Shrewsbury Town are heading to Wembley after a 2-0 aggregate win over Charlton Athletic in the League One play-off semi-final and two Norwich City players have been at the heart of a remarkable turn around in fortunes for the Shrews.
Last season, they were battling relegation and thanks in no small part to the involvement of Carlton Morris and Ben Godfrey, the Shrews finished third this term, only narrowly missing out on automatic promotion behind Wigan and Blackburn Rovers.
Jon Nolan’s late strike in the first leg of this semi-final had sent Paul Hurst’s men into Sunday’s second leg with a slender lead but it was Morris who grabbed the glory as he scored with an excellent finish in the 58th minute to send Shrewsbury Town to Wembley.
It was Morris’ tenth goal of the season in his 53rd (!) appearance but he may have been a tad lucky to still be on the pitch after he flung an elbow at Patrick Bauer as the two chased a ball in the 16th minute. Charlton caretaker, Lee Bowyer later claimed he hadn’t seen it but to me, it looked like one of those “I’ve seen them given” moments, in terms of a red card.
Ben Godfrey meanwhile, picked up the man of the match award for another tireless, hard-working effort in his role as a defensive midfielder in the 1-0 victory.
I’ll confess to not having seen a lot of Ben this season but I did see him against West Ham in the FA Cup. I seem to remember that he picked up the same award in the 0-0 draw with the Hammers in the first game. He was superb that day too.
I’m not so sure that Morris has a long-term future at Norwich but Godfrey certainly does. He has all the attributes to be Alex Tettey’s long-term successor and I doubt he’ll be loaned out again next season.
Shrewsbury will play either Rotherham or Scunthorpe at Wembley in the final on 27th May, with their first semi-final game finely poised at 2-2.
OTBC