Wake treble condemns Shrewsbury to wilderness

Shrewsbury Town 2 Carlisle United 3

The team that famously beat Everton in the FA Cup in January will be playing Telford United in local derbys in the Conference this autumn after Shrewsbury's 53-year tenure in the Football League was snuffed out last night.

The survival specialists from Carlisle ensured at least another year of League football on the Borders, with Brian Wake playing himself into the territory occupied by Jimmy Glass, the on-loan goalkeeper who was the hero of their greatest escape, by scoring a hat-trick on either side of half-time.

Wake caught the Shrewsbury defence asleep on all three occasions after Town seemed to have given themselves a chance of taking their struggle into the last weekend of the season by snatching the lead through Nigel Jemson's penalty.

"Our defending has been atrocious all season," the Shrewsbury manager, Kevin Ratcliffe, said. "We've had to score three or four goals to win matches and you can't keep doing that.''

Watched by their biggest League crowd of the season, Shrewsbury at least gave themselves a decent start when Sam Aiston and Ian Woan combined to send Luke Rodgers into the penalty area and he was clearly tripped by Paul Raven.

Jemson, the man who scored both goals against Everton what must seem like half a football lifetime ago, side-footed his kick past Matt Glennon, but it was all downhill from there.

Four minutes later Craig Russell's free-kick skidded off Peter Wilding and Wake, a former Tow Law striker who knows all about life in the lower leagues, was there to start Shrewsbury's slide.Within another 90 seconds, he won a tackle on the edge of the Shrewsbury penalty area and exchanged passes with Ryan Baldacchino to skip past Mark Cartwright for his second and Shrewsbury had the look of a side expecting the worst.

Four minutes into the second half Wake made sure it would be Shrewsbury's funeral with Ritchie Foran jumping for a long clearance and Carlisle's latest survivalist going through the middle of a porous defence once more.

At an increasingly grey and grim Gay Meadow, the most Shrewsbury could raise by way of defiance was for Ryan Lowe to get himself sent off for gesturing a head-butt in the direction of Mark Summerbell just two minutes after he had come on as a substitute. He would have got little sympathy from Ratcliffe, who described him as "an idiot''. "It's hard enough with 11 men never mind 10."

The home side did manage what could be their final goal in league football, a dipping volley from the edge of the area by Rodgers that was quite out of character with most of their play.

Shrewsbury Town (4-4-2): Cartwright; Thompson (Moss, 51), Wilding, Murray, Holt; Aiston, Hulbert, Tolley, Woan (Watts, 55); Jemson (Lowe, 66), Rodgers. Substitutes not used: Artell, Jagielka.

Carlisle United (4-4-2): Glennon; Birch (Shelley, 67), Raven (Andrews, 33), Murphy, Maddison; Baldacchino, McCarthy, Summerbell, Russell; Foran, Wake. Substitutes not used: Keen (gk), McGill, Farrell.

Referee: B Curson (Hinckley).