Delighted Shropshire Senior Cup winners The New Saints made history as they lifted the county’s premier cup competition at the first attempt.

The Oswestry-based Saints – who play in the Welsh Premier League – were invited to take part in the ancient cup competition by the Shropshire FA, who had expanded it to a four-team event.

And they justified their inclusion by dumping a young Shrewsbury Town team out in the semi-finals before defeating AFC Telford United on penalties in Saturday’s final at the New Bucks Head.

Saints boss Mike Davies has already turned his focus to the start of the Welsh Premier campaign on Friday evening and an opening night showdown with Bala Town at The Venue (7.45pm).

But he was also happy to revel in his team’s first piece of silverware of the season, having been knocked out of the Europa League earlier in the summer by Danish side Midtjylland.

“In any cup competition, at any stage of the season, you want to win it and it’s a great achievement for us,” said Davies.

“We’ve played two fantastic teams and we’ve come out winners so the lads can take a lot of credit for that.

“It’s great preparation for us, going into the start of the main campaign on Friday.

“We played some great football,” he added. “But take nothing away from Telford because they are a great team and I think they’ll do very well this season.”

By Chris Hudson