Crewe Report Slight surprise when getting on the bus to find Gerald’s dog, riding up front. Bigger surprise when we let it do the map-reading when the A14 was closed, which led us to driving down country lanes narrower than the coach, whilst the locals tried to work out what a bunch of Leeds fans en route to Crewe were doing in Northamptonshire. Kev later admitted it was his fault.
Still once we left the countryside, and crawled through the roadwork's on the M6 we made Crewe and found a pub by 12.30. Wandering down to the ground the big stand looming in front of you looks quite impressive, but once you got round the other side the 3 other ‘sheds’ are less so, we’d really arrived in the Nationwide. In a way it’s rather like our ground, one big stand dwarfing all the others, just on a quarter of the scale.
Just the one expected change with a new signing (where exactly did that money come from) in for Walton, Gregan settled in well and kept it simple, and we quickly assumed control of the game. Despite controlling the game we’d only created a couple of clear chances in the first half , once where Richardson and Wright somehow contrived not to score after a scramble and another one where Richardson thrashed it over from the edge of the box when a side-foot into the corner would probably have sufficed.
Half-time I decided to not follow half the Leeds fans in having a piss behind the toilets and actually wait to go inside, a good decision as by the time I came out the police were rounding up the pissers.
First half Crewe hadn’t looked like scoring, a few minutes into the second half they had. A cross bounced around our area and for some odd reason Carlisle decided to handball it, no-one really bothered arguing about the inevitable penalty. For once I have confidence our keeper might actually save a pen now – unfortunately he didn’t.
I didn’t see the equaliser as Si was causing chaos by sitting in the wrong place, but I hear it was a Pugh tap-in after a goal-mouth scramble which appears to be becoming our favourite method of scoring.
It looked from this point that we should go onto win, but again we failed to really impose our authority and turn possession into good chances. Gregan was obviously tiring (it was his first game of the year) and should have been replaced by Spring. Instead Blackwell surprisingly decided to replace the lively Joachim with the lumbering Ricketts, to partner the erm.. lumbering Deane.
The game entered a scrappy phase and it looked like we might have to settle for a draw, then Crewe put together there first decent move of the game and Jones fired low past Sullivan. We then entered Robocop time as the police walked round in front of us in full riot gear despite there not having been the slightest hint of trouble during the match. What a waste of money indeed.
Again the Crewe goal stirred us into action, and we pushed forward again and after Wright and Crainey had cracked a couple over the bar, another cross was only partly cleared to the edge of the area and Pugh calmly ran onto it to hammer it into the bottom corner. Last minute McMaster got to the by-line and hit an excellent low cross across the face of the goal, unfortunately our 2 centre-forwards were both missing in action, both loitering on the edge of the area when a predatory centre-forward would be looking for the tap in.
Our sneaky plan to park up the road for a quick getaway back-fired somewhat when Painy got lost coming out of the ground and by the time we found him Crewe was empty. He can find his way around China and the Ukraine on his own but Gresty Road was obviously a culture-shock too far.
A game we should have won, Crewe were very average. In the end we were relieved to get a draw, we’ll need to win games like this if we are to achieve much this season.
Scores
Matt |
