh Premier outfit has away trips to Shamrock Rovers and Celje still to look forward to in the newly-formatted league stage.

TNS, officially known as The New Saints, will be aiming to cause a number of upsets along the way. They beat FK Panevėžys to get this far but suffered a 2-0 defeat to Fiorentina on GW1.

Ready to host @europacnfleague action 👊

🔷🔶 #Salop pic.twitter.com/QWLbYV3igg

— Shrewsbury Town FC (@shrewsburytown) October 23, 2024

Why Are TNS Home Games Being Played At Shrewsbury Town?

The reason that TNS are playing at Shrewsbury Town is due to the fact their own home stadium doesn’t meet UEFA’s regulations for hosting main draw European matches.

However, they were able to fulfil their qualifying fixtures at their own venue called Park Hall. It is also commonly referred to as The Venue.

Most notably, UEFA stipulates that clubs featuring in European competition must play their home games in a stadium within their own association.

In TNS’ case, they were awarded special dispensation to host matches outside of Wales. Owing to the fact there were no suitable category four stadiums to use as an alternative.

“We’d like to thank Shrewsbury Town for allowing us to host these historic matches at Croud Meadow,” explained TNS chairman Mike Harris.

“We are hopeful the community will come out in full force to The New Saints as we face some of the continent’s biggest clubs.

“Being so close to our Park Hall home will mean that ers from Oswestry, Mid Wales, and North Wales can travel to cheer on the team.”

There are just over 20 miles between Shrewsbury and Saints’ village base of Llansantfraid. Furthermore, there are less than 20 miles for ers to travel from Oswestry.

This is the destination where home games have been played since the redevelopment of Park Hall. Cardiff had been touted as a possibility. However, it was ruled out as it is too far for ers to navigate.

Ironically, TNS did play a UEFA Cup qualifier against current Premier League champions Manchester City in the Welsh capital. City won on that occasion 2-0 back in 2003.

Goals from Christian Negouai and Darren Huckerby were enough at what was called the Millenium Stadium. The Welsh side lost 7-0 on aggregate.