Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill believes fans made big difference in win over Port Vale

It was a noisy afternoon at Montgomery Waters Meadow which saw the highest crowd of the season so far with more than 8,500 fans in the stadium to see Shrews beat Port Vale 3-2.

The away end was sold out too behind the goal bringing 1,622 supporters with them from Stoke, but the Town boss has said the home supporters were brilliant, and he thanked them for it.

"I thought they were brilliant today, I have to mention them," Cotterill said about the home fans.

"I always dread it when a team comes here, and they sell all of the away end out, I always dread it.

"I hate it that teams can have their supporters behind that goal, and I would rather our supporters be that end if anything.

"Whatever happens, it always seems like the wind blows that way in this stadium, so I would rather our fans be that way helping to suck balls in than the opposition.

"But I thought today the three sides of the ground, which I asked to be very noisy, and a big thanks to them because we got that.

"Having almost 7,000 in here makes a big difference."

It was another brilliant victory for Cotterill's men, who have won every League game since their defeat to Fleetwood on New Year's Day.

The visitors did take the lead when Dennis Politic headed beyond Marko Marosi in the 13th minute.

But Shrewsbury bounced back with goals from Chey Dunkley, Luke Leahy and Killian Phillips before the break.

Jamie Proctor was introduced at half-time by Darrell Clarke, and he scored shortly into the second period to make it a nervy end to the game, but Town defended resolutely and saw it out with relative ease.

Cotterill said it is all credit to his players, again, for another three points.

He said: "At the end of the day it is just all credit to the boys, I think they deserve a lot of credit for how they apply themselves.

"When you have two of your back three sat in the stands as well I always felt we might concede, when you disrupt a back three with two-thirds of it not playing it is very difficult.

"I always felt they could score today, not just because it was Port Vale but whoever we had played against because you are chucking a back three together again.

"And they did really really well today, changing it around it is can be very difficult.

"The boys showed what they show every week which is a great character, great determination, and when you look at it, we had some good chances as well to score more than three goals.

"But we will take the 3-2 win, they beat us over at their place 2-1 but we will take the win here.

"We did not start both halves very well, I thought we created our own problems at the start of the first half, we spoke about it at half-time but sometimes it is easier to speak about than it is to do it.

"But once we got a grip of it, we could have scored another goal or two in the first half.

"When they get the goal, we have got to make sure we are ultra-disciplined with what we do."