The reason why Carl Winchester has become Shrewsbury Town's ever present man

Last season when he joined on deadline day on loan from Sunderland, he made 39 appearances for Town there too.

And when asked what he thinks the reason for this is, Winchester said it is down to looking after himself in the gym and experience.

“Well thankfully not picking up any injuries,” he joked. “It is looking after yourself in the gym and doing your best to recover, that is the most important thing as well with the amount of games you play a season.

“If you have injuries to the squad it is so important with your recovery, what you eat and every- thing.

“It is probably down to one word, professionalism, taking that on board and going with that. And keeping your fingers crossed you don’t get any injuries or knocks along the way.”

Winchester is an experienced player. He clocked up more than 100 appearances for Oldham, while doing the same at Forest Green Rovers. He played well over 50 times for Cheltenham and also Sunderland too.

Winchester says he has picked up things throughout his career to help navigate his way through a league season and he hopes he sets an example for youngsters too.

“You pick it up having played different clubs and watching older players when you were younger,” he said.

“How they managed to go out there and play every week but how they were living right and all that kind of stuff.

“It is good for the youngsters to look up to, as there are so many of them in the team.

“If they can take in one or two or 10 per cent into their routine to help them out in the future.”

Town’s game against Port Vale was Winchester’s 400th league appearance throughout his club career, and he will hope he can go on to make many more, starting with the trip to Wycombe on Saturday afternoon.