Shrewsbury Town's new managing director Rob Bickerton took up his new post at Oteley Road on Monday morning and began to look at helping to take the club forward.

The successful business man recently stepped down as chairman of Macclesfield Town after 7 successful years with the club. During that time he was credited with helping to turn round the fortunes at Moss Rose and built up a good reputation within football.

He now embarks on the next chapter of his football career with his new post at Shrewsbury Town. Rob met the local press and ShrewsWeb was there to find out a little bit more about his background: "My background and experience, other than building my own businesses up, is that I've been in football for the last 7 years. The first two of those were as finance director and that other 5 were as chairman of Macclesfield Town football club and within football it is perceived that at Macclesfield i did a good job.

"During my time there Macclesfield over achieved with one of the smallest budgets in the league by reaching the play-offs and the Northern final of the LDV. The time was right to move on from Macclesfield as there was someone who was keen to become the chairman there.

"I believe in football you have connection with people and you either get on with them or you don't. Macclesfield played Shrewsbury at the Gay Meadow and the game was 2-2 before John Miles came on to score in the last minute, that just about saved Macclesfield from relegation but it pretty much confined Shrewsbury to relegation to the Conference. I looked at Roland and Keith and they were slumped in their chairs so I walked over and sat with them to share the last minutes of the game together.

"I saw the look in their faces and knew that if the result had gone the other way that would have been me. 12 months later I went to the play-off final at the Britannia and all though they didn't know I was there I saw Shrewsbury beat Aldershot and I saw the look on their faces that day. The following season Shrewsbury's first away game was at Macclesfield and i knew what it meant to them to be back in the league and we shared a bottle of champagne that night.

"I didn't leave Macclesfield to join Shrewsbury but I wasn't surprised that the chairman gave me a call to see if I wanted to join the club. This club should now to be working at a much higher level than it currently is and I am a man who likes a challenge.

"The dream of the chairman is for the club to play at a higher level, that is the aspiration of the club and I have joined to help realise that."

With the move to the new stadium Shrewsbury Town now have a stadium that would not look out of place in the Championship. The move also means that the business has grown substantially and this needs new people on board to manage the various responsibilities at the club: "I'll be report to the chairman and doing things to take the workload off him, things that drop on his desk that he hasn't had the time to get done.

"I will be responsible for things which are business related and my natural background is running a business and what I have at Shrewsbury is full profit and loss responsibility.

"I'm going to look at the value we get for every pound that is spent here and I know that a good job has already been done here but a fresh pair of eyes is always good to see if we can improve.

"I'm also going to help in the income generation of the club and have already identified a couple of areas we can do this in.

"I will learn things from the people around me here and but will also bring experiences that I have learnt that maybe not have been leant here."

The main long term aim of the chairman is the development of the club to allow increased budgets to allow the progression up the leagues. Rob took time to highlight his thoughts on developing the club and helping that progression: "I understand how football clubs work but at the moment i am meeting with people to see how things work here. I am going to go on a learning curve for a period of time to understand what we have got here now to see where we are.

"We have to maximise what we can generate from the stadium infrastructure and also to look at any other opportunities that might be attached to the stadium. It's about the development of the asset and then the realisation of the asset to make sure it is being used to its full potential.

"We are a football club first and foremost and the job of everyone who is not kicking a football is to make sure that everything we spend is spent to improve the football club and to try and generate as much money as possible because ultimately that boils down to the playing budget that we will have.

"When you look at the club you see the naming rights of the club are still available and we see that as being an important part of the inventory.

"I look at clubs to see their league points but also to see what their playing budget is and you can draw up two league tables. The one based on points and the other based on a teams playing budget and their league position. I would look for a club to be out performing its playing budget and I would like to see Shrewsbury Town out performing its budget throughout the business.

"What I hope we can achieve is to have a club that is generating enough funds and also generating it's own players through the youth development so that if we get both of those right we can compete at a level that will do a club and community this size justice."

When Rob's appointment was announced last week one part of the press release raised a few eyebrows amongst the Town fans. It mentioned that Rob would also be involved in team affairs and he was quick to clarify what his involvement would be in this part of the club: "My particular experiences as a chairman of a football club means that I've been used to working with the manager on the football side of the business.

"My expectation is to have a close working relationship with the manger with us speaking regularly and knowing what each other is doing. We have had a number of conversations but we are going to go to the Morecambe v Darlington game tomorrow.

"Not for one second will I be involved in the selection of players as that is the manager's job.

"On the football side it's about negotiating with players, negotiating with players, looking at the budget and making sure it's spent appropriately and I have the contacts to help with that."

When town took on Hereford United on Sunday at Edgar Street Rob wandered around to the Blackfriars Terrace to take in the second half. It was something that allowed him to get the fans thoughts and also something that he is planning to do at future games. He wants to hear from fans to hear their views and opinions on the club and has set-up a special email address for this: "Very few people know me in Shrewsbury and I know the fans are very important to the football club. It was very good yesterday as I went to watch the second half of the Hereford game and two or three fans came up to me to express their opinions.

"I'm not going to act on everything that fans say to me but i will take the time to listen and speak to the fans when i get the time to do that.

"My expectations for future away games is that whenever it is possible I'll go and watch the second half with the fans

"For the home game against Morecambe my plan is to walk around the stadium and i invite people to come and say hello.

"I'm very keen to hear from people and i have an email address of rob.bickerton@shrewsburytown.co.uk whereI would like to hear from everybody and anybody about anything. They can rest assured i will have read it and their opinions will be taken on board."