crawley town v torquay united - 3/3/12

[yellow]

The 451 must have travelled more in hope than expectation, and victory is always sweeter in those circumstances, and particularly so against the fat cheat and his sidekick.

However I found it a dispiriting experience in many ways that was ultimately salvaged by the result.

I think there was a nice stand to our right but I couldn’t see it, as we were penned into the corner. So the view you get is poor and the impression is of a conference ground with little atmosphere.

This after trying to pay cash but having to go and queue for a ticket for 15 mins. As Jeff says what a waste of time. And then the farce with increasing our space after kick off. “Disgrace to the football league” bellowed the Yellow Army. And as we know they are good judges!

The game was very unremarkable, played as it was on a poor surface with incompetent officials.

How Creepy have regressed since I saw them at Plainmoor. That day they looked cast iron for promotion with a performance of pace, power and purpose. Today they were flat and tentative. I was pleased to see Torres on the bench and Barnett who had looked the business at HQ had moved on along with Tubbs.

One thing I do disagree with you about Jeff is the performance of Morris. I thought he was worse than woeful. And I do think that we had a stand out performer. That is Bobby. He oozes confidence and breeds it in the defence around him. I don’t think it is a co-incidence that our league position is founded on these 1-0 wins.

[ferrarilover]

A delightful report Jeff, but a shame to read that you weren't impressed with Jarvis. He sounded as though he got involved well all time he was on, his name was mentioned lots.
As for the performances of the others, based purely on the radio commo (which I'm aware counts for feck all, but I'll say it anyway), it sounds as though Ellis and McDonald were unbeatable at the back. I lost count of the number of times I heard "Headed away well by Mark Ellis" come out of the wireless, it must have been 30 at least.

The disappointment was Rene Howe. I shall leave Morris out of it because 'performance' is subjective. However, what is not subjective is shots on:shots off target ratio and I'm afraid, Mr Howe, yours today of 0:300 is not good enough. Did he hit the target at all today?

Anyway, that aside, we have won a game which we all had down as a home banker and that is a bonus. Now on to a series of easier looking games before we have to play Swindon at their place. Have a look at our remaining fixtures and tell me we can't win auto promotion from this division this year.

Matt.

[gullintwoplaces]

So pleased to beat fatty and cheat. I didn't expect this at all. It is wonderful to be pleasantly surprised week after week. Martin Ling and the team should be really proud to have beaten a side that has had so much money thrown at it.

[Jeff]

Its not that I was unimpressed by Jarvis, he just wasn't stand-out impressive like say Bodin was on his debut at dagenham. He did work hard, won quite a bit in the air, however he did lose the ball a couple of times needlessly and like I said did spend long spells "MIA".

As for Howe, no I don't think he did hit the target all day. He had 3 half decent efforts which were all off target. Second half twice he got in behind but his touch took him further away from goal and the chances went. He also did a complete air-kick when a cross was put in along the ground which had he connected would have gone in, and a number of times when we crossed high, he didn't even jump or move for the ball. He looks a shadow of the player earlier on the season.

Yellow - yeah I see your point about Morris. He wasn't fantastic, sometimes its too easy to get wrapped up in a good team performance and forget those below par

[UpminsterGull]

First game I've got to for a while but the most enjoyable for ages.
Enjoyment doubled as it was Crawley we beat.
Not much of a game but pitch must take a lot of blame for that.
Great support.
As soon as I got in the ground I could see they hadn't given us enough space. Given league positions 400+ was not unexpected and Crawley should ahve known that & been prepared.
Completely unecessary to have such a large gap between home & away fans anyway.
Tin pot club who don't deserve to be in the league - hopefully the money will run out & their bubble will burst.

[CP Gull]

Can't wait for Evan's humble post-match interview, where he compliments Torquay for a well-deserved victory and admits that we were the better team on the day.

I think you might have a long wait! Sore loser that he is, I've noticed that on the few occasiosn that they lose he doesn't tend to give post match interviews - he always sends Raynor out and it was him that was interviewwed by the BBC.

Like the sore loser that he (also) is he didn't even mention our name in his 3+ minute interview and all he taked about was how poorly they played. I guess to give us any sort of credit was just too much for him.

Not to worry, we did our talking on the pitch and how sweet does it feel to have got tht result tonight. Bleddy fantastic boys, keep it up.

[oxgull]

Well done you yellows!!! What a massive 3 points that is. Got in the car at 5 to 5 and thought we had drawn 0-0 as my radio packed up and didn't hear about Eunan's winner. When it was read out I nearly ran into a ditch!!!! Portable radio packing up and not car radio BTW. I caught nowt fish wise on a very low and sluggish river Cherwell so the result from the airport was just great. Excellent result again the slim one and his ever so honest sidekick. Wonder if his eye liner ran at the end???

[ferrarilover]

First game I've got to for a while but the most enjoyable for ages.
Enjoyment doubled as it was Crawley we beat.
Not much of a game but pitch must take a lot of blame for that.
Great support.
As soon as I got in the ground I could see they hadn't given us enough space. Given league positions 400+ was not unexpected and Crawley should ahve known that & been prepared.
Completely unecessary to have such a large gap between home & away fans anyway.
Tin pot club who don't deserve to be in the league - hopefully the money will run out & their bubble will burst.

