Nsiala’s payback to father

SHREWSBURY defender Aristote Nsiala is desperate to reach the Championship and make amends to his wheelchair-bound dad.

Nsiala’s father, Phillip, is paralysed from the waist down after a tumour wrecked his nervous system, but he is coming to Wembley today.

Nsiala (below) wants to make up for lost time after his dreams unravelled when he was rejected by Everton as a kid. The Shrews star ended up taking two years out of the game as he didn’t fancy lower league football, before hitting rockbottom playing out in Vietnam. Now the highly rated 6ft 4in stopper, 26, is back on track and in demand.

Nsiala has excelled since first linking up with Shrewsbury boss Paul Hurst at Grimsby, then going on with him to New Meadow last year.

Looking ahead to today’s League One play-off final, Nsiala said: “It is a life-changing game.

“Dad has been looking at the table the whole season. It would be unbelievable to go up.

“He is definitely coming to Wembley. Winning would be some sort of making up to my dad, though it wouldn’t be close to what he has been through.

“He did all the travelling for me for training when I was a kid – and then he couldn’t do it anymore.

“I let my dad down a bit because of my attitude. I was the angriest kid on the planet really.

“After Everton I felt worthless and I had let everyone down. It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough, it was the fact I had messed up myself, and I was the only one to blame.”

Nsiala, born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, knuckled down and has been on the way up since a brief unhappy spell in Vietnam with Dong Thap FC.

He added: “I did a month or two. That made my mind up that I was going to come back and play football at whatever level, and just enjoy it.”