Club Captain looks ahead to Wembley
Shrewsbury Town Club Captain Mat Sadler admits that the excitement is building as he prepares for his first Wembley appearance.
Despite being the eldest member of the Town squad, Sadler has never featured at the national stadium, but that will all chande on Sunday when he leads the team out in the absence of Abu Ogogo, and he is starting to get excited.
“With this whole Press Day and other little things that are going, you start to get the feeling that it is a different week to normal and with that we know that there is a carrot at the end of the week”, Mat told ShrewsWeb.
“It is exciting. Personally, I’ve never played there but even for the lads that have played there it’s just as exciting. It must rank as the pinnacle of most players careers getting the chance to play there, so I’m very excited.”
The club has already experienced some exciting days this season and this is another one of those that Mat wants to enjoy.
“I think sometimes in football you take things for granted and in some respects we’ve taken winning games for granted this season”, Sadler said.
“At the start of it, if you’d have said that we’d be in the final of this competition at Wembley and second in the league at the start of April you would be forgiven for thinking it was an April Fools because you wouldn’t have thought it would happen.
“It’s been a great season, a really enjoyable season for myself and everyone, with some really specials days and nights to lie ahead. This is probably the first of those really special ones, so we intend to really enjoy it.”
Whilst Sadler is looking to enjoy the occasion, he is under no illusions about the difficulty of the task that lies in front of Town.
“The point of being there is to win the game”, said Mat.
“The occasion is great and all of that sort of stuff, but we are here to win the football match. At the end of all the suits, all the people staying together, all media stuff, all the family tickets, we are here to win the game and to be up on those steps afterwards. That is why we are here, that is what we aim to do, but it will be a real test.
“Lincoln are a club that are on an upward motion at the moment, that’s for sure. They are used to winning football games, they won a lot of games last season, they’ve won a lot of games this season, they are in their own promotion battle themselves, and they’ve got plenty of players that have played in our league that are in their starting 11 at the minute, so they won’t be overawed by the occasion.”
For more information about Wembley visit https://www.shrewsburytown.com/news/Wembley/