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Crewe kicked off and looked confident on the ball and passed well, blocking Notts out of the game. Only 2 minutes into the game Rix squared a ball to Hulse but after a little confusion in the Magpies defence Stone cleared it to safety. Notts County really tried to play a hit and run game but wit Sodje tracking every run of Allsopp there was noway the ball was getting over the defence. Their first real chance came from Cas when he headed straight at Clayton in net. A deep ball in let Hulse nod down to Ashton, unmarked, inside the area but as quick as the Alex faithful jumped off their seat they sat back down again as Aston blasted the ball over. Sodje then had a header denied by the keeper after he plucked the ball out of the air as Sodje was about to knock it in the net. Brammer was once again commanding the team and was the centre pecice of the action. Ashton then pulls off a acrabatic shot ,after a pass from Hulse, which is parried by the keeper but Hulse was too later to pounce on it. Then things went bad, the Alex were slowly but surely losing hold of the game as Notts pushed forward... then a long ball Nicholsan which left the Alex defence dazed on the halfway line in the 29th minute... Allsopp ran a good 50 yards with the ball into open space and neatly smashed it into the back of the net before Sodje and Foz could recover. Ok, just a fluke goal we thought! No! Only 2 minutes later from a corner the ball was headed as far as the edge of the area where Baraclough was able to slid it through to Stallard and despite the efforts of Sodje's shirt pulling, it took one touch for Stallard to put it past a exposed Ince. The boo's started and the Alex look rejected only 3 minutes to go to half time, it was now a matter of not conceeding again!
At half time nearly every Crewe fan in the ground booed the team off, but they came out to a good cheer as the fans were confident maybe we could turn it round. Fat chance of that. When they came out Danny Allsopp and David Vaughan started testing each other for pace and skill on the left - ofcourse, Vaughany won. On the 54th minute after Notts County dominating the first part of the second half a little Cas got a free-kick roughly aound 40 yards away and when the cross came in, Stallard knocked it down to Allsopp on the edge of the box who volleyed at it and it bounced through a crowd and into the net while Ince stood and didn't attempt to save it. 3-0 down and 'What aload of rubbish' was sung from the GRE and area's of the Railtrack, it was loud and clear as the players held their head in either shame or dissapointment on their way back to the centre circle. Dario knew the game had been lost, so he gave Steve Jones some vital expierence as he came on for Bram . after that we were awful, Vaughan and Wright smashed over, Vaughans shot is reported to be in Glasgow, while Dean Ashton got booed after his one-on-one shot from just 25 ards out went 25 yards wide! Boo's rang round the stadium for alot of the second half and the fans showed they weren't impressed by what they saw. it just got depressing to watch a 1st division side struggle against Notts County, fans left 20 minutes before the end in protest! The only way they can make up for these two stupid displays is by finding themselfs and giving Crewe to shout about on Saturday by whipping Colchester!