Sam Ricketts seeking a historic Shrewsbury Town win at Ipswich

Sam Ricketts will motivate his players by urging them to write club history and be the first Shrewsbury team to win at Ipswich.

Sam Ricketts wants his side to write some Shrewsbury history (AMA)

Despite some heroic Gay Meadow FA Cup victories in the early 1980s, Shrewsbury have not won at Portman Road in 11 attempts.

And, should Ricketts lead his side to three League One points tomorrow, it will only be the second league victory over the Tractor Boys in 17 attempts – after Bernard McNally’s penalty winner in January 1987.

Ricketts is motivated by putting to an end barren runs of form and rewriting records. He was unaware of Shrewsbury’s poor history at Portman Road.

When told Shrewsbury had not won at Ipswich, the boss replied: “Good. I like things like that.

“The more records you can break means you are on the right path.

“You go through any successful season then you’re going to break records along the way.

“I’ve done it when we got Wolves out of League One, we broke three or four club records along the way – clean sheets, points, I can’t remember them all exactly.

“When you break records like that it means you’re doing something right and going in the right direction.

“It’ll be a good one to break and if we do that it means we’ll be coming away with three points.”

Ricketts took great pride in ending Town’s poor run of form at Peterborough United’s London Road last season, where Tyrese Campbell’s winner ended a 14-year barren run.

Town have not played at Portman Road since 1990 – and not in the league since 1989 – meaning a good number of Salopians are looking forward to tomorrow’s trip.

Ricketts, who has a number of injuries to contend with, not least this week’s revelation of Fejiri Okenabirhie’s hamstring injury, added: “Of course, it would be great to give the fans a performance. I’m confident we’ll be in a good place.

“We’re concentrating on ourselves and what we can offer to the game and what our threats and strengths are.

“We’ve proven in this league anything can happen. We’re going to probably the favourites for the league at their home in front of all their supporters but it’s something you look forward to.”

Paul Lambert’s side, who will be without Toto Nsiala (hamstring) and likely Jon Nolan (calf), are top of League One and unbeaten with three wins from five.

“Every team has areas of weakness,” Ricketts added. “It’s whether we can exploit it and whether we have the personnel to exploit it.”