Andy Barcham (right) celebrates with Stuart Lewis Picture: Matthew Reading

by Matthew Panting

You would have got long odds on the man Gillingham were looking to break down the Shrewsbury defence, doing his best piece of work inside his own penalty area.

But that’s exactly how the afternoon panned out for Gills dangerman Andy Barcham.

There were just 17 minutes left on the clock when Barcham raced back to deny Shrewsbury’s goalscoring midfielder Ben Davies a clear sight of goal.

It proved a turning point in the game and Barcham believes it helped drive his team to victory.

"It was vital at the time," admitted Barcham. "I remember it well because I spoke to John Nutter about it.

"They did a great bit of movement to get past us both and it confused me and John for a bit. But I was lucky as he had a poor first touch and it enabled me to get back in there.

"It was quite worrying at the time as I thought he was going to have a free shot at goal but after I cleared the ball I was then worried about whether the referee might have been in a poor line of vision and that he could have given a penalty.

"It helped us to push on more, it tightened us up at the back and it allowed us to go forward more and get the goal."

Barcham admitted he was frustrated by his own performance in the first half but was keen to leave Wembley knowing he had given everything he had.

"I was a bit frustrated in the first half as I didn’t see much of the ball," he said. "I’m not sure why but I got a lot more of the ball in the second half and did a few things I was happy with.

"I was pleased to get involved more in the second half because the last thing you want to do is leave Wembley having regrets.

"We had the majority of the game and deserved to win, although they did have a spell when they put us under pressure.

"We’ve been defending really well lately as a team and the back four were excellent – I couldn’t see them scoring. We got the result and I think it was well deserved."