County ease to 2nd Round

Stockport County eased through to the second round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy with a comfortable victory at Cheshire Rivals Crewe Alexandra.

County supporters travelled in their numbers after Crewe had given a fair ticket price, £18 lower than the price of a Leeds United ticket on Saturday.

And the first two goals for County came with practical ease, as former trialist Adam Legdzins flapped at two corners from Michael Rose under the pressure of debutist Nicholass Bignall, who was signed on loan from Reading, and both times the ball dropped to Baker for the easiest of goals.

Crewe did have chances and Lloyd Rigby, making his County debut despite being on the books for over a year now, made a couple of good saves.

But County found it easy on the ball with plenty of time and space, and with Crewe not being able to keep the ball for more than 5 seconds it made for an easy evening.

When Liam Bridcutt played a 40 yard pass over the top for Bignall to run onto, he showed a turn of pace to beat the defender and then was cool enough to slide the ball past Legzdins to make it 3-0 before half time to the delight of the County fans, who were taking great pleasure with winding the Crewe fans up.

The second half was much more low key with County happy to sit on a 3-0 goal lead, Anthony Elding came on for Crewe and got the typical pantomine villain reaction from some fans.

It wasn’t until into injury time when Calvin Zola scored a consolation for Crewe, but County just went back up the other end and scored again – as Carl Baker picked up a pass after some good work by Pilkington on the left and slotted the ball in the corner to complete his second hattrick in three games.

Baker is on fire, 7 in 3. Thank god the transfer window is closed.