Shrewsbury Town saw their hopes of gaining automatic promotion from the Nationwide Conference suffer a massive blow as fellow high-fliers Aldershot Town secured a hard-fought, but thoroughly deserved 2-1 win at Gay Meadow.
In a fiercely-contested encounter that produced seven cautions and a 79th minute red card for visiting defender Chris Giles, goals from Jon Challinor and Roscoe D'Sane ultimately gave Aldershot victory.
Despite Duane Darby pulling one back for Shrewsbury 11 minutes from time - and a full six minutes of stoppage time being played, the visitors safely protected their lead to inflict upon the Gay Meadow side only their second home defeat of the season.
Both sides went into the game with much to prove - Shrewsbury still smarting from their FA Trophy defeat at arch-rivals Telford seven days ago - while Aldershot were keen to move their play-off bid back into top gear after a shock home reversal against Scarborough at the weekend.
Within five minutes the visitors quickly appeared to have last Saturday out of their system - Challinor neatly clipping the ball over Shrews keeper Scott Howie to give his side an early lead.
On nine minutes Shrewsbury player-manager Jimmy Quinn was forced into a reshuffle when teenage midfielder David Edwards was carried off with a rib injury to be replaced by fellow 19-year-old Lee Lawrence - who joined Shrewsbury on loan from Manchester United, where he was a member of last season's FA Youth Cup winning side.
Lawrence impressed, particularly in his forays forward from full-back, but the home side were unable to make much headway against a well-drilled Aldershot defence, and on 62 minutes found themselves with a mountain climb when D'Sane netted with a neat glancing header.
Darby scored with an angled drive to reduce the arrears and following an altercation with a number of Shrewsbury players as they sought to retrieve the ball quickly from the back of the net, Giles received his marching orders - but the ten men held firm to keep Shrewsbury at bay.