Match report by James Garrison

Just occasionally, football throws up an afternoon to take the breath away. An afternoon which will be remembered and reminisced about for years to come.

An afternoon when those fortunate enough to witness it will proudly say: “I was there.”

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Shrews fans celebrate historic win
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The Prostar Stadium played host to one such occasion on Saturday.

It had been more than half a century since Shrewsbury had achieved a margin of victory of this magnitude in the Football League.

And to inflict such a severe hammering on a Gillingham side who had won their previous three games and are expected to be amongst the chief protagonists in the promotion race makes the victory and performance all the more remarkable.

Town fans lapped up every minute of this extraordinary encounter.

Praise was showered from the stands in just about every direction – the players, chairman Roland Wycherley and manager Paul Simpson, who celebrated his sixth month anniversary at the Town helm by witnessing his side’s stunning display.

Simpson’s stock within Shropshire is rising all the time.

Not surprising either having transformed a side who were struggling to score seven goals in a month last season to one who hit seven in an afternoon here – and could well have had more.

Not that the Town manager will be getting carried away.

Just as he remained calm in the wake of last week’s collective bad-day-at-the-office at Morecambe, so he will keep his emotions on an even keel after this awesome showing.

But he will no doubt have spent the weekend reflecting and admiring the performance his players gave.

For the closing 70 minutes, this Town display quite simply had it all.

Full of poise, purpose and control in possession, Shrewsbury attacked with verve, style and invention to cause problems for Gillingham’s shell-shocked defence with virtually every forward foray.

Each Shrewsbury set-piece was fraught with danger for the visitors, while the hosts refused to allow their work-rate and energy levels to drop, even after the outcome had been long since settled.

The bulk of the damage was done during the closing 18 minutes of the first half when rampant Town ran riot.

Four goals were scored during that period, and it is no exaggeration to say they could have had double that amount.

The first and fourth goals in that spell both came from Davies corners as defensive duo Mike Jackson and Graham Coughlan bulleted home close range headers.

Match-defining

In contrast, the other two goals in that match-defining spell came from distance.

First Dave Hibbert let rip with a 25-yard effort which flew into the roof of the net before Davies whipped in a dangerous free-kick which eluded everybody and bounced into the top corner.

Gillingham will point to the fact that two of those goals came while they were down to 10 men as defender Gary Richards received stitches to a head wound.

But the visitors simply had no answers to Town’s irresistible onslaught, Grant Holt, Shane Cansdell-Sherriff and Coughlan all going close to heaping further embarrassment on the visitors before the interval.

And Shrewsbury were in no mood to rest on their laurels in the second period.

Within 13 minutes of the re-start, two further goals had arrived. First Cansdell-Sherriff picked his spot expertly from 15 yards before Holt clinically rifled home a penalty after himself being up-ended by Simon King in the box.

At that stage, there was a real opportunity for Town to score eight times in a Football League game for the first time in their history.

Alas it was not to be and, despite wave after wave of attack, Shrewsbury managed “only” one more goal, Davies converting his second free-kick from the left edge of the box from 25 yards.

It must be said that, before the carnage began, Gillingham looked the sharper of the two teams and would have taken the lead but for an excellent Luke Daniels save from a third minute Curtis Weston volley.

But, after taking a little time to settle, Town were at their destructive best.

It was an afternoon which will be remembered for some time to come.

How the goals went in:

1-0 Jackson (27) – headed home from eight yards from a Davies left-wing corner.

2-0 – Hibbert (30) – unleashed a 25-yard effort which defeated Royce.

3-0 Davies (42) – whipped in a dangerous free-kick from 35 yards which eluded both defenders and attackers and bounced into the top corner.

4-0 Coughlan (45) – stooped to head home from four yards after a Davies corner had been headed into the danger zone by Jackson.

5-0 Cansdell-Sherriff (51) – picked his spot with a 12 -yard curler after Holt had shown the vision to pick out the midfielder in a crowded penalty area.

6-0 Holt (58) – sent Royce the wrong way having been brought down himself by King to win the penalty.

7-0 Davies (87) – curled a brilliant 25-yard free-kick from the left edge of the box into the top corner.