Karen hoping that Shrewsbury continues to be happy hunting ground for England
England women's star Karen Carney hopes the Greenhous Meadow will again prove to be a happy hunting ground for the team ahead of next Thursday night's big World Cup qualifier against Ukraine.
The winger, who visited Shrewsbury with her Birmingham City and England team mate Kerys Harrop to promote the game, has fond memories of the Meadow having helped the national team to victories on all three of their appearances here.
Carney, who has 94 England caps, scored the winner the first time England played in Shrewsbury in 2007 with her goal enough to beat Spain in a European Championship qualifier watched by a crowd of nearly 9,000.
She has since helped England to Shrewsbury wins over Norway and Switzerland.
Carney said she always enjoys coming to Shrewsbury and was delighted to take part in a coaching course organised by Shrewsbury Town's Community Sports Trust during her last visit.
"I've been to Shrewsbury a number of times now as a spectator and a player," she said. "It's a lovely ground and the people are so friendly.
"The community scheme's fantastic so you always want to go back to places you enjoy.
"It's a nice pitch and we seem to have played well here in the past so hopefully it will be four wins out of four for us.
"It's important with it being a qualifier and we want to get to the World Cup, definitely. We're in a healthy position at the moment but we've still got five games to go and it starts again on May 8 so we need to get another win."
England have been playing well and scoring plenty of goals in recent games, and Carney would love it to be a similar story against Ukraine although she expects a tough match.
She said: "We want to play exciting football, we want to score goals, we want to give the crowd something to be happy about and we want them to go away from the game saying how much they enjoyed it.
"We don't want to play boring football. It's important that when we get people to come to games to come away from the stereotype about women's football so that they're shocked and surprised and definitely want to come back. That's what we want to try and do.
"When you play against good opposition it makes the challenge difficult but for us the main objective is to try and get the result and for us to get to the World Cup."
Two more England women's players, Sophie Bradley and Jess Clarke, are visiting Shrewsbury today to further promote next Thursday's match which will be shown live on BBC2.
The England duo are heading to Shrewsbury Cathedral Catholic Primary School to conduct a question and answer session with pupils.
The local youngsters and England players will also take part in a coaching session delivered by Shrewsbury Town's Community Sports Trust coaches.
Tickets are on sale for next Thursday's match which kicks off at 7.30pm from the Greenhous Meadow box office. They can also be bought over the phone on (01743) 273943 and online at www.shrewsburyfc.talent-sport.co.uk
Tickets are priced £5 for adults and £2.50 for children, students and concessions. A family ticket is available at £10 (two adults, two children) and group discounts also apply.