Gaffer's thoughts after Town clinch promotion at Cheltenham
Shrews boss Micky Mellon was understandably delighted after seeing his side gain promotion back to League One at the first attempt. Fresh from taking the adulation of over 1700 proud Salopians, Micky gave his first thoughts to the local media: “It’s been a terrific effort from Day One, right from pre-season,” said the beaming Town boss. “It’s been in the mindset of everyone at this great club to bounce right back and we’re delighted to have done that today.“It will take for it to settle in I think. It was a really tough game and we knew they were going to put us under pressure like that. But to a man they stood firm and battled through. To get an away win at this time of the season is always difficult but it was a terrific effort from all the boys.”
Speaking about Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro’s 19th minute winner the manager said: “We all know how much he means to us and for him to get the goal today is brilliant for him. I’m delighted for the whole club. From the Chairman right down to everyone who has inspired us along the way to help us do this. The fans today were absolutely magnificent and we’ve just told them down there to go and enjoy it. They roared us on right from the first whistle and it’s been a really memorable day. This will stay in our memories for a very long time. You always have nervy moments but we do our best to disguise it. I knew how desperate our boys were to finally get over that line and we didn’t want to just do it with a draw or scrape through. We wanted to do it with a victory and we can go into next week’s home game trying to give it our best shot at winning the title. Let’s go for it! Let’s just go for it and give it everything we’ve got with a fantastic promotion under our belts already.
“It’s easy for me to say now that I came here with a clear intention of getting promotion but I wanted to be part of something that was going to be very successful, and the type of player we recruited made me feel that we could carry that out. And with the type of support we’ve had we’ve bounced back together.”
The players came back from their dressing room celebrations sporting tribute T-shirts to Lloyd Burton and Colin Bloomfield, who both tragically passed away this week, with Colin taken early this morning after a long battle against cancer and Micky was soon showing his emotional side: “It’s going to be very difficult for me to talk about that just now as it’s still incredibly raw and I knew them both personally. It’s been a tough week. But tonight, I’ll celebrate with a typically Scottish type of promotion party and I think you can guess what that might involve. You have to enjoy these moments when they come along as you work so hard for moments like this. The support I’ve had since coming here from the people of Shrewsbury has made me and my family feel very welcome and I was determined there was no way I was ever going to let you down.”