Wayne Evans comes out of retirement

Former Welshpool, Walsall and Rochdale star Wayne Evans is coming out of retirement to help Newtown.

Evans, now a Shrewsbury Town coach, has agreed to pull on his boots again and will be in Andy Cale's decimated squad for the New Year's Day trip to Welsh Premier League champions The New Saints.

"Wayne signed as cover at the start of the season and agreed to help out should there be selection problems," said Cale. "Well we certainly have selection problems for the TNS game and it will be great to have him in the squad."

Evans spent five years at Welshpool before joining Walsall in 1993 and  went on to spend six years at the Bescot Stadium, making 229 appearances for the Saddlers, many of which were in Division Two.

One of Wayne's career highights was playing against his boyhood heroes Manchester United in the FA Cup 4th round, Although Man Utd got through to the next round, it was a dream realised for Wayne to be playing at Old Trafford.

However, he had a final season at Walsall plagued by injury and he was released in the Summer of 1999, and was quickly snapped up by Rochdale. He was one of Steve Parkin's first signings for the club, citing a desire to work with Parkin as one of his reasons for signing with the club.

Evans then spent time coaching in Canada before returning to Shrewsbury this season.

Newtown are unable to call on load midfielder John McKenna, alomng with Craig Whitfield and Sean Jones. All three joined from The New Saints with agreements that they would not play against their old club.

And to make matters worse Cale has Shane Sutton suspended and Marc Lloyd Williams unavialbe through work commitments.

The Robins train tonight for the first time in three weeks because of the weather and the manager will be keeeping his fingers crossed that there are no injruries.

"With so many games to catch up on during January it is important that we have a bigger squad so there will be arrivals next week, while the rest of the players have an opportunity to prove themselves in the next few games," added Cale.