The best thing about today's events at Plainmoor was the awarding, quite deservedly, of both the Supporter's and Players Player of the Season trophies to Chris Hargreaves. The second memorable event was the fact that it will be Exeter City who stand in United's way of an appearance at Wembley in the Play-Off final after United finished third behind Cambridge United.
Paul Buckle made three changes to the side that played at Cambridge in the week; Mark Ellis came in for Lee Mansell with Chris Robertson moving to right back. Darren Mullings replaced a rested Chris Hargreaves and Danny Stevens made a welcome return from injury to replace Roscoe Dsane who is nursing a sore shoulder.
Crawley started the game the better and never really let United settle for the whole 90 minutes. The impressive Tyrone Thompson was a threat throughout until he was substituted near the end; in the 5th minute Pinault slid a fine pass into the path of Thompson but he took a heavy touch on the ball and the threat to Simon Rayner's goal passed. Ryan Hall took a gamble after a quarter of an hour and hit a fine 30 yard shot that had the United 'keeper scrambling away to his left to make a fine save tipping the ball over the crossbar. Two minutes later and Hall finally beat Rayner; the ball wasn't cleared properly in United's penalty area and hall had two bites at a 20 yard shot, the first was blocked but the second was too good for Rayner and beat him low through a crowd of players. It was a deserved lead.
Chris Zebroski was showing some good form by being direct when attacking and forced a couple of corners as Torquay tried to level the scoreline. Ashley Bayes was called into action after 20 minutes when he tipped a Tim Sills shot wide after good work from Chris Todd. Simon Rayner was United's saviour again when he stopped a Cook shot that was heading in and Crawley seemed to be acting on a policy of shooting on sight. The closest United came to scoring in the rest of the half was when a clearance by Thomas hit Lee Phillips but was gathered by Bayes. United had struggled in the first period and Crawley took a deserved lead in at half-time.
No changes at the break but Paul Buckle was clearly going to expect an improvement on the first half showing. It was Crawley though who started where they had left off with Cook forcing another good save from Rayner and Mark Ellis completing the clearance.
Danny Stevens started the second period well and with a bit more luck could have drawn United level but Torquay's attacks were on the whole not coming from positions that were wide enough to cause the Crawley defence much in the way of problems. The match started to get quite physical and the referee was having his work cut out to stop the match from bubbling over. Lee Phillipsand Bradley Thomas were both booked as tempers flared but this was ultimately playing in to the hands of the visitors.
Elliot Benyon was introduced to the attack in place of Lee Phillips and there was a worrying moment when Chris Todd picked up a back injury but after some treatment was fine to carry on. Thompson was again a thorn in United's side but Rayner was up to the challenge again to save well but Crawley were looking for the second goal and it came five minutes from time; a quick break ended with the ball being played to Cook and he took a touch before giving Simon Rayner no chance as he buried the ball low to the United 'keepers left. There was still time though for Torquay to salvage some pride and their best move of the match produced a goal; a quick throw from Kevin Nicholson to Danny Stevens gave the United midfielder time to look up and whip a cross in for Tim Sills to glance a header past a diving Bayes. There was little time for much else to happen and as the final whistle went news came through that Cambridge had won and Exeter had drawn with Burton to set up the all Devon semi-final.
Back to the Player of the Season and nobody could really argue with both awards going to Chris Hargreaves. Kevin Nicholson was third and Tim Sills came a well deserved second but in the end Chris was a clear winner. The trophies were presented by Chairman Alex Rowe and Chief Executve Colin Lee with the rest of the United board and the United squad present on the pitch. A big well done to Chris and we know no-one will be working harder to bring success on the field of play more than him for the rest of the season.
We spoke to Chris after today's match-'I'm absolutely delighted to win the awards. Thankyou to everyone who voted, I'm really pleased. It's been a good season and we now need to finish it in a good way. It was a disappointing result today and if we can't raise ourselves for Thursday we never will. We know have to turn it on for Thursday.'
