FA Cup 4th Round - Torquay United vs Crawley Town

[andygull]

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!

Go and copulate with your mum you waste of space

[Northumbergull]

I ain't got a problem with buying a team.

My problem is the tactics on show today. Diving, play-acting, time-wasting etc. These are the reasons I stopped taking an interest in the "higher" leagues years ago. In fact, I don't actually follow League Two anymore, just TUFC, and hope we don't succumb to too much of this sort of blight.

If we do go this way then, heaven forbid, I might even call it a day on footy all together as it will have become something other than the game I know.

TUFC will become just a set of fond memories for me made up of determined grit and endeavour with a good dose of fair play thrown in for good measure. The game will have truly become the modern adaptation known as soccer and we'll talk about football as a game that was played in former times.

There is still time to turn around...

Cheers

Bruce

[Enzo]

Wow......somebody tell me that I have just had a bad dream - one where TUFC are shown up as a complete shambles on and off the pitch. I think Bucks and the players got lost in the hype of this and we didn't turn up. It was obvious what an Evans side would do and we fell for it - we completely lost our discipline.

Forget the ref, forget the time wasting, forget the gamesmanship - Crawley did a job on us and were better than us all over the park......Bevan excluded - his two penalty saves were top drawer. I can't pass judgement on their keeper as he had nothing to do all match.

Paul Buckle got this wrong today - woefully wrong.....about as wrong as he got the Exeter Play offs a few years ago. We stood off Crawley and defended so deep we could have had a dip in Torquay Swimming Pool. Crawley however mauled us and never allowed us a second on the ball from start to finish. Benyon was isolated and ineffective, the only time Zebs controlled the ball cleanly was with his hand when he got sent off. O'Kane had a an off day by his high standards and it showed how much the team's creativity relies on him. Ellis and Branston were given a torrid time at the back. I have never seen a Torquay team lose it's discipline in such a way - at one stage O'Kane rugby tackled one of their players, the ref played an advantage and then Stevens kicked lumps out of the same player. Yes, the Crawley players made the most of things, but we lost our heads.

It will be a real test of Bucks, the players and the fans to pick ourselves up for Tuesday. Although this was a financial disaster we should keep things in perspective. This game was never a "day of destiny" as some fans seem to think. It would have been great to make history and the cash could have changed the next few seasons, but the FA Cup run has been a bonus which I doubt was budgeted for. When compared to the Cambridge Play Off game this pales into insignificance. Had we not won that I doubt we'd have ever made it back into the league. Crawley were better than us today and I wish them well, but even with their decent squad, lofty league position and temporary wealth I wouldn't trade our postition with theirs. I value our league status too much - they will probably come up, but the BSP is a tough league to get out of.

[Fonda]

Wow......somebody tell me that I have just had a bad dream - one where TUFC are shown up as a complete shambles on and off the pitch. I think Bucks and the players got lost in the hype of this and we didn't turn up. It was obvious what an Evans side would do and we fell for it - we completely lost our discipline.

Forget the ref, forget the time wasting, forget the gamesmanship - Crawley did a job on us and were better than us all over the park......Bevan excluded - his two penalty saves were top drawer. I can't pass judgement on their keeper as he had nothing to do all match.

Paul Buckle got this wrong today - woefully wrong.....about as wrong as he got the Exeter Play offs a few years ago. We stood off Crawley and defended so deep we could have had a dip in Torquay Swimming Pool. Crawley however mauled us and never allowed us a second on the ball from start to finish. Benyon was isolated and ineffective, the only time Zebs controlled the ball cleanly was with his hand when he got sent off. O'Kane had a an off day by his high standards and it showed how much the team's creativity relies on him. Ellis and Branston were given a torrid time at the back. I have never seen a Torquay team lose it's discipline in such a way - at one stage O'Kane rugby tackled one of their players, the ref played an advantage and then Stevens kicked lumps out of the same player. Yes, the Crawley players made the most of things, but we lost our heads.

It will be a real test of Bucks, the players and the fans to pick ourselves up for Tuesday. Although this was a financial disaster we should keep things in perspective. This game was never a "day of destiny" as some fans seem to think. It would have been great to make history and the cash could have changed the next few seasons, but the FA Cup run has been a bonus which I doubt was budgeted for. When compared to the Cambridge Play Off game this pales into insignificance. Had we not won that I doubt we'd have ever made it back into the league. Crawley were better than us today and I wish them well, but even with their decent squad, lofty league position and temporary wealth I wouldn't trade our postition with theirs. I value our league status too much - they will probably come up, but the BSP is a tough league to get out of.

