'The real heroes' - Crawley Town boss praises medical staff after incident which delayed Birmingham City game
Crawley Town boss Rob Elliot was quick to praise the club’s medical staff following a medical emergency at the Broadfield Stadium before the game with Birmingham City.
The kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes following ‘a medical emergency in the crowd’.
Crawley Town were beaten 1-0 by their big budget visitors but played well and deserved a point from the game, but Elliot was quick to praise those who helped the person involved.
He said: “Firstly, one thing we should be proud of is the medical staff after they took care of the poor gentleman who had the medical emergency and I think by all accounts he is doing well which is massive relief and puts football into perspective. So a huge shout out to them.
“Footballers get idolised but those guys are the real heroes. We're just grateful that they were there and everything ended as well as it could.”
And Elliot was proud of his side’s performance. “I thought for the first 45 minutes we were excellent, I thought we stopped their press, we disrupted them a lot, we stopped them playing, the press worked really well.
"Then second half obviously we ended up being a bit disjointed with a couple of the injuries with Harry [Forster] injured and losing Ade because obviously he is such a brilliant player for us in terms of utility so to lose him to a concussion is obviously disappointing. So it really threw us but the lads kept going towards the end and obviously we had a few chances at the end and we weren't as controlled as I'd like us to be.
"I think we could have been a bit braver in the way we played but you know it's easy for me to say that on the sidelines.”
But Elliot pointed out the quality Birmingham had on the pitch. “I mean that's a serious team,” he said. “That's a team that are challenging at the top end so I think it's a night we can all be proud of. I thought the fans and the atmosphere and everything was tremendous and you know when you've got a team of this juggernaut like this panicking at the end holding on for a win, I think it's something that we
know we worked hard, we're proud of the lads and we gave everything. It's a great benchmark to play against a team like this to see where we've come short, where we was good and where we can improve.”