As Derby County prepare for their play-off clash against Fulham, Max Lowe is preparing o overcome his first stop on the road to Wembley for the Sky Bet League One final.


The young Rams defender joined Shrewsbury Town on loan in January to bolster the defence in their battle to earn promotion. He has since made 12 league appearances for Salop to help them extend their season with a third-placed finish.

On the eve of the Rams’ clash with the Cottagers, Shrewsbury will face Charlton Athletic to give Lowe his first taste of play-off football.

He told dcfc.co.uk: “I’m really excited because it is a new experience for me.

“I’m really looking forward to being in that environment and a situation where you need to get a result.”

Shrewsbury’s home of New Meadow is a far cry from The Valley that has almost three times more capacity.

While the Derby academy graduate is no stranger to big stages, making 11 appearances for Derby in his first-team debut season last year before sustaining an abdominal injury, the pressure cooker of the play-offs will be an exciting new experience.

“We are all buzzing to play at Charlton,” Lowe said.

“It’s a big stadium and a lot of the lads don’t get to play at stadiums like it so it will be a really good experience in front of probably 20,000.”


Lowe played the full 90 minutes when his side took on Charlton two weeks ago. Despite the 2-0 defeat he explained Shrewsbury could be content with their performance.

By then, Salop had already cemented their place in the play-offs and used the latter part of the season to prepare for their ultimate goal.

“The gaffer mentioned before the [Charlton] game that we could be seeing them again in the play-offs, so try and pick up on the little things,” Lowe explained.

“What we took away from that game was their weaknesses that we can exploit. We are confident that we can go there and get a result on Thursday then hopefully do the same on Sunday at home.”

He added: “We’ve had about five games where we have been able to experiment with the squad and formation because we were comfortable in third.

“We are going up against a more physical side who play with more freedom, so we were just aware of who we were coming up against.”


Despite finishing higher than the former Premier League side, Shrewsbury are largely regarded as the underdogs. However, that is a status they welcome and have become accustomed to this season even though they have quietly churned out results throughout.

“We know that a lot of people don’t have us down as favourites, even when we were top or second,” Lowe said.

We use that as an advantage to go with the mindset of proving people wrong. The gaffer reminds us of that before every training session and on a game day.”

It’s a mentality that is close to home for the full-back. Derby County will look to star in their own underdog role on Friday at Pride Park Stadium as they take on Fulham.

Lowe will be in the crowd and has high hopes of winning a pair of promotions to cap off his season.

“That will be my day off so I’ll be there rooting for the lads and hopefully they can get the win,” he said.

“I’m backing them and I think on our day they can beat anyone. From what I have seen from the lads, we are more than capable of proving a lot of people wrong.

“It’s a similar situation to what I have here, we have just got to take it game-by-game, focus on the first leg, keep them quiet in certain areas and try to expose them.

“Two promotions would be nice, that would be the perfect ending to the season for me.”