Welcome to The Trawler, your weekly submersion through the teeming waters of life in the Championship, League One and League Two. You might be surprised what you find down there.
Donny go down
Doncaster were relegated to League One after finishing on the wrong side of a seven-goal humdinger against Championship clingers-on Portsmouth.
Senegalese midfielder Habib Beye scored but was later sent off for Dean Saunders' team, who led 3-2 after 90 minutes, but fell to injury-time goals from Pompey's Dave Kitson and Marko Futacs. Despite their attempts to secure Championship football with a host of big-name loan signings, like Beye, El-Hadji Diouf and Pascal Chimbonda, Donny were done for.
The result kept Portsmouth within seven points of safety and their feint hopes of survival alive, but their manager Michael Appleton is not feeling too confident: "Even if we win the three games, all Bristol City have to do is look after their own ship," he said.
"I think if it was a Grand National we'd be a 500-1 shot."
Vaz Te gets his Rooney on
Remember the line about West Ham not being great to watch this season?
Sam Allardyce's men made it 13 goals in three games on Saturday, with a 6-0 demolition job on Brighton at Upton Park, sparked by a brilliant hat-trick from Ricardo Vaz Te.
The Portuguese striker was on target twice inside the opening ten minutes, completing his afternoon's heroics with an acrobatic effort reminiscent of Wayne Rooney's spectacular winner against Manchester City.
"People talk about Rooney's overhead kick but Vaz's effort for his hat-trick was even better," Allardyce said. "All three of his goals were incredible and I always knew he had talent since I had him at Bolton."
Charlton seal the deal
Charlton manager Chris Powell turned on the waterworks after his team secured promotion from League One with a 1-0 win away to Carlisle, courtesy of Bradley Wright-Phillips' 22nd goal of the season.
"I was in tears at the end. I just went walkabout on the pitch to compose myself," Powell said. "It's a fantastic day for the players and supporters. It's a small step forward in our history and I'm just so proud to be at the helm."
With three games to go, Charlton are ten points clear of third-placed Sheffield Wednesday, who could only muster a draw at Colchester. That result allowed Wednesday's neighbours Sheffield United to move four points clear in the steel city race for automatic promotion.
Le Fondre does what comes naturally
Substitute Adam Le Fondre scored twice as Reading beat Southampton 3-1 on Friday to go three points clear of their south-coast rivals at the top of the Championship.
"[Le Fondre] is born to score goals," said Reading manager Brian McDermott, presumably reading directly from the football managers' book of clichés. "He got two chances and scored two goals."
The Trawler would suggest Le Fondre is arguably one of the cooler sounding names in the Football League, which is probably why his Reading team-mates bring him down to earth by calling him by his initials – Alf.
Di Canio Corner
Paolo Di Canio's Swindon moved within a point of securing promotion from League Two on Saturday, as Alan Connell's late goal earned a 1-0 win against Plymouth at the County Ground.
It was an emotional day for Di Canio, who was told of the death of his mother Pierina just a few hours before kick-off and wore a black armband on the sidelines. Di Canio flew to Rome to be with his family immediately after the final whistle.
His Swindon team can secure a top-three finish with a draw or better against Aldershot on Tuesday night.
Preston made to look like Real Madrid
This week's "telling it like it is" award goes to Huddersfield manager Simon Grayson, whose team fell to a third successive defeat against Preston in League One.
"We worked hard on the shape of the team but our lack of leaders on the pitch left us very exposed and we made Preston look like Real Madrid in the second half," Grayson said.
Crawley appoint Coppell
According to The Independent, Steve Coppell's post as Crawley Town's new director of football came about when he called to offer the club his support following the departure of manager Steve Evans to Rotherham.
Coppell has been out of work since resigning as Bristol City manager in October 2010. The former Reading, Crystal Palace and Manchester City manager was present as ten-man Crawley drew 1-1 with AFC Wimbledon on Saturday and it's hoped he can inject what they need to achieve promotion via the play-offs.
"I wasn't inundated with offers," Coppell said of his new job. "People were correctly suspicious of me. It has been a funny ride I've taken.
"It was never planned to be the way it has turned out. But with five games to go, I thought maybe there was something I could do to benefit Crawley Town."