Come on you lot, surely you must know Cheaty Crawley well enough by now to realise that to squish us all up then move us right at kick off was deliberate. Doing anything they can to upset and unsettle the opposition. They're not interested in sport, they're interested in money and that means doing everything and anything to get promotion to earn more money.
Do you not think they could pay to have the finest pitch in the land? Do you not think, therefore, that any decision not to do so must be in some way in their best interest? They know that on a top drawer surface, they will get out played and their niggling and long ball and cheating will be less effective, because top teams will play round them.
CTFC aren't stupid, every single thing they do is deliberate. My only hope is that one day, they get Millwall or Leeds in the cup, all their nutters turn up and do hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage to that shithole Cheaty have the cheek to call a Football League ground, that'll teach them to give a little more consideration to their visitors.
Do not be surprised to hear stories of the water in the away dressing rooms being freezing cold, or of the fire alarms going off at 0300 in the visiting hotel. Cheaty are scum and they simply don't care.

Matt.

[Neal]

Do you all remember when we were in the conference and Evans complaining about our high budget and that it wasnt fair.

He now has one himself and surprisingly not a word. I couldnt beleive on 5 live a few weeks ago some clown from some managerless championship club depserate to get evans and co in. Well if you want to cheat your way to the top go ahead but not for me.

Gee, its a f ing lot easier to put a good team together if you have more money than everyone else. Infact anyone could do it!.

I wouldnt want him at Torquay for anything, even if it gauranteed prommotion. They are cheats, always have been and always will be, and they should be driven out of football.

Cant stand either of them, if we all cheated like that the game would be ruined!

[ferrarilover]

According to Dinger post match, it seems likely that Danny has broken his ankle. Damien Davey isn't convinced, but either way, it's weeks and months, not hours and days. Could this be a prime opportunity for us to bring in young Nathan Craig? We have lobbed on a 19 year old today for his league debut and he has played a blinder. Our other debutant was also pretty good, so I don't see the harm in giving Nathan a start and seeing what happens. If it all goes tits up, then whack him off for Jarvis, who knows, we might just unearth the next Ryan Giggs.

Matt.

[Trojan 67]

[quote="ferrarilover"]According to Dinger post match, it seems likely that Danny has broken his ankle. Damien Davey isn't convinced, but either way, it's weeks and months, not hours and days. Could this be a prime opportunity for us to bring in young Nathan Craig? We have lobbed on a 19 year old today for his league debut and he has played a blinder. Our other debutant was also pretty good, so I don't see the harm in giving Nathan a start and seeing what happens. If it all goes tits up, then whack him off for Jarvis, who knows, we might just unearth the next Ryan Giggs.

Matt.[/quote]


BBC Sport link added
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17162994" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Neal]

Was it the f*cking pitch!

[Trojan 67]

Was it the f*cking pitch!

It appears that is was.

[Neal]

Bet Evans is laughing, sort of guy he is.

[Sexy_Gulls]

Get in!!
Brilliant defensive performance today. Gave Crawley nothing all game, though the Ref was inclined to help them out at every opportunity, took our chance when it came and stuck it to that fat cheating scumbag and his mercenaries.

I am sure there are some loyal Crawley supporters who love their club and follow them as fans of other clubs do, but I suspect that the majority of home fans just go for the novelty of seeing live football every week. There were certainly locals in the away end and two gents in the ticket crew behind me decided to stand with us. It's perfectly fine for locals to go watch Crawley play as a Saturday diversion, but its obvious by the lack of noise that they don't really care about the club, and why would they?

I agree with ferrarilover that everything Crawley do is to gain some kind of advantage. Dodgy pitch stopping better passing teams, screw around with the away fans. But today for once we managed to rise above their gamesmanship and earn a very hard fought 3 points. Our strength is our teamwork and commitment that all the players show, this win clearly meant so much to all of them especially those who've been beaten by Crawley many times before.

MacDonald was amazing, haven't seen such an assured debut for some time. Hope he keeps his place ahead of Brain Saah.

Bit worried about Rene Howe, he was very poor again and is showing none of the swagger that he did before his suspension. The problem is that he doesn't have fast wide players to flick the ball on to so when he gets the ball he can only play it sideways. Rene is too slow to play off the shoulder of the last defender so he plays with his back to goal, which he is very good at, but it means that we often have no-one in the box. I'd like to see the two wide players play much higher up the pitch so Rene can play the ball forward and then hopefully catch up, if he ever does some running.

Morris was pretty rubbish as well. He is a intelligent player who is often in the right place, it's just that he looses concentration and makes stupid mistakes. He helps Nico out very well, so maybe Nico should help Morris out when going forward as he is never going to beat the fullback.

Jarvis seemed pretty anonymous, but showed lots of effort. Hopefully it will become clearer what his strengths are, not sure if he is a winger or another target man.

Their no 7 (Clarke?) is a disgrace. He won a freekick by holding Oastler's arm then slowly lowering himself to the floor, he dived after MacDonald shielded the ball out and another unsuccessful con saw him leap up and run at the ref.

Anyway we did them. Finally. A very professional performance against a side who normally get under a skin.



P.S. Is there anything the club can do to complain against that pitch? Surely there are some regulations and it's just done for Stevens's ankle as well as McFazdean.