Crawley Town 4, Farsley Celtic 1

The ten-man Celts slipped to a heavy Blue Square Premier defeat as a two-minute spell soon after they had taken the lead turned the game in favour of Crawley.

Farsley were threatening early on and deserved to go ahead in the 36th minute when James Knowles headed in.

Crawley launched a counter-attack from the restart and Celts skipper Ryan Crossley went up for a clearing header but was penalised. John Paul Pitman rifled in the resulting penalty to level the scores.

Two minutes later Mark Jackson was involved in an innocuous-looking challenge just in front of the home dugout and was sent off.

Farsley still pressed before the break and Gareth Grant and Scott McNiven both went close.

The second half belonged to the numerically-superior home side, with Magno Vieira scoring in the 58th and 70th minutes and Thomas Pinauot lashing a shot into the top corner just into stoppage time.

Celts caretaker manager John Deacey had seen one of his men controversially dismissed in the previous game and was understandably irate.

He complained: "To say I am massively disappointed doesn't do it; I feel cheated. That's twice in a week, which is not good.

"Before the Altrincham game I said the standard of officials we had had this season was very good but it looks like I spoke too soon.

"Mark Jackson was trying to clear the ball when a player came in on his blind-side and was caught on the calf by the follow through of Mark's foot. There was nothing in it. We will look at the video of the game and appeal.

"I am down at the moment and it has not been an easy baptism for me but I have seen a lot of pluses. Steve Torpey impressed, there were one or two other very good performances and we have players to come back into the squad."

  • Start or join a debate on this issue in our on-line forum - Click here