Marked for Peter Mitchell
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Nov 2028
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Juma Bah and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
The manager makes an example of Will Boyle
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market13 Nov 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
A promise honoured for Juma Bah
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Shrewsbury Town told Juma Bah something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad13 Nov 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Shrewsbury Town can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Match11 Nov 2028
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Liam Brazier falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout28 Aug 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
The dugout28 Aug 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Transfer targets28 Aug 2028
The deal with Harrogate Town is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Bade Aluko was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Peter Mitchell is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2028
Shrewsbury Town asked and Accrington Stanley said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match26 Aug 2028
0‑2 to Bradford City, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Will Boyle was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.11 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Bade Aluko, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Shrewsbury Town will try again when the window opens; West Bromwich Albion may not be selling by then.
Market14 Feb 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shrewsbury Town is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Alex Gilliead has agreed terms with Swansea City for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Duncan Watmore was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Peter Mitchell gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Peter Mitchell has just signed for Shrewsbury Town, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bade Aluko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match12 Feb 2028
A 2‑0 win over Chesterfield, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.