Gareth Ainsworth has scuppered Shrewsbury’s promotion dream once before. Tomorrow he hopes to do it again – this time as a manager.

A hotly disputed goal from Ainsworth, which led then Town boss Graham Turner to say “it wasn’t on the line, let alone over it”, earned Wycombe a 1-1 draw in March 2011 as the race for promotion in League Two reached its climax.

The draw helped Wanderers finish in the final automatic promotion spot one place and just a single point above Shrewsbury, who went on to lose in the play-offs.

“It was a huge mistake from the officials,” he said. “They thought it had crossed the line and gave the goal. Obviously if they say it’s crossed the line then we’re going to take the goal and that’s all I remember really.

“I know it played quite a big part in promotion that season but I don’t think it was the ending factor. Goal line technology would have been handy in League Two that day, especially for Shrewsbury.

“It was a terrible mistake from the linesman when you see the pictures. At the time we were all hoping it crossed the line and we were told it had so we took it as a goal although, looking back, it wasn’t.”

The two sides meet at Adams Park tomorrow once again locked in a battle to hold onto their places in the top three with just 11 matches remaining.

This time round the Shropshire outfit hold a single point advantage over the Blues, and Ainsworth says that they arrive in Buckinghamshire as the favourites to take all three points.

He said: “Coming back home with the unbeaten run back in place – we’ve taken eight points from the last four games which is a great return for us – and to build on that against someone like Shrewsbury would be great.

“Talking about promotion at this stage of the season, being up there with the big boys and playing promotion ties is brilliant. There’s no pressure.

“It’s probably a game that we’re the underdogs for. We’re in a lower place in the league and we’re a smaller club. We’ll get that fighting spirit out and try to pull something off on Saturday.”

Wycombe have defied expectations all season, having been tipped for the drop at the start of the campaign, and the Chairboys boss acknowledges that with the club still vying for promotion the fans’ expectations will be at their highest heading into tomorrow’s top of the table clash.

“They want to get promoted and having come down from League One they want to bounce straight back up. Whereas the expectancy on us wasn’t great it’s starting to build now,” he said. “There will be some Wycombe fans thinking that we should get promoted now, but day-to-day if they came in I’m not sure what they’d be thinking. My players know that we have no pressure on us and that’s important.”

Ainsworth added: “We want to build the club to be a sustainable, League One surviving club in five years. Not in one season. If it happens in one season the brilliant and we’re ahead of our plan, but focussing and keeping the plan in mind is really important.

“We don’t want to get to one year’s time or two year’s time and be in a terrible position. We’ll build and we’ll do it right, but, having said that, we’re going for promotion and we want to win on Saturday.”