Poor start sees Shifnal Town's poor run continue
Shifnal Town lost further ground in the Northern League West Division play-off race as they were beaten 3-2 at resurgent Stafford Rangers.
The Shropshire club remain winless in 2026, after failing to recover from a dreadful start just over the border in Staffordshire.
Shifnal were two goals down inside the first 12 minutes as Jack Birch and Matt Hearsey both scored with deflected efforts.
Kyle Bennett came close to pulling one back when he fired just over the bar before, four minutes from the break, the visitors did cut the deficit when Matthew Barnes-Homer scored from the penalty spot after Kev Monteiro had been brought down.
But having got themselves back in the match, Shifnal then found themselves back to square one when Birch grabbed his second of the match just 20 seconds into the second half.
To their credit, they kept plugging away and with 14 minutes remaining were awarded a second penalty of the match, when Abdulrasaq Alamu-Tajudeen was pulled down.
This time Kobe Hall stepped up to send Scott Moloney the wrong way and set up a grandstand finish.
Deep in stoppage time, Shifnal thought they had a leveller but while Hall’s shot beat Moloney, a defender was there to clear it off the line.
Defeat left them eighth in the table, nine points behind the top-five.
