JOHN Coleman was left furious with referee Phil Crossley after play-off chasing Accrington Stanley were held to a 1-1 draw at Aldershot in League Two.

Stanley went ahead through Rory Boulding but Darren Jones headed home from a free kick for Aldershot after the interval.

The hosts had won their previous four matches but Coleman felt Stanley deserved to win the match, with the result seeing them slip back to five points behind the play-off places with a game in hand.

The Reds, now 11th in the table, are without a win in their last four away games despite some good performances on the road but return to the Crown Ground to face Hereford on Wednesday - in a game put back a day to avoid a clash with England’s match against Ghana tomorrow.

Coleman felt Stanley should have been given a penalty in the second half on Saturday when Boulding was felled, and was angry with a number of decisions throughout the match.

“That’s two points thrown away really – not even thrown away, possibly snatched away,” said the Reds boss.

“I fell out of love with football today from what I saw go on with the decisions that we had against us.

“I know you can sometimes feel sorry for yourselves and blame everybody else but yourself.

“We’ll take the blame for the goal we conceded, we didn’t think it was a foul but we haven’t defended the free kick into our box.

“But possibly six or seven other fouls weren’t fouls that we had to defend.

“When you work hard all week, you work on your pattern of play, your formation and your players’ fitness and they stick to it to the letter of the law then people who are outside your influence don’t do their job, it’s hard to take.

“The amount of decisions that were given against us that were unjust defied belief, culminating in a stonewall penalty.

“I’m not questioning anyone’s ability or integirity, and I can accept decisions being made wrong, but at some point you’d have to think that it should balance itself out, if not 50-50 then maybe 40-60.”