Shrewsbury Town

Marcus Braddock gives his weekly update on events at the Montgomery Waters Meadow

I'm officially snowed in but that's not going to stop me from my weekly review of Shrewsbury Town's week!

We started the week full of anticipation for the F.A. Cup draw and were given a home game against West Ham. A cracking draw which brings David Moyes and possibly Joe Hart back to Shrewsbury. It feels a bit like the footballing gods are smiling on us this season and a Premier League team at home feels a good reward for our hard working team.

Port Vale were the next thing in our minds after the initial excitement of pulling in a top flight opponent. I have great friends in Stoke but surprisingly, the thought of Burslem on a cold Tuesday night couldn't tempt me down the A53, so I watched it on the rather good Ifollow coverage.  The first half was marred by an early goal for the home team and our struggle to get on level terms. We looked under par in those first 45 minutes but whatever Paul Hurst and Chris Doig said to the team at half time did the trick. A slick finish from Louis Dodds and a Shaun Whalley tap in late on put us in our second cup draw of the week although we had to wait til Friday for that one.

Friday was a pretty good day in the end, we found out our game against West Ham will be live on the BBC, excitement for the fans and a nice windfall for the club. The Checkatrade Trophy draw pitted us against Blackpool just a few days after the West Ham game in January.

Saturday brought us a tough trip to Milton Keynes where deadlock seems to be this seasons speciality at Stadium:MK. Milton Keynes scored after just under an hour and then frustrated us well  as we tried to equalize. Shaun Whalley was the man to drag us back to level terms with a shot that would be at home in the top flight. At the moment, things aren't quite clicking like they did at the start of the season but that equalizing goal was important. It stopped what would have been our fourth 1-0 defeat in five league games, a pattern that we don't want to see set in.

The weather put paid to Shrewsbury Town Ladies game this weekend. They are next in action on Sunday away to Wyrely Juniors who are based in Walsall.

The weather also meant that Shrewsbury Town's Under-18s game against Wrexham on Friday was postponed. They face Wigan this weekend.

In off the pitch news, The annual Shrewsbury Town Carol Concert will be taking place at Shrewsbury Abbey on Monday 18th December, with a 7pm start time.

Shrewsbury Town in the Community will be introducing ShrewsGiving – designed so that generous donations of Shrewsbury Town supporters make a real difference to peoples lives in the local community.