FA Cup 4th Round - Torquay United vs Crawley Town

[Scott Brehaut]

Totally gutted. Very little passion from us at all today and only really bevs can hold his head high.
Couldn't believe the ref - he really fell for every trick Crawley pulled off. Seems like I am going against the grain here but I thought that Zebs was ok until his sending off. Was a creative outlet on the wing - certainly created more that Danny did.

I am more gutted that we lost to fat pat and his arse of a sidekick.

Gonna be a long trip home.

[shaunicus]

Gutted. That's the only word for it.

First of all, credit to the large number of Crawley fans who made the trip down today. I've got no ill will towards them and the fans I spoke to in the pub before the game came across well. Genuinely hope you enjoy the moment and you're the people I'm happy for.

First half both teams were pretty flat and nervous. There were a couple of long range pot shots here and there but understandably the occasion probably got to both sides a bit and no-one wanted to make a mistake. We soon put that right though. Ball over the top, centre-backs caught ball-watching, Tubbs finishes. 1-0 Crawley.

I knew what was coming second half. The ref had proved himself to be a bit whistle happy in the first half, and with a home crowd beginning to get frustrated, it was even more obvious. Timewasting, gamesmanship, and underhanded tactics - this is a Steve Evans side, afterall. And that's exactly what we got.

Players going down after the slightest bit of contact? Check. Time-wasting? Check. Players going down with cramp/walking to the otherside of the pitch as their number went up to get subbed? Of course. Manager encouraging his centre-backs to elbow a player with an already broken nose? Sadly, yes.

But this is what he does, isnt it? Personally it's not the way I'd like to win a football match, but there you go. Evans loves a siege mentality - us against the world type stuff.

Fair play to Crawley, on balance I have to say they were the better side today and should have been out of sight a lot earlier than they were had they not missed two penalties. But please, let's not call this an heroic, brave effort as I'm sure many will describe it. Much has been said about Crawley and their big budget but judging on what I saw on the pitch today Crawley's squad should be pretty ashamed of themselves for their on-field antics. I'm not expecting much of it to be mentioned though because that just doesnt fit with the plucky non-league underdog story, does it?

[ctfc4ever]

Sour grapes eh? You lost end of! After watching that I think TUFC stands for Thugs United FC. Pre match brief to your defender Ellis ...."Don't play football just stop Tubbs" Amazed he stayed on the pitch. If that's League 2 football nor sure we want any of it. Loads of crap about budgets etc it wasn't that long ago that we had the annual humiliation of points deduction, administration etc. In fact it's that not long ago we were playing Tiverton. Lots of people want to pee on our party but we don't care .cos we are still parting. See you next season.

Come on you reds!

[Fonda]

Sour grapes eh? You lost end of! After watching that I think TUFC stands for Thugs United FC. Pre match brief to your defender Ellis ...."Don't play football just stop Tubbs" Amazed he stayed on the pitch. If that's League 2 football nor sure we want any of it. Loads of crap about budgets etc it wasn't that long ago that we had the annual humiliation of points deduction, administration etc. In fact it's that not long ago we were playing Tiverton. Lots of people want to pee on our party but we don't care .cos we are still parting. See you next season.

Come on you reds!

No sour grapes here. We got what we deserved. What you have here is frustration, because we didn't give you the contest we should have done.

[yellow]

Well we got what we deserved.

We were out thought and out muscled by a team that is clearly more than a non-league outfit.

That being said the sight of Benyon flicking the ball on to..... well no one was just plain frustrating. At least the introduction of Puffing Billy injected some purpose to proceedings but I am afraid that we were very much masters of our own downfall.

What an opportunity wasted.

As for a 15 minute delay due to crowd congestion. That made the club look amateurish again.

[Northumbergull]

ctfc4ever

We play football in League 2, not the soccer (diving, time-wasting etc) you lot play!

We were crap today, but you'll get your cum uppance if you ever crawl out of the Conference.

Cheers

Bruce

[royalgull]

ctfc4ever- yeh right, well it's a handy username because '4ever' with Crawley will be about 4 years until those days of administration and points deductions are back again. Because there is no way a club your size can sustain the money that you are chucking around on what has to be said mainly average players.

That's not sour grapes that's what I've seen, today there was no difference between the sides mainly and Tubbs alone cost more than our entire squad, I imagine both teams weren't at our best. Bevan had to save 2 penalties in the game, but in open play neither keeper has had to make many saves today.

Tubbs is your one genuine class player, Torres had a decent game as well to be fair but Tubbs was an excellent signing and he took his goal very well. Be interesing to see if you can hang onto him, i'd imagine you will for the rest of the season but the summer will prove interesting.

i would say Evans knows what to expect in the league, his Boston side mucked around the bottom end of the division before he stole their money.

i think you'll do quite well, when you consider you've spent more this season than all of League 1 and League 2 COMBINED you ought to do quite well. Your a non league team in name only, but you'll always be a non league club.

Good luck in the next round, hope you draw orient.

