Crawley 1-3 Harrogate: TV star Mark Wright endures losing full debut
- Published
Mark Wright joined Crawley in December
Reality television star Mark Wright was substituted at half-time on his full debut for Crawley Town, with his manager describing the League Two side's first-half performance as "farcical".
The 34-year-old, who shot to fame on ITV's The Only Way Is Essex, started at left-back but saw his side go 3-0 down by the break before going on to lose 3-1 to Harrogate.
"The first half was nowhere near acceptable at any professional level I thought," Crawley boss John Yems told BBC Radio Surrey.
"I was sitting there and I kept thinking 'have we started yet?'"
Wright came on as a last-minute substitute in Crawley's 3-0 FA Cup third-round upset of Premier League side Leeds United last month, but this was a first start for the presenter who had youth spells at West Ham, Arsenal and Tottenham and played at non-league level.
"It wasn't Mark's fault, but today it was farcical first half, absolutely farcical," said Yems.
"It's easy for me to say that players have got to stand up and be counted, but they have now, if not there'll be changes and there will be changes.
"We've lost our way. If that's the same team that beat Leeds, maybe we've gone a bit easy, maybe we've started thinking we're players, but I can assure you that they will have a tough week."
Visitors Harrogate had Will Smith dismissed midway through the second half, but goals from Aaron Martin, Josh March and Simon Power had already put them on their way to a second successive win.
Crawley suffered an early shock when March played in Martin and he calmly fired his fifth goal of the season under goalkeeper Glenn Morris in the 13th minute.
Morris was tested midway through the half when he parried a goal-bound shot from the recalled Connor Hall following George Thomson's corner.
Harrogate doubled their lead on the half-hour mark when, following a strong run by Josh McPake, skipper George Francomb brought down March who then calmly stepped up to send Morris the wrong way from the penalty spot.
It got worse for Crawley before the break with Simon Power making it 3-0 in stoppage time with a deflected shot from just inside the area.
Yems made a triple substitution at the break, including replacing Wright with Tom Dallison who scored nine minutes after coming on, drilling home after a goalmouth scramble.
Harrogate were reduced to 10 men after 67 minutes when Smith received a straight red card for bringing down the onrushing Tom Nichols.
But the North Yorkshire side comfortably saw the game out to leave Crawley without a home league win for seven weeks.
Match details supplied by PA Media.