Early goal sends United on road to another loss

And much like last weekend’s 4-0 dismantling at the hands of Leighton Town, the visitors succumbed to an early goal as Jordan Browne finished off a dangerous break down the left flank.

Joe Gorman thought he had provided the ideal response as he guided his header into the net only for the effort to be ruled out for offside.

Eventually, the equaliser did arrive through Nick Elliot midway through the half in spectacular fashion as he unleashed a marvellous strike that nestled into the top corner.

Crawley had their own goal disallowed before the break as the two sides departed the field with the score evenly split.

But that wouldn’t remain the case too long after the interval as Charlie Clayton latched onto a pass in behind the United defence and precisely picked out the bottom right corner to restore his team’s advantage.

Elliot tried his best to wrestle the away side back into the contest for the second time that afternoon with a couple of testing attempts on goal.

However, the match drifted beyond them when Clayton completed a brace with seven minutes remaining as he found the same corner he had picked out previously with an almost identical finish.

United applied pressure late on and threatened to retrieve a point when Matty Cooper’s shot flicked off Richard Christie and into the net for 3-2.

Biggleswade return to Second Meadow on Saturday to face Wembley and hopefully achieve a more positive result, then host Welwyn on Tuesday.