Kevin Blackwell admitted Crawley Town’s FA Cup surrender to Wimborne Town was ‘embarrassing’ – and apologised to the Reds fans that made the fateful trip to Dorset.

The Reds slipped to a new low as they were outplayed by seventh tier Wimborne Town, who beat them 2-0 in the FA Cup first round – and it was the second straight season Cralwey had gone out at this stage to a non-league side.

Goals from Seung-woo Yang and Cameron Munn secured the deserved win for the hosts, as Crawley were played off the park.

Speaking with club media after the game, interim manager Blackwell said he was ‘embarrassed’. He added: “I’m not very happy with what I’ve seen today, and I’ve learnt a lot today. This was a key game for me because expectation was on the players. I wanted to see how they would react with expectations. And I’m sorry to say I’ve not been impressed with what I’ve seen today.”

Cameron Munn of Wimborne Town celebrates scoring his team’s second goal against Crawley Town (Photo by Peter Nicholls/Getty Images)

placeholder image — Cameron Munn of Wimborne Town celebrates scoring his team’s second goal against Crawley Town (Photo by Peter Nicholls/Getty Images)

The Reds came into this game after good results against Tranmere and Oldham – and were long favourites to proceed to the next round.

Crawley fans travelled in their numbers but left disappointed and deeply unhappy at the performance. Blackwell said “I’ve got to apologise to the Crawley fans. And there were some here and there’s some not very happy fans. And quite right, I wouldn’t be happy.

“This has been a really interesting two weeks since I’ve been here. And what I’m concerned about is the undulation in the performances. That, for me, isn’t good. I’ve told everybody where the club is. They know where it is. And while I’m here, I’ll work my socks off for the club. That’s what I’ll do.

“But the players have got to have a long hard look at themselves. They’ve got to decide whether they want to be playing at clubs like this next year or in the Football League. It’s a simple equation. They’ve got to know and have that desire for me to be professional footballers and want to be in the Football League. It’s as simple as that. It’s not hard to work that out.”

Blackwell had mentioned in his pre-match preview about paying the utmost respect to the opposition, but he didn’t feel they did. When asked about that, he said “No I didn’t. I said to the players if I started, I’d still be there at 10 o’clock tonight. All the things that we’ve tried to do and everything we’ve done in training; everything was for nothing.

“If you can’t follow the plans and you can’t follow the roles and responsibilities and you duck out of physical challenges… they were a team that were physical, we knew that. We didn’t need to fight them. We just needed to play some football. We didn’t do any of it. So, I’m bitterly disappointed with what I’ve seen.”

Crawley’s next fixture is against Brentford U21s in the Jersey Mikes’ Trophy on Tuesday (Nov 10) then nothing until Saturday, November 21, when they take on Fleetwood Town at home, which gives Blackwell some time to get the side’s confidence back up.

He said “We saw a good performance against Tranmere and could have won it. We went to Oldham and won it. Then I see this today. So, I don’t know what I’m going to get in the next game.

“And as a manager or as a coach, it’s a nightmare when you don’t know what the performance level your team’s going to give you. I need consistency in performances. We need consistency as a club. That isn’t consistent, so I’ve got to work out what we can do with it.”