Fleetwood maintain League One status with win over Crewe
First-half goals from Bobby Grant and Devante Cole were enough to ease the nerves as Fleetwood held on to their place in Sky Bet League One with a 2-0 victory over already-relegated Crewe.
Fleetwood, needing a point to secure survival, set the early pace and could have been ahead when Grant raced down the right, but his shot was pushed wide by Alex keeper Ben Garratt.
It was a mere stay of execution though as the visitors fell behind with 20 minutes gone. Stefan Scougall's corner was cut out and the ball fell to Grant 25 yards out, whose bullet of a left-foot shot bounced in off the underside of the crossbar.
From that point Fleetwood took control, doubling their advantage four minutes later.
David Ball found himself in the right place to pick up the pieces from a botched clearance, squaring for Cole to sidefoot home.
The hosts had further chances to widen the margin of victory with Ball firing narrowly wide as he stumbled onto another loose ball.
Cole could have added his second and Fleetwood's third in the second period as his curved run was perfectly in sync with Scougall's pass, but the striker blasted his shot across the face of goal and wide.
That was as close as the hosts came to making things comfortable and thereafter fought a 30-minute rearguard action, with Crewe knocking at the door but unable to create any real goalscoring opportunities.
A late strike deflected off Steven Jordan and pushed clear by Chris Maxwell was the closest Steve Davis' side came to troubling Town. Results elsewhere made the scoreline an irrelevance, the Cod Army's final-day flourish merely rubbing salt in Alex wounds.
Source: PA
