Never can the cliche 'it's not over until the fat lady sings' have been more apt.

Crawley Town's brave FA Cup battlers must have already been looking forward to a replay at Broadfield Stadium when Chris Murphy cruelly sank a dagger in their hearts and gave it an almighty twist.

The Reds were already regretting allowing a two goal half time lead slip when the Telford substitute popped up in the fourth and final minute of injury time to scramble home a dramatic winner.

It was the harshest of endings to an amazing game which encapsulated everything the FA Cup is all about and Crawley's players collapsed on the ground when the final whistle blew just moments later.

It took Reds boss Francis Vines almost an hour to come to terms with how his side had lost a game they seemed to be cruising at one stage. When he did finally appear from the changing rooms at Telford's impressive Bucks Head stadium the disappointment was clear to see.

Vines said: "I'm gutted, absolutely gutted. I am just so disappointed to have lost to them. I thought we could beat them and I think for the first half we showed we could."

It is hard to look for positives when your side has just surrendered a chance to progress to the second round of the Cup for only the second time in the club's history.

Last season Crawley beat Tiverton at this stage of the competition before going out to Dagenham and Redbridge, a defeat which saw their league form fall to pieces.

With the Reds currently sitting on top of the Dr Martens premier division Vines is determined to not let history repeat itself so Crawley can clinch promotion and take on the likes of Telford every week in the Conference.

"I have reminded the players about what happened last season and told them it is not going to happen again," said Vines.

"We are starting again now. We were never going to win this cup so we just have to forget about it and go back to playing our last 27 cup finals in the league.

"I have got to pick the players up and get on with the rest of the season and I think the way we played shows we can compete at this level.

"If we were in the Conference now the players we have got could easily compete."

Crawley more than competed in the opening 45 minutes but as the other cliche says 'it's a game of two halves'.

At the start of the match all eyes were on Crawley's diminutive goalkeeper Jamie Anderson who was making his debut with Andy Little out with a broken cheekbone.

But while Anderson had a few nervous moments early on it was Telford's keeper Chris Mackenzie who was looking out of his depth at the other end as Crawley took a seventh minute lead.

A lack of communication between defender Stuart Whitehead and Mackenzie as Carl Wilson-Denis chased a long ball left the Telford keeper in no man's land and Paul Armstrong pounced to clip a perfectly weighted chip just under the bar.

Mackenzie was at fault again as Crawley doubled their advantage in the 26th minute. Joff Vansittart found Justin Gregory in the area and from the tightest of angles he drilled a shot under the keeper at his near post.

Crawley's 400-strong army of travelling fans could hardly believe what they were seeing and it almost got better before the break when Vansittart beat Mackenzie to Mo Harkin's towering centre only for his header to go narrowly wide of the post.

But after the break it was a different story. Crawley struggled to win any possession allowing Telford to pin them in their own half and test young Anderson with a series of high balls.

The pressure told in the 57th minute when substitute Richard Lavery rose above the defence at a corner to head home. An equaliser looked a certainty and it arrived with 19 minutes to go when Sam Ricketts found himself unmarked at the far post to head in Lee Mills' cross.

Substitute Charlie MacDonald had a glorious chance to win it for Crawley just before the end but his shot was blocked and the rest is history as Lavery grabbed his second of the match from another corner to leave Vines wondering what could have been.

"If you give away that many corners in the second half the chances are they are going to get something," he said.

"We thought we had got rid of our defensive frailties from free kicks and corners but they surfaced again.

"They are going to put it under the bar when we have got a keeper who is quite small. We had to defend properly in front of him and for 45 minutes we did it but in the last half hour we didn't."

Crawley: Anderson, Judge (Ready), Payne, Hemsley, Pullan, Smith, Harkin, Armstrong, Vansittart (Forde), Wilson-Denis (MacDonald), Gregory.

Telford: Mackenzie, Clarke, Challis, Green, Whitehead, Simpson (GranT), Mills, Blackwood (Lavery), Ricketts, Murphy, Naylor (Moore).

Man-of-the-match: Justin Gregory.

Attendance: 1,581.

Referee: Mr D Foster.