Saturday 1st April 2023: EFL League Two: Eco-Power Stadium: Doncaster Rovers vs Crewe Alexandra
With the backlog of blogs that I accrued in January, due to technical issues, it has been a long time since I wrote a blog on the day of the game itself. This one couldn’t wait.
Never have I been so angry to have wasted a day at a football ground. Even Barrow AFC postponing the game I was going to after I’d already made the long trek up from Manchester didn’t infuriate me this much. At least that was down to circumstances outside of the team’s control.
Today I travelled to South Yorkshire to watch a team succumb willingly to a humiliation at the hands of visitors, who hadn’t won away from home since mid-October and hadn’t done so with goals from open play since the first game of the season way back in July.
Throughout the match the home individuals looked like a group of people picked off the streets and dumped on the field. If they had any inkling of what football was or how to play it there was no discernible evidence of this knowledge.
They didn’t even seem to know what colour their teammates were wearing. Even 5 yard passes, that were supposed to pass for clearances, went to someone in Crewe’s blue away kit (the hosts were in Red and White hooped shirts).
It only took The Railwaymen 31 minutes to open the scoring due to their own troubles locating the goal. Until Courtney Baker-Richardson broke the deadlock by unleashing a thunderbolt across the Donny ‘keeper’ it appeared that Crewe simply had no idea there was a goal in the stadium.
Once they’d located it and opened the scoring they wasted just 7 minutes before doubling their lead. Their second coming from a simple corner to the front post, where Connor O’Riordan was able to flick the ball on and over the line unchallenged.
If Doncaster were completely ineffectual on the defence, their attacking play was essentially non-existent. James Beadle, the Crewe goalkeeper, could have taken a nap on top of the goal for at least the whole first half and no-one in the stadium would have noticed.
The hosts barely improved after the break, despite a double half-time substitution. I only stayed till the final whistle because I had hours till my train and nothing else to do in town.
I will no torture you with an account of the second half as I have no wish to relive it. Having to sit through it once was bad enough.
The gap between Doncaster and the drop into non-league sat at 19 points before kick-off. Their shameful display today has cut that to 16 and with 7 games to go it is entirely plausible that they could drop like a stone, out of the 92 and into the chasm of non-league.
It would be a just punishment for a team of professional players who can turn in such an insipid performance. The home fans spend their hard earnt wages to support their team and for this to be their reward is disgraceful.
There were many fans chanting for the manager to be sacked as boos rang out at the final whistle, but if they get their wish most of the playing squad should be following him out the door.
Performances like the one they turned in today would be an embarrassment to players in the 10th tier of English football let alone the 4th.
I wish this this was an April Fools joke blog, then at least I wouldn’t have wasted a say of my life I can never get back. Unfortunately it is not!
The Football tourist 