Nail hit squarely on the head.

[SuperNickyWroe]

Nail hit squarely on the head.

agreed - when all the fuss dies down we will still have our league status.

its just disappointing, but thats football.

[Fonda]

Can only imagine how the Japanese fella feels. Travels a third of the way around the world to watch that. It was bad enough travelling from Babbacombe.

[royalgull]

Can only imagine how the Japanese fella feels. Travels a third of the way around the world to watch that. It was bad enough travelling from Babbacombe.

Ouch! he probably never knew about the free online stream.

[Fonda]

Ouch! he probably never knew about the free online stream.

I guess not! He deserves a medal either way.

[Modgull]

I hope I never have the misfortune to see Evans and Raynor at plainmoor again but suspect we will do so next season in League 2.

Before the game started Raynor was arguing and threatening the ground staff when they asked his team to use the practice goal to protect the actual goal area. And it continued during and after the game.

During the game there wasn't a minute when one or other wasn't intimidating the officials or Raynor was inciting the Torquay fans.

Their team exhibited all the usual Evans/Raynor skills of diving, dying, feigning injury and time-wasting.

And after the game Raynor couldn't resist insulting Sean North who responded by taking a swing at him and everyone else waded in to keep them apart.

It was all so predicatble but we contributed to our own downfall with a totally unprofessional performance.

For anyone who may be interested here are my player scores

Bevan 9/10 Two wonderful penalty saves and a tip over after the second
Nicho 7/10 Very steady in defence and hit the bar with a very fierce shot
Branston 5/10 Found the Crawley front men too hot to handle
Ellis 3/10 Worst game I have ever seen him play - no chance of anyone coming in wih a big bid for him
Robbo 5/10 Most of the good Crawley attacks came from his side
Stevens 6/10 Did not get much of the ball but did have the best chance of the game but fluffed it
Wroe 2/10 Goodness me how his game has collapsed - was lucky not to be subbed earlier
Mansell 6/10 Tried manfully to hold the midfield together
O'Kane 5/10 Worst game he has played - couldn't find any of his passes
Zebs 2/10 One of those days when he couldn't control the ball and neither could he tackle - getting sent off was unforgiveable
Benyon 4/10 Totally ineffectual - didn't have one attempt on goal. Another who's value in the transfer market has collapsed

Kee 6/10 Was a breath of fresh air when he came on
Lathrope 5/10 Didn't have time to impress
Halpin 5/10 One excellent shot which went close

Referee 3/10 Very, very poor - should have taken action over time wasting and simulations

Crowd 8/10 Until succumbing to disillusion the home crowd was excellent

Entertainment value 3/10 Very little quality on display by either side

[royalgull]

have to say I agree with everyone of those ratings.

[divingbboy]

Glad I wasn't able to watch the match, to be honest. Crawley played like a bunch of dirty, cheating bastards the last time we played them in the BSP, with Evans, in particular, blatantly signalling for his players to dive and barracking linesmen, so I'm not remotely surprised to hear the match reports of more of the same. I'm curious as to how Evans gets away with it, to be honest, because hand on heart, I can honestly say that I've never seen such blatant gamesmanship, time-wasting, diving and play-acting as I witnessed on the one occasion I watched Crawley at Plainmoor.

[miltonkeynesgull]

Could anyone else bear to watch the highlights? We were on first. In fairness to itv, they weren't afraid to criticise Crawley's approach, Mssrs Coleman and Hughton were complimentary about Bucks, and they showed a 'best of' Paul Raynor 's antics from the afternoon...including a bust up with Scott the groundsman! Was galling to watch them celebrate though. Let's put it right on Tuesday.

[CP Gull]

It was good to see that they didn't ignore "the other side" of Crawley.

On the penalties ... what the hell was going through Zebs head when he handled that ball?

As for the second ..... clear dive in my book ... but the ref was (based on his performance throughout the 90 mins) always going to buy that one.

[shaunicus]

ITV in decent, level-headed, balanced punditry shocker. :-o

Good to see, though it's just the kind of thing Evans thrives on. More 'us against the world', siege mentality stuff.

[Dave]

Played one striker up front with a broken nose,against a team we knew had bullied there way throught to the 4th round,about says it all really.