Town quiet and heavy police presence as Shrewsbury Town crash out of FA Cup thanks to arch-rivals Wrexham

Friends Ian Vasey and Brendan Griffiths, both from Shrewsbury, were at The Salopian, in Smithfield Road, among a dusting of football watchers.

Ian said: "We could only have got one ticket for the game between us so we came to the pub instead."

Liverpool fans Ben Evans, 19, Kieran Worthing, 20 and Sean Davies, 19, also went to the Salopian to sup a few beers and watch the footy.

Ollie Parry, landlord of The Salopian, was relieved that the venue had not been totally inundated by flood waters. Some of the Severn did invade part of the pub but he said they only had to close for 12 hours for the clean up job.

Also in town, The Cross Foxes, in Longden Coleham, which had flood water in its cellars during the week, was also open for fans to have a drink before the game.

Police had arrested two men on the outskirts of Shrewsbury on Friday night, describing them as "football rivals".

Andrew Morris, a big Wrexham fan, who hails from Oswestry, shared his excitement at the first Shrewsbury-Wrexham fixture in nearly 15 years.

"As a Wrexham fan from Shropshire there is simply no bigger game, " he said.

"We have waited through 15 years of almost nothing but misery for our chance to face the carrot crunchers once again and finally get another one over them.

"It’s time to let the cricket fans in Shropshire know: Wrexham are back. Up the Hollywood reds.”

We are told that some Shrewsbury fans have a much ruder way of referring to their northern rivals.

But after the result of the game, which Wrexham won 1-0 town fans were left crying in their beer and ruing plenty of missed opportunities.