The Reverend Appleton’s curate’s egg.

21 April 2025: Northampton Town 4, Shrewsbury Town 1.

Northampton: Burge; Guinness-Walker; Magloire [Y] (Dyche [Y] 61’); Odimayo; Pinnock; Taylor; Perry [Y] (Hondermarck 69’); McGowan (Baldwin 69’); Roberts (Fosu 64’); Costelloe; McGeehan.

Unused substitutes: Brough; Tzanev; Wilson.

Shrewsbury: Blackman; Benning (Nurse 80’); Pierre [Y]; J Feeney; Hoole (M Feeney 80’); Biggins (England 89’); Gillead; Perry; Stewart (Loughran 89’); Marquis; Lloyd [Y].

Unused substitutes: Nsiala; Wheeler; Young.

Match officials: Referee – Mr Z Kennard-Kettle; Assistants – Mr M Webb & Mr P Kelly.

Attendance: 6,633.

When England’s cricketers toured Australia under Mike Gatting’s captaincy the warm-up matches prior to the first Test Match saw successive inept performances. The cricket correspondent of the Independent, Martin Johnson, wrote: “There are three things wrong with this England team: they can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.” After watching Salop at lose 4-1 at Northampton I can only echo this observation. There are two things wrong with this Shrewsbury Town side: they can’t score goals and they can’t defend. If a football team does have these two faults the result should be obvious – a season of sustained misery, the like of which we have rarely experienced before.

A couple of weeks ago I compared Michael Appleton to a missionary trying to bring nice passing football to a barren land. After the Wigan defeat Salop’s interim head coach suggested that although the task was daunting, taking it on had reignited the fire within him. Well, that inner fire might now have developed into an acute case of heartburn that even a large dose of Gaviscon will do little to relieve. (Other indigestion medications are available.)

No doubt somewhere in the sports media will have been reported that ‘Michael Appleton’s Shrewsbury’ had been relegated to League Two. It is something of an injustice to link Appleton’s name to this failure; this Salop team is the result of the work of others. In agreeing to organise a rudderless football team for the final nine matches of the season – although it was more of a five-week gig with a packed fixture list – he must have realised that there was very little he could do other that sketch out a roadmap for an alternative future. There was no time to go back to basics with the players, little point in concentrating on set pieces, so what Appleton has tried to construct is a prototype of what a Shrewsbury Town team under his tutelage might look like. As with any prototype, the result is a delegate construction, as the Northampton match more than demonstrated.

Injuries to Jordan Shipley and Dominic Gape forced Appleton into selection changes. (His options are becoming increasingly limited, to the extent that he is like a man trapped in a room where walls covered in sharp metal spikes are gradually, but inexorably, pressing inwards.) In a shape resembling the 4-3-1-2 that had been tried in the second half against Wigan, along with the two injured absentees George Nurse was moved to the bench, with Mal Benning, Harrison Biggins and Callum Stewart brought into the starting line-up. The young forward, being given a chance to show what he could do, paired up with George Lloyd in the forward line, with John Marquis having a moan-field general role behind them. (To be fair to Salop’s captain, in this match he was on his best behaviour.)

For the first quarter of the match Salop did everything that was required of them, and what we have come to expect over the last few games. A willingness to play the ball out from the back; some neat passing moves; attractive looking approach play that is blighted by a poor or sloppy last ball. In one telling move, the ball was played out by Jamal Blackman to Aaron Pierre; the central defender then attempted to spread the ball out wide, but his pass to Benning was so overhit that it flew out of play and smacked into a perimeter advertising board. This is indicative of trying to play a style of football that the team is not designed for and has not practiced with much earnestness until a few weeks ago.

One marked improvement was that Salop were playing with more width and were getting a lot more crosses into the box. All that was required was one of these moves to produce a clear scoring opportunity, and this chance being taken. Such optimism was cruelly squashed on twenty-six minutes when the home side were gifted a goal. Up till then, Salop had comfortably withstood all the Cobblers had produced; Pierre was clearing aerial challenges and Blackman pulled off a sharp save to block an effort from Cameron McGeehan. The home side had a free kick far enough up field not to be an obvious threat, but a deep ball into the box found an unmarked Aaron McGowan who lashed it into the net. Nearly half hour of respectable endeavour ruined by a basic error.

Still, Salop only needed one goal, one moment of quality, to put the match back in balance. Instead, they slipped on another banana skin. Blackman advanced out of his area to meet a hoof ball from the Northampton half. Trying to control the ball off his chest, the Salop ‘keeper managed to nudge it to Dara Costelloe, who was able to round the hapless Blackman and score with exaggerated ease. Instead of going into half time on level terms and with an encouraging forty-five minutes under their belts, Town’s players trooped off with a mountain to climb.

I have reached a point in life when not only do police officers look as old as school pupils, but I am watching football matches officiated by referees of an age that could make them my nephew. The referee for this match was Mr Zac Kennard-Kettle. Swiftly abandoning the thought that a Kennard-Kettle might be an appliance available from Argos (other catalogue retailers are available), it is interesting that this official is the offspring of an old friend of Shrewsbury Town, Mr Trevor Kettle. Kettle junior is certainly a small blast off the old whistle. I cannot resist visualising a teenage Zac unwrapping a birthday present from his father and finding a black shirt and shorts, shinny whistle and super accurate wristwatch. Looking up at dad, the young Zac stammers: “Does this mean you think a have it in me to be as inconsistent in my decision-making as you are?” “If you practice hard enough son, if you practice hard enough…”

For the opening of the second half Town once again shaped up reasonably well, sufficient for me to fantasise about them scoring a goal that might lift the contest a tad. Fat chance of that. On seventy minutes, Blackman made a hash of coming for a high ball into the box, parrying it straight to the feet of McGeehan who despatched it into the net with a composure that was entirely unnecessary. Into the last ten minutes and Salop contrived to concede a fourth goal, the defence allowing the ball to be played through them and end up at the feet of an unmarked Costelloe. The home supporters chanted: “We are staying up!” Town had been trounced by a team that had only just secured League One safety. In time added on Salop managed to score a goal of scant consolation from a corner kick, Pierre knocking the ball down to Marquis, who finished from close range. That this goal was the cause of some wild celebration is indicative its rarity value.

In his post-match interview Appleton looked like a vicar that had bashed his hand trying to hammer nail and was desperately attempting to hold back profanities because he was in female company. An old Punch cartoon shows a curate eating a boiled egg that is clearly off. “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad Egg, Mr Jones!” says the host. The curate replies diplomatically: “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent.” That essentially was the head coach’s reaction, parts of the performance were excellent, it was just that the bad bits had been awful enough to concede four goals.

Whether given nine or nineteen games it would probably be too much for any coach to turn round a squad that quite clearly lacks quality and a level of confidence that might mitigate this to some extent. In a strange way, I feel that we did not really want Appleton to turn this side into a team that was good enough to stay up but only after relegation had been confirmed. A significant number of Salop fans do seem prepared to make a leap of faith and trust in Appleton to redevelop the team in his own image. However, the man himself seems more hesitant than a week ago. At the end of his interview Appleton unleased what can only be called a zinger: “There’s a softness to this group; there’s an acceptance to this group that just makes my skin crawl. It literally makes my skin crawl!” Is this the moment to observe that most of the group are under contract for next season.