Crawley news
|
|
|
|
FRINGE OFFERS |
 | |
|
|
|
FOOD ON FRIDAY |
|
| |
|
DOWNLOAD OF THE WEEK |
|
| |
| | WHAT'S ON | | | | |
| | GOING GREEN | | |
| | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | | | | |
| | COMMENT AND ANALYSIS | | | | |
|
|
|
Crawley could have run up a cricket score
Crawley manager Steve Evans reckons his team could have run up a cricket score against Blue Square Premier relegation fodder Stafford Rangers.
He was only slightly exaggerating, they could and perhaps should, have heaped embarrassment on former England and Wolves striker Steve Bull, whose arrival as manager at Stafford has come far too late to make the slightest difference.
Even after conceded a stupidly sloppy 12th-minute goal, having failed to cash in on a string of clearcut early chances, Crawley were far too good for Bull's flops.
Evans said: "That was as an authoritative away performance as you'll ever see. It could possibly have been the biggest away win the Conference had ever seen - we could have had a hatful. There were three memorable saves from the keeper in the second half.
"We gave a sloppy goal away with their only shot on target and we showed great character."
The error came from Kirean Murphy's back header, although his colleagues must share some of the blame as Nick Wellecome nipped in to slot the home side ahead. It was their first venture into Ashley Bayes' penalty box.
The visitors had turned things around by half time. Tyrone Thompson latched onto Thomas Pinault's 20th-minute through ball to equalise and eight minutes before the break, Mustapha Carayol forced his way through a couple of half-hearted defensive challenges to fire the visitors in front.
Stafford were reduced to ten men, ten minutes into the second half. Richie Sutton got the red card for bringing down Thompson as he was about to net his second of the match. And once Jamie Cook had smashed in the resulting penalty, it was a case of help yourself for Crawley.
Unfortunately, one man stood in their way - keeper Danny Alcock.
Bull handed out his manager's player of the season award to Alcock at the final whistle. You only needed to look at his performance in the second half to see why he got it.
During the latter stages, Crawley were threatening to run riot and only Alcock, it seemed, was prepared to stop them.
Pinault, substitute Ryan Hall and Cook, among others were all denied. Having already made a string of fine saves, Alcock made a super 84th-minute stop from Carayol, but just a minute later, he went one - or rather two - better. This involved a double point-blank save from Hull and Carayol, who were both on their own, in front of goal, with no defenders around.
In injury time, Cook rose to meet Carayol's cross and headed wide. It was a case of what might have been for Crawley but at least the points were in the bag.
Rangers: Alcock, Sutton, Flynn, Dodd, Mawene, Ingram (Street 46), Draper, Loukes, Reid (Daniel 46), Wellecomme, Grayson.
Subs not used: Allen, Hopkinson, Jarrett.
Crawley Town: Bayes, Wilson, Stevens, Murphy, Krause, Blackburn (Hall 58), Pinault, Bulman, Carayol (Carter 90), Thompson, Cook.
Subs not used: Barton, Thomas, Raynor.
What do you think?
4:55pm Sunday 20th April 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
