THE New Saints will make more history tonight when the Oswestry club become the first Welsh league side to host a UEFA Conference group game.

Astana of Kazakhstan will be the opposition at Shrewsbury Town’s Croud Meadow when the JD Cymru Premier champions bid to chalk their first points in the competition.

The Saints lost 2-0 at Fiorentina in their group opener last month.

Chief operating officer Ian Williams insisted the performance was one the squad could build on when Astana arrive in Shropshire.

“We’ve been striving for years to get to where we are today,” said Williams. “To be fair to our chairman, Mike Harris, that’s always been his vision. People laughed at him at the time when he said we’re going to get into the group stages, but the Conference League gives clubs of our size, and countries of our size, a real opportunity to play what is now league phase football.

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“It certainly raises the profile of not only our club but the domestic game in Wales, which to us is really important because we’re going through a process now in terms of looking at our strategy and what we need to do to improve everything, both on the pitch and off the pitch. Hopefully us qualifying for the league phase this year is going to help with that.”

Williams hoped fans would make the trip to Shrewsbury for their home matches.

He said: “We’re looking forward to having all of the games 20 minutes away from Park Hall which is great for us, great for the players, but more importantly, great for the supporters. It means that we can encourage a lot of of own supporters to come to the games, but also people from mid Wales, Shropshire and North Wales.”

Williams said money accrued for the European adventure would be re-invested back into the club and nobody at Park Hall was getting carried away with the lucrative side of UEFA group football.

“The focus has to be on the first team because their success on the pitch drives everything,” said Williams. “The academy is important to us because a number of players have come through our system while the women’s team is important to us, we’ve upped the level and gone semi-professional this year, and we want them to compete the same way as the men’s side have done for a number of years.

“We want to continue to build the stadium as we have done over the past few years, but also look at our training facilities and build more pitches, so it’s how you balance all of that and at the same time make sure that there’s enough there to sustain things for the next few years.

“Our aim is to continue to qualify for the league phase, and once you get into that position, it starts to snowball into bigger and better things.”