[Dave_Pougher]

STEVE EVANS,

Mention the name, you know what sort of game your in for. You know it, I know it so why didn't Bucks?

I'm not looking for witch hunt here but the only surely the only thing Evans must have been worried about for the whole 90 mins must have been "this can't be It they must have a secret suprise happening any second, what's it to be ?"

All week I was looking forward to the game wondering the same, would it be three strikers or two? Get ahead then revert to just two strikers because we wouldn't play the game with just one injured striker surely.

WE DID,

HERE ENDTH THE LESSON

[Dave_Pougher]

Sour grapes eh? You lost end of! After watching that I think TUFC stands for Thugs United FC. Pre match brief to your defender Ellis ...."Don't play football just stop Tubbs" Amazed he stayed on the pitch. If that's League 2 football nor sure we want any of it. Loads of crap about budgets etc it wasn't that long ago that we had the annual humiliation of points deduction, administration etc. In fact it's that not long ago we were playing Tiverton. Lots of people want to pee on our party but we don't care .cos we are still parting. See you next season.

Come on you reds!

GOOGLE BOSTON

[SuperNickyWroe]

Sour grapes eh? You lost end of! After watching that I think TUFC stands for Thugs United FC. Pre match brief to your defender Ellis ...."Don't play football just stop Tubbs" Amazed he stayed on the pitch. If that's League 2 football nor sure we want any of it. Loads of crap about budgets etc it wasn't that long ago that we had the annual humiliation of points deduction, administration etc. In fact it's that not long ago we were playing Tiverton. Lots of people want to pee on our party but we don't care .cos we are still parting. See you next season.

Come on you reds!

i do think you also need to take a look at your players.

ellis didnt kick tubbs all game. in fact tubbs should have been sent off for kicking out after the ball had had gone!

and to be honest, you are reading posts from a lot of disappointed gulls fans - disappointed in the fact they didnt do themselves justice. as torquay fans we know and have seen the team play better than today.

at the end of the day, you had one clear chance and stuck it away. thats football. well done for that.

but i will say that you wont get away with the time wasting and "sniper in the crowd" falling to the floor in league 2.

[Boom Boom]

F

[ctfc4ever]

Our accounts security must be really bad, you seem to know as much about our finances as Luton and the plastic wombles. Still, just to cheer you all up I will now help the West country economy by drinking some cider (seeing as you won't be getting any income any from increased attendances, FA prize money after your display today). We will probably get Brighton away now at their crap athletics stadium!

[MidDevon]

Let's face it, that was a crap game.

Crawley could not put 3 passes together, but the problem was we could not put 2 passes together. You could see why Crawley struggle against the better conference teams.....and thankfully they still have loads of "top of the table" matches remaining, so hopefully they will slip up.

Certainly the Crawley team we saw today would not grace league 2 next season, certainly the likes of Gillingham last week would have taken them apart with ease.

Had we managed a late equaliser, I would have been confident of the reply, but it was not to be and we must move on quickly.

[royalgull]

Surely you'd welcome playing Brighton? Derby game. Are they even still in it?

Teams that average 1200 a game can't afford the players you have. Obviously you've got some money men who are happy taking a loss, it's how long they'll do that, probably as long as you are winning. It's not sustainable by the club itself. It's when they leave because people like this don't stick around forever. You look up in Scotland at Gretna, a club that Brooks Mileson poured money in, took from the bottom to the top, he poor bloke got ill and died and what happened to Gretna. Their club on measly gates couldn't afford to run. Not saying that exact scenario will happen at Crawley, i hope it doesn't of course! But it's an example of what happens once the the wallet gets closed by the outside investor.

There's loads of other examples of people spending money that the club doesn't actually have elsewhere, Leeds, Portsmouth, Bradford etc etc. Obviously yours is on a smaller scale but yours would take a lot less to cause you similar problems.

I will watch with interest, no malice here but I will genuinely be interested to see where Crawley Town is at in 5 years time. If it's where I imagine you'll be there won't be too many people in the football circle as it were crying too many tears.

[Boom Boom]

Shaunicus hits the nail on the head. Sums it up perfectly, don't think either set of supporters can argue with his post.

I can take defeat, but the way Crawley conducted themselves was very unsporting to say the least - Rayner's "Give him one of them" moving his elbow was absolutely disgraceful. Pathetic.

On to the game, Ellis had a shocker. Zebroski too. Torres, Tubbs etc went down FAR to easily but along with the 2 clowns on the touchline it looked like they wouldn't stop at anything to win.

Danny Bulman's another that should be ashamed of himself, jumping around like a wild chicken before Tubbs penalty, clearly berating Benyon & being an all-round knobber.

In a way glad Nicholson's swerving shot hit the bar as couldn't possibly endure another 90mins + of what I witnessed today.

Good Luck to Crawley, no doubt we'll see you next season - there isn't no chance of us being promoted with performances like that & to be honest we should be worried about relegation with such tactics!

Rant over & bitterly disappointed but overall no complaints about the result as we quite frankly deserved nothing.