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Featured Sport News

Iron aim to tame Lions

Author: Sir David Smith
Date: 21/05/2009

Scunthorpe United bid to defy the football betting odds and make an immediate return to the Championship when they take on Millwall in the League One play-off final at Wembley.

The Iron's average crowds this season have been less than 6,500, more than 2,000 below Sunday's opponents, and they have one of the smallest budgets in the division.

Nonetheless boss Nigel Adkins has put together a team that plays attractive football with strike duo Gary Hooper and Paul Hayes weighing in with an impressive tally of 41 goals between them this season.

Adkins is confident that Hooper will shake off the injury that forced him to miss the second leg clash with MK Dons to feature at Wembley and United need his poaching instincts if they are to beat the Lions.

It will be Scunthorpe's second visit to Wembley this term but they will be hoping for better fortunes than last month's Johnstone's Paint Trophy appearance, when they lost to Luton Town, who will be playing in the Blue Square Premier League next season.

Millwall will start the game as favourites after beating Leeds United in the semi-finals and they are expected to have almost 45,000 fans cheering them on at Wembley.

They finished the regular season six points better off than Scunthorpe but will be aware that Adkins' team did the double over them this season.

At Glanford Park in October, the Lions were beaten 3-2 while, three months later at the New Den, Scunthorpe returned from the capital with all three points thanks to Hooper's brace in a 2-1 win.

Meanwhile, the League Two play-off final pits two teams together that have experienced life in English football's second flight - Gillingham and Shrewsbury Town.

The Gills spent five seasons in the second tier before suffering relegation at the end of the 2004-05 campaign and slumped into League Two last May.

However, Mark Stimson has stemmed the club's decline and, despite several spectacular early season defeats, a good finish led to them finishing fifth.

The acquisition of Simeon Jackson from Rushden & Diamonds has been a master-stroke with the 22-year-old finding the net 20 times this season, including a brace in the crucial play-off second leg win against Rochdale.

Shrewsbury were last summer's big-spenders and were expected to clinch an automatic promotion place, but only secured a play-off spot by winning at Dagenham & Redbridge in the last game of the season.

Paul Simpson's team won 17 of their 46 League Two matches this term, but only three of those came on the road.

However, they thrashed the Gills 7-0 in September when six different players got on the scoresheet.

The Shrews, who spent a decade in the second tier of English football before being relegated in 1989, but more recently spent the 2003-04 campaign in the Conference, drew 2-2 at the Priestfield Stadium thanks to a late brace by top-scorer Grant Holt.

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