Shrewsbury v Exeter City 

May 17: Although they tried hard enough the City were unable to put a damper on Shrewsbury's "promotion party" at the Gay Meadow ground on Thursday evening. The Shropshire side, needing one point to ensure promotion and victory to win the Third Division championship, proved themselves a team worthy of Second Division football next season, for they produced an irrepressible show which would have swept aside a more accomplished team than Exeter City.

Shrewsbury:- Mulhearn; King, Griffin, Keay, Larkin; Lindsay, Cross, Atkins; Tong, Biggins, Maguire.

Exeter City:- Main; Templeman, Giles, P.Roberts, Hore; Delve, Randell, Hatch; Neville, Pearson, Rogers.

Referee:- Mr K.McNally of South Wirral.

Shrewsbury won by 4-1, yet the final score paid scant regard to the City's contribution to a sterling game which never flagged. The capacity crowd of 14,414 had hardly time to settle before the Exeter defence was breached for the opening goal, headed by King as a result of a mistake by Main, who failed to clear a corner. But the City quickly demonstrated that they had not come all the way to Shrewsbury just for the ride, and in the fifth minute they stunned the big crowd to silence when a brilliant header by Delve flew past Mulhearn and into the net to bring the score level.

King, the home side's skipper, set the right sort of example to his men eight minutes later when he moved in on the blind side of the City defence, and his thundering header from Maguire's corner gave Main no chance at all.

Atkins with a penalty against Phil Roberts for a foul on Maguire got the next goal, and in the second half the game was put beyond the reach of Exeter, and the Third Division championship was decided, when Tong shot Shrewsbury's fourth goal with 12 minutes left.

A match report from Shrewsbury Archive