The new season rolled around and Crawley 2’s once again faced the same old selection headaches. Chris White stepping up from the 4’s and Chris Rockingham playing his first game on pitch in a few years taking position as the full backs. The game started with another common theme with Karl Bass blasting home a short corner in the opening minutes.

White helped to maintain that advantage with a spectacular goal-line clearance, but despite this the lead was short lived, as Eastbourne found a way past Craig Spooner. The Crawley keeper was in the thick of it again shortly after, charging out of his D but blocking the ball with his pad to see a short corner and a card for the man between the sticks. The resulting short found a foot on the line and a penalty stroke. White bravely took his place in the goal and got a good stick to the ball, but unfortunately couldn’t keep it out of the net.

Damage limitation was the order of the day until Spooner was back, Crawley keeping the ball and controlling the play and seemingly happy to run the offence clock down, until James Fuller split the Eastbourne defence wide open finding Stu Donaldson with a searching through-ball. Donaldson made no mistake, sitting the keeper down and dispatching it coolly beyond him.

This spurred Crawley on and now back to 11 players they started to cook. Gary Marlow began to link up well with David Litchfield to cause the opposition some problems. They combined and Litchfield’s attempt could only be parried into the path of Donaldson who put away a reverse stick volley for 3-2. Crawley started to find their rhythm, with Fuller and man-of-the-match Ben Lyon dominating the middle of the park and the attacking players carving out chances at will. Skipper, Scott Gibbons getting the pick of them but unable to find the target on a couple of occasions. He did finally get a goal, smartly turning past the defender and finding the bottom corner to take the half time lead to 4-2.

The second half was more of the same, Fuller, Lyon, Marlow and Litchfield putting in a shift in the midfield and Jamie Westwood and Bass adding a different threat with their aerials. The goals kept flowing with Donaldson completing his hattrick with a tidy finish and Bass thundering home another short corner for 6-2.

Next was probably the pick of the goals; Gibbons was released down the left and faced with the onrushing Eastbourne keeper he kept his head and lobbed in Crawley’s 7th. Then it was 8; Gibbons completing his own hattrick putting away a 1-on-1 following a glorious Bass assist.

Unfortunately, Crawley became disjointed in the afternoon heat and despite spirited defending from Rockingham, Bass, Westwood and White they conceded 2 goals to cut their lead to 8-4. However, the scoring wasn’t finished, Litchfield getting a deserved goal from a short corner with the last touch of the game to give the 2’s a 9-4 win and 3 points in their first league game of the season.

Next week they hope to keep up their winning start when they face a trip to Worthing.