BARNSLEY’S only previous visit to tomorrow’s hosts Crawley Town was one of the most embarrassing scores in their recent history as they were thrashed 5-1 on Valentine’s Day 2015.

Legendary manager Danny Wilson had been sacked two days earlier, following a 1-0 home loss to Fleetwood Town which left them 17th in League One.

Academy coach Mark Burton was the Reds caretaker, supported by fellow Barnsley men Paul Heckingbottom and Mark Crossley.

Dean Saunders’ Crawley were in the relegation zone, where they would finish the season, and had been beaten 5-0 at Doncaster Rovers four days earlier. The Reds had an experienced backline with Ross Turnbull in goal behind centre-backs Martin Cranie and Lewin Nyatanga, while future Premier League regular Mason Holgate was at right-back.

Conor Hourihane – the current Reds player/coach – was in midfield along with Josh Scowen and Ben Pearson behind an attack of Milan Lalkovic, George Waring and Leroy Lita.

Izale McLeod opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time from a simple long ball then Sonny Bradley and Marvin Elliott netted after the disorganised visitors could not cope with Lee Fowler free-kicks.

Kane Hemmings pulled one back on 65 minutes but Nyatanga gifted the ball to McLeod on the edge of his box for the fourth then Scowen conceded possession to allow the striker to complete his hat-trick. It was a seventh successive away league loss for the Reds.

Burton was taken to one side on the touchline by then chief executive Ben Mansford before speaking to the press, apologising for the performance and saying he was ‘absolutely devastated.’ Tickets were refunded for the 419 away fans who made the 450-mile round trip.

A week later, Burton’s team beat Crewe Alexandra 2-0 at home then won 1-0 at Scunthorpe United the following midweek with Lee Johnson watching before taking over later that week. Burton would eventually move on to Notts County then Blackburn Rovers and now works for ZED FC in Egypt.