Cheltenham Town 0-1 Shrewsbury Town

Jean Louis Akpa-Akpro's first-half strike secured promotion for Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury Town secured promotion to League One with a hard-fought victory at Cheltenham, who were relegated to the Conference as a result.

Jean Louis Akpa-Akpro brought down Mark Ellis's long ball inside the box to score the only goal of the game on 20 minutes with a deflected shot.

Goalkeeper Trevor Carson came close to equalising with a long clearance which almost caught out Jayson Leutwiler.

Cheltenham had a shot cleared off the line as they applied heavy pressure.

But Shrewsbury clung on to confirm promotion back to the third tier of English football at the first time of asking, having suffered relegation almost a year ago to the day.

Micky Mellon's side have been in prolific form in League Two, leading the division's scoring charts in the former Fleetwood manager's first season in charge.

Following Hartlepool's win against Exeter, which sealed their fate, Cheltenham return to the Conference 16 years on from being promoted to the Football League for the first time in 1999.

Shrewsbury manager Micky Mellon told BBC Radio Shropshire:

"It's been a really memorable day. This will stay in our memories for a very long time. You always have nervy moments but we do our best to disguise it.

"I knew how desperate our boys were to finally get over that line and we didn't want to just do it with a draw or scrape through.

"We wanted to do it with a victory and we can go into next week's home game trying to give it our best shot at winning the title.

"We all know how much Jean Louis Akpa-Akpro means to us and for him to get the goal is brilliant for him, but I'm delighted for the whole club."

Cheltenham boss Gary Johnson told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"Unfortunately the losers are less than professional sometimes. That's generally why a team gets relegated.

"There's a fitness level that professionals have to maintain. They have to live like professionals and act like professionals, and some of them found it very hard to do that.

"Hopefully the club's strong enough to come back quickly because it's got a good academy and it's got some good youngsters that wouldn't be ready this year but I'm sure will be ready next year.

"I hope to give the board of directors and the staff a good run down of how I've seen things. That's just what I've done with the players as well, and we'll see what happens after that."