English football manager orders players to refund traveling fans after embarrassing 6-0 loss
- Crewe Alexandra, a club in England's League Two, was dominated, 6-0, by Colchester United on Tuesday.
- Manager David Artell was so displeased with his team's effort, he said his players would be refunding fans who bought tickets to the match and made the trek to watch them on the road.
- Crewe will have a chance to avenge the brutal loss against Colchester later in the season.
In League Two, three levels below the Premiership, Crewe Alexandra manager David Artell was clearly disappointed with his team's effort in a 6-0 loss to Colchester United, and offered an interesting apology for fans who had made the long trek to watch their club flounder on the road - calling for his players to give them a refund.
"The players will put their hands in their pockets, without a shadow of a doubt," Artell said after the match. "[The fans] deserve a hell of a lot of credit for coming all this way, and everyone who's come down tonight will get refunded. The lads will pay for it. They don't deserve to pay for that. "
While somewhat nontraditional, it's not surprising that Artell would want to make good with fans that made the 450-mile round trip for a match that was over in minutes.
"That performance is unacceptable in every way and if I could have subbed nine of them at half-time I would have," he said of the club's effort.
When a reporter told Artell that offering to refund fans was "a great gesture" on his team's part, he replied wryly, "A great gesture would be paying when we've won 6-0."
You can watch Artell address the loss below.
Crewe Alexandra still has a long season ahead of them but will get another shot at Colchester in January in front of their home crowd. But for now, since the club can't repay their fans with a better effort on the pitch, they'll at least make it a bit easier on their wallets.