Background
The two finalists played each other twice during the regular season, with Crewe winning both of the matches: a 4–2 victory at Broadfield Stadium in October 2023, followed by a 2–0 scoreline in the Mornflake Stadium in February 2024. [8] Elliott Nevitt was the highest scorer for Crewe with 16 league goals during the season while Danilo Orsi was Crawley's top marksman with 19 goals during the league campaign. [9]
The match was Crawley Town's first appearance at Wembley in their 128-year history, and their first play-off final. [10] [11] [12] Crewe had appeared in three play-offs finals previously, two at the old Wembley Stadium and one at the new stadium. They lost the 1993 Football League Third Division play-off final against York City in a penalty shootout, defeated Brentford 1–0 in the 1997 Football League Second Division play-off final and then prevailed in the 2012 Football League Two play-off final against Southend United. [13] [14] Crawley were allocated 19,556 tickets for the western end of Wembley Stadium and a maximum of 38,676 tickets, if required. [15] Crewe Alexandra were allocated 38,693 tickets for the eastern end of the ground. [16]
The referee for the match was Ben Toner. The assistant referees were Darren Williams and Paul Newhouse with Hugh Gilroy as a reserve, the fourth official was Lewis Smith. Michael Salisbury and Constantine Hatzidakis were named as the video assistant referee (VAR) and assistant video assistant referee respectively. [17]
The match was televised live by Sky Sports on both its Football and Main Event channels and was also available for live streaming on Sky Go and NOW. [18] BBC Local Radio stations covered the game for each team: BBC Radio Stoke for Crewe Alexandra and BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey for Crawley Town. [19] [20] [21] Talksport 2 provided national radio commentary. [18]
Match
The match kicked off at 1:30 p.m. in front of a crowd 33,341, of whom more than 16,000 were Crawley supporters and just under 12,000 for Crewe. [22] [23] [24] Crawley dominated possession in the early part of the match, but there were few chances for either side. [25] [26] Kelly had a shot from outside the area on 15 minutes which went high and wide, followed by a shot from inside the penalty area which was stopped by Crewe goalkeeper Max Stryjek. [25] Klaidi Lolos had a shot from outside the penalty area on 29 minutes, which was also saved. Crewe began to enjoy greater possession after this and had shots from Conor Thomas, which went wide, and a good chance from Elliott Nevitt whose short from outside of the penalty area was saved by Crawley goalkeeper Corey Addai in the bottom corner of his goal. [25] Crawley took the lead on 41 minutes when Orsi and Kelly played a one-two before Orsi scored, shooting with the outside of his foot. [25] They had chances to extend this lead in the run up to half-time, Kelly having a right-footed shot inside the penalty area blocked and Laurence Maguire and Lolos then missing efforts. The half ended with Crawley ahead 1–0.
Crewe were awarded a penalty seven minutes into the second-half, when the referee deemed that Addai had fouled Chris Long who was through on goal after a defensive error. The VAR intervened, however, finding that the goalkeeper had made contact with the ball, and the decision was reversed. [25] With half an hour remaining, there were two chances for Crawley – Kellan Gordon and Lolos both having shots saved – followed by a shot outside the penalty area from Crewe's Aaron Rowe, which was also blocked. Ten minutes later, Crawley's Ronan Darcy, who had come on as a substitute, sliced a shot wide of the goal. [28] Kelly added a second goal for Crawley in the 85th minute when Dion Conroy's forward run and through ball was met by Kelly. His initial short-range cross towards Orsi was parried by Crewe's captain Mickey Demetriou who pushed the ball back into Kelly's path to score. [25] There were 11 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the match, during which Crewe had two attempts to pull a goal back, through Charlie Kirk and Ed Turns, while Orsi had a left-footed shot saved close to the end. No further goals were scored, however, and Crawley returned to the third tier of English football for the first time since 2015. [25]
