Welcome to Prestatyn Town’s new manager
Prestatyn Town’s new manager certainly knows what it takes to be successful in the third tier of Welsh football.
In 2023-24, Aden Shannon was in charge of a Flint Mountain side which lifted the Ardal North West title at just the second attempt, won the North East Wales Challenge Cup and reached the Ardal Northern League Cup final and last eight of the Welsh Cup.
The 45-year-old’s new club Prestatyn would be more than happy if he could replicate that achievement at Bastion Gardens!
Shannon takes over from Gareth Thomas, who this week stepped down after leading Town to fourth place in Ardal North West and the FAW Amateur Trophy quarter-finals this season.
As a player, Blacon Youth product Shannon impressed over a number of seasons as a striker in the Welsh Premier.
He scored 64 goals in 118 WPL starts (plus 51 substitute appearances) representing Cefn Druids, Welshpool Town, gap Connah’s Quay and Porthmadog.
In the 2003/04 season he bagged 19 goals in 25 outings for the Druids, but arguably his most memorable achievement came in January 2005 against mighty TNS.
The Saints were unbeaten travelling to Welshpool, but were taken apart by a Shannon hat-trick in a 5-2 victory, future Prestatyn Town hero Steve Rogers scoring the other two.
Shannon later wore the colours of Druids and Conwy Borough in the Cymru Alliance.
He joined Borough as a player in 2013-14 under the management of Chris Herbert and finished top-scorer. Shannon later became assistant-manager to Darren Moss, who stepped down at the end of October 2014 after a disappointing run of results.
Shannon took over as caretaker-boss for three games and after some encouraging scores stayed in charge for the rest of the season.
In June 2015, he was named permanent manager of Conwy, but left the club five months later.
Next stop was Flint Town United as a player, again under former chief Herbert.
Shannon became assistant-manager at Cae-y-Castell and was later appointed in charge of first team affairs when Herbert left to join Chester. Shannon subsequently switched to a head coach role with the Silkmen.
He was part of the management team in 2019-20 when Flint were promoted to the Welsh Premier after finishing runners-up in Cymru North to Prestatyn Town (who were not eligible to go up).
Shannon left Flint in October 2021 to become joint-manager with former Silkmen boss Niall McGuinness at Runcorn Town.
Departing Runcorn in April 2022, Shannon was next to experience his most successful managerial spell yet.
He took over Flint Mountain at the start of 2022-23 after the club had been promoted from the North East Wales League Premier Division to the Tier 3 Ardal North West.
An excellent debut season with some highly impressive signings on board saw the Flintshire side finish fourth and progress through three rounds of the Welsh Cup.
The 2023-24 campaign saw Shannon and his assistant Jonny Hill truly make their mark as Mountain won the Ardal North West League title, raised the NEWFA Challenge Cup for a first time, defeating three Cymru North sides in doing so, made the Ardal North League Cup final and Welsh Cup last eight.
Mountain hit new heights in the Tier 2 Cymru North in 2024-25, thrashing Ruthin Town 7-0 in their first game and ending up a more than respectable seventh in the table.
However, Shannon left Mountain in June 2025 over concerns relating to the future running of the club.
Now comes a fresh and exciting challenge at Prestatyn Town where his first game in charge will be away to Connah’s Quay Town on January 9.
An in-house management team will run the side for Saturday afternoon’s clash with Ardal North West leaders CPD Dinas Bangor City 1876 at Bastion Gardens (2 pm).