With Shrewsbury Town now looking for a manager after Gary Peters stepped down from his post the search now starts to find his replacement.

Managing Director Rob Bickerton has been taking the calls and emails from prospective candidates as Town prepare their shortlist for the man take the club forward.

ShrewsWeb spoke to Rob this afternoon to find the latest on the search for a new manager: "It came as a surprise to us when Gary left yesterday, when we all turned up for work on Monday morning there was an expectation that Gary would continue to be the manager.

"John McMahon has now been asked to look after team affairs until further notice.

"Now the applications have started to come in for the manager's post, and if my experiences from when we had a managerial vacancy at Macclesfield are anything to go by, by tomorrow evening we will probably have 60 or 70 applicants in.

"The job then starts of sifting through those applicants and seeing if we've had applications from those people that we may consider and then the process starts.

"I think we should all sit back slightly, it's not panic station mode and we need to do the process properly as we have no need to do anything in a rush. We have still got a good management team here with experienced people and have two games coming up on Saturday and then quickly after that on the Tuesday."

Some reports in the media have been quoted as saying the club is looking to have a new face in place but the weekend but Rob was quick to quash those reports: "There is no rush at all in my view and in fact the appointment of a manager is probably the most important position at a football club.

"It's not an appointment that you take lightly and one that you are doing hopefully for the long term.

"We have an ambition and we have spoken of building an infrastructure that can compete at a higher level and we want a manager that is going to be with us for that journey."

With John McMahon taking over first team duties it gives the club a bit of breathing space before they need to make a decision. This time will allow the board to look at all candidates to bring in the man who is best for the club: "I think we are in the fortunate position of having a clean sheet of paper.

"People ask me what type of manager we are looking for, what is the cut off date, this that and the other but we have the time to sit here and see what happens.

"One thing that is very apparent already is that Shrewsbury Town now that it has the new stadium and all the facilities that go with it is now a very attractive for potential new managers and the quality of candidates will probably be better than we have been able to attract in the past."