Assistant manager Ian Dawes described captain Peter Clarke as Tranmere’s ‘Benjamin Button’ as the veteran defender scored twice to help his side to victory against Crawley.

The 39-year-old opened the scoring in the first half before being pegged back by Kwesi Appiah and after Sam Ashford spurned a chance to give the visitors the lead, Clarke headed home from a scramble to give Tranmere the win and lift them to the cusp of the play-off spots.

Dawes said: “The performance was there and over the past three games we have grown as a team, and the performances have been getting better and today proved that. Clarkie got the goals but I thought everyone to a man today was outstanding.”

Likening his skipper to the F Scott Fitzgerald character who ages backwards, portrayed by Brad Pitt in a 2008 film, he continued: “On Clarkie, he just keeps getting better and better every season, he is like Benjamin Button.

“He has a great attitude and he throws his head at everything, we saw that with their chance today, his attitude is fantastic and credit to him. The fans look at the side and want to see commitment and he shows that.

“We were on the front foot today, the first goal was always coming, we were the better side and I think no one can deny that if I’m honest.

“Their goal stunned us and it took us five or 10 minutes to recover and we did that, the subs came on, we got the second, saw it out.

“If we’re critical we had chances to kill it off, probably three or four, (Callum McManaman) had one and (Sam) Foley, Josh Hawkes went close, but we saw it out.”

Crawley boss John Yems was upset with his side for conceding two soft goals and admitted a poor start cost them dearly.

He added: “It is a narrow defeat but we gave them two goals, we can’t defend like that and it is the story of our season.

“They are a strong side but to be honest in the second half I thought there was only going to be one winner – but we can’t start games like we did in the first half against good sides like Tranmere are and expect to win, it is that simple.

“Both goals were disappointing, we should have stopped the cross and two lads went on their backsides, and they score a pokey goal.

“Then we worked hard to get back in the game, but we cannot start games like we did and expect to get something from it.

“I can’t be pleased to get back into the game, because we went and conceded two soft goals and it isn’t good enough.

“Sam Ashford should have scored and he knows that, when he gets chances like that he needs to put them away, but it is the two goals they scored.”