Crewe v Scunthorpe United

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Football League One

Crewe :
Williams, Woodards, Baudet, O'Donnell, Moss, Lowe, Cox, Gary Roberts, Rix (Jack 75), Higdon, Varney
Subs not used:
Tomlinson, Pope, Carrington, Coo

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Mulligan, Crosby, Foster, Ridley, Sparrow (MacKenzie 83), Hinds, Goodwin, Taylor, Sharp, Beckford (Williams 83)
Subs not used:
Lillis, Butler, Hurst

SULSESC REPORT

by Neil Holland at The Alexandra Stadium

SOME people would call it chucking good money after bad.

Work colleagues just think you're insane as you book a half-day holiday.

In spite of this, for the second consecutive season, I found myself trekking up to the North West for a rearranged midweek game after wasting money on train tickets to the original fixture.

Last year was our own fault for gambling on United not making the fourth round of the cup, leaving us with unused train tickets and a Tuesday night trip to Port Vale.

This season, an aborted attempt to get to Crewe (leave Euston five minutes before a pitch inspection, get off at MK, switch platforms and back to Euston for a couple of pints in the Head of Steam) left us facing another midweek trip to the North West.

There's something about having already spent money on getting to a fixture that galvanises you to make an effort for the rearranged fixture (even if it does end up costing you twice as much).

So we found ourselves in Crewe on a Tuesday night for the battle of the top scorers, Billy v Luke Varney, Sharp’s nearest contender for the golden boot due to the dubious decision to include goals in the Johnson’s Painted Van Windscreen Trophy.

It'd been many years since I'd been to Crewe, so I was unprepared for the strangeness of a ground dominated by one stand. Opposite the side of the ground devoted to the away fans is a huge cantilever stand, towering above the rest of the ground and accounting for 70 per cent of the capacity. You can imagine how strange that looks...

As usual, the game started with pessimism. For the previous few games, I'd been tipping us to lose (on the basis that it all had to start going wrong soon, before the unthinkable P word became reality), and in a most un-Scunny way, they kept proving me wrong.

United fell behind thanks to a sharp interception from the referee, calmly putting his foot in to break up an Iron attack, and setting Crewe on their way for Varney to finish at the second attempt. Not good news for either Billy or United.

Continuing to buck tradition however, Scunthorpe were level within three minutes, Billy firing home as Crewe failed to clear Mulligan's cross. Better news.

It got better with a bit of magic from Beckford, just before the interval. After spending most of the half with us debating his undoubted talent versus inconsistency, he picked up the ball on the right hand side of the halfway line, ran with the ball before cutting inside, shifted the ball on to his left and curled a beauty past the ‘keeper.

A quarter of an hour after the break, things were wrapped up when Matt Sparrow produced a great cross for Sharp to head home his second, and could afford to spurn chances to clinch his first hat-trick for United.

A pretty comfortable performance overall, in which Sparrow underlined his worth to the team, returning from injury he proved that he's the most consistent, most dynamic and most creative midfielder we have.

And so on to Brentford. Away to a team in the relegation zone? That's bound to end our run...