Marcus Braddock takes his look back and forward in his weekly update
It's a great time to be a Shrewsbury Town fan, how long will last I don't know but after a couple of hard fought seasons that proved difficult, it's rather nice to be top of the pile. To be honest, the performances have pleased me more than the league position as has. We managed our third clean sheet of the season, Stefan Payne scored his fourth goal from five appearances only two of which were starts!
It would be unfair to pick one man of the match for us but if I had to, Jon Nolan would come very close. He's not a player that looks short on confidence or short on anything really. It's been said by many but he's the spitting image of Ryan Woods on the pitch, in both appearance and style of play. His focus is pretty good and when he wins the ball there is little or no hesitance, he looks to turn the ball around and use it to hurt the opposition in advanced positions.
To a man, the team were fully committed to hounding Wigan as much as possible, making life difficult for players who may well have been expecting an easier ride. They certainly didn't like it, their discomfort was clear by the way that they got a little irritated. As time went on, Wigan's frustrations and Towns attitude decided the outcome and I felt a little more settled as the clock slowly ticked it's way toward the 90. Five minutes extra seemed quite a lot at the end, I hadn't noticed much in the way of physio intervention and with only one goal scored, I wondered where it had all come from but everything seems against you in the dying minutes and we weathered it well enough anyway.
The fact that Saturdays game was our 3000th in the Football League made me pause for thought, I have no idea how many I have been to, I would hope it would be close to 900-1000 but I've no real way of accurately estimating. Some of my fellow fans will dwarf my paltry figure but I think that even if you go to one game, you're part of the history of Shrewsbury Town. I wonder where we'll be by the time we play our 4000th game?
Next up at the Greenhous Meadow are Southend United managed by Phil Brown, once a Premier manager with Hull City. They've not started as well as they're capable of and will be wanting to upset our apple-cart on Tuesday night. Next Saturday we face Oldham Athletic away, another team that hasn't started too well in League One.
Saturday’s result might have been good, but Sunday’s win for the Ladies was even better as they put 10 past local rivals Shrewsbury Juniors. Next weekend the Ladies are back in F.A. Cup action at home to Leek Town.
Away from the pitch there was good news last week as Salop Leisure made a contribution to the Safe Standing campaign. If you would like to make a contribution to our club being the first in England and Wales to introduce Safe Standing, visit tifosy.com/shrews