Lucky win

North End duly got into the third round of the F A Cup after a rather narrow 1-0 over Shrewsbury Town, Huntington's left footed strike from 12 yards settled the contest half way through the first half. A fairly even first half apart from the score line, an early one handed save by home keeper Stuckmann who kept out Collins goal bound shot set the tone. Within minutes Leutwiler had denied Gallagher down the other end in what was becoming a very open cup tie. The Shrews looked a decent outfit playing passing football with the flame haired Woods looking good in midfield.
A period of pressure brought what turned out to be the winning goal, a corner was not properly cleared and Huntington left footed blast would not have shamed a top striker. North End coped comfortably for the rest of the first half and although the visitors had a lot of the ball we did not look in trouble.
The second half was a different story as the Shrews dominated, it took the home side 20 minutes to realise they had not actually won the game, by which time the Shrews had had two efforts by Grant well saved by Stuckmann and a Collins effort cleared from the line by Buchanan.
It was the goal line clearance that finally brought a response from the home side and in one of their rare attacks into the Shrewsbury, Beckford was brought down in the area after a piece of comedy defending by the visitors keeper.
Gallagher's kick summed up the home sides second half performance, sliced horribly wide and appeared to hit a visiting fan in row 25 to the right of the goal.
It was end to end stuff by now as the visitors threw caution to the wind although it has to be said they created little. North End had chances at the end to win by more but in keeping with their second half performance they missed them all.

Preston North End 1 Shrewsbury Town 0 Att 6011