Crawley Town 0-5 Doncaster Rovers; 250 word match report

It’s rare you can justify paying £22 to sit in a marquee on the outskirts of Crawley. Thanks to the Rovers , tonight was that anomaly.

Here, Crawley Town delivered the worst performance from a professional football team I’ve seen in over a decade. Shambolic, disjointed and disinterested from the off; just eleven stooges for Rovers to feed off – the Washington Generals to Doncaster’s Globetrotters.

Rovers though were superb; Dean Furman underlined just how important his presence is in Paul Dickov’s 4-5-1 with an untiring box-to-box persistence that opened up the pitch for the rest of his team, particularly the wings, where both full-backs linked brilliantly with the tricky men ahead of them in a manner that’ll ensure Crawley’s defenders are still waking up in a cold sweat weeks from now.

The first half brought many chances, but contained just one goal; Andy Butler pouncing after a Crawley defender had kindly nodded the ball across his own box.

In the second half however it rained superb goal after superb goal. Richie Wellens touched home a Kyle Bennett cross to crown lovely interplay down Rovers’ left. 2-0. Nathan Tyson; set clear by Enda Stevens perfect through-ball, brilliantly lobbed the ‘keeper without breaking stride. 3-0. Harry Forrester’s low finish ended the ‘ole’s on a 237 pass attack. 4-0. Curtis Main curled the ball neatly into the far corner. 5-0.

An entertaining and professional Rovers performance which left Dean Saunders looking particularly surprised, but then since the operation he always looked particularly surprised.

by Glen Wilson