Many apologies to the Rolling Stones for that headline.
We have a pair of Bristols tonight. A home match against Bristol Rovers in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy. Bristol Rovers are in League One having gotten promotion at the end of the 2021-22 season. We still played them last season beating them in the first round of the Carabao Cup in the first win of Kevin Betsy’s reign. I was speaking to Paul at the weekend after writing and he was regaling me of an FA Cup game before my CTFC supporting days, when a replay got called off in the second half due to the constant torrential downpour.
Not sure what kind of team Rovers are going to put out, as they have a new manger having parted ways with the previous cigar stabbing psychopath, and therefore may be putting a full team out to try out before they have a league game. Or be at the other end of the spectrum and just want out of it as soon as possible. I suppose we’ll know when the shirt numbers are seen, though I doubt they are going to be starting in the mid forties as they did against the Villa kids.
It surprises me that Bristol Street Motors are sponsoring the competition. I heard of them as a kid, but assumed it was a Midlands thing, as I never heard of them in twenty years after leaving Leicester, either up north in Manchester, or down here. But they are suddenly popping up all over the place. TV adverts, radio adverts, national sponsorship, in papers, everywhere, celebrating one hundred years of business, even if it seems the last twenty were spent in hibernation.
Since the last home game victory against Harrogate Town, there has been one away league game against Notts County. The highlight of which for some fans was the pre- and post-match visits to Hooters. It was a disappointing 3-1 defeat which had the latest instalment of comedy defending and goalkeeping, and most of the match stats were in out favour. It was a shame that Notts County saved up all their own comedy defending for their FA Cup second round game on Friday night, as we would have preferred to be the beneficiary of them thank you very much.
Away from keeping an eye on various football scores, I’ve finally gotten round to reading Steve Leake’s second book “Noli Semper Cedere,” which has spent a year sat hidden on a bookshelf under the stairs, and his third book “Tinpot And Proud,” which I’ve had most of the season. Well worth reading for Crawley fans, especially if, like me, you don’t have sixty years’ worth of supporting history.
I’ve also seen the last two thirds of series two of Welcome to Wrexham. As I’ve said before, I hadn’t been interested in watching up, but once on, it is fascinating viewing. I had a mindset of it’s all OTT Hollywood FC, and although there is some acting up to that, there is so much more with what is being done there. They are really in the middle of their community. Some of the numbers are mind boggling. To me one of the most is that they are pretty much at full capacity of nearly eleven thousand for all home matches, so about three times our average home gate. Which may not sound massive, but the town’s population is forty-four thousand, about forty percent of Crawley’s population. If we could get the same percentage, we’d need a twenty-eight thousand capacity ground.
Getting to the ground with a ticket for the north end of the west stand saves at least five minutes from the schlep around the ground to our usual east marquee seats. Al appears to be supervising the section of the ground where there are no fans, so it should be an easy night’s stewarding for him.
I’m not sure if Bristol Rovers’ shirts and socks are light grey or beige, but they are bland.
But bland or not, they start the better of the two teams and have the best of the early exchanges. Crawley are terribly slow playing out from the back and seem to be riding their luck a bit, there are a lot of sharp intakes of breath as we just about manage to get away with clearing the ball a few times.
I wonder if the bland shirts are what is causing a lot of Crawley passes to end up with a Rovers player, they just can’t see the dullness of them as they just blend into the background. But I’m not sure a stray pass to the ref falls into the same category. The officials are dressed as Stabilo Boss yellow highlighter pens and can be seen from space.
It takes Crawley twenty-three minutes to have their first shot. An effort just wide from Harry Forster, but it was good to see some forward motion for a change, instead of the glut of sideways and backwards passes. Ray Wilkins had nothing on this lot. There is another shot soon after, but then up the other end Rovers smash a wayward shot over the Eden Utilities Stand and ball one has gone.
Corey Addai is in good form tonight. He needs to be. He saves a one on one after a wasted free kick and more slow play gifts the ball to a Rovers striker.
The first Crawley corner comes after thirty-five minutes, but nothing comes of it. And just before the one minute of added time is shown, we finally manage to shoot ourselves in the foot. Aaron Henry falls over on the edge of the area and a Rovers striker is on one on one with Addai again, but this time finds the net and we are down 0-1 as we head into half time.
The second half is a different kettle of fish. We are on it. Jack Roles lets a shot fly from about thirty yards, and it is just tipped over for a corner. There is confusion from the corner and Rovers just about manage to hack the ball away. They break and the ball is luckily deflected over the bar for a corner.
After an injury delay following the corner, the gobby Rovers number 11 is subbed off and we head straight up the other end. There is excellent work down the left wing and a couple of decent passes sees the ball end up at Roles’ feet and he smashes the ball in to equalise and make it 1-1.
This properly energises the team. A half decent penalty shout for Rovers is waved away after Addai slides out to collect the ball in the area, but it goes under him, and he collides with a Rovers player. We break and the ball ends up with a chance for Ronan Darcy, but his shot is wide. And then we follow up with another thunderbolt, this time from Henry which goes just over the bar.
Can I believe what I have just seen. Harry Forster gets the ball on the left wing on the halfway line and takes off, he skips past three players as if he is jet boosted, gets to the edge of the penalty area and lets fly with a shot which makes the net bulge, and we lead 2-1. Wow. Just wow. I think that’s the best Crawley goal I’ve seen (but I’m only on my third season).
Our substitutions don’t take anything away from our play, in fact it makes us seem better. There is some really excellent play all over the pitch, and the team seem to be oozing with confidence.
There are seven minutes of added time to survive though. Three minutes in Will Wright hoofs one over our heads and over the west stand to lose ball two of the evening. And then Forster is away again down the left-wing racing towards goal only to be cynically hacked down by a Rovers defender who gets a straight red for his troubles. Only for Forster to get a yellow for diving in the box a minute later.
The full-time whistle goes in the ninth added minute and we have won and are through to the last sixteen of the trophy. The draw for the next round is on Friday evening at half six.
The crowd was announced as being 896, with there being 116 away fans huddled together in the seats in the corner of the east marquee. The sponsors man of the match was named as Jack Roles (so the title to this piece could have been Jumping Jack Flash after all), he had a decent enough performance, but I’d have given it to Harry Forster (as the title might suggest).
It is back to league action on Saturday with an away trip to Colchester United who are struggling just above the relegation places, eight places and seven points behind us.
Before that the Crawley Town FC exhibition starts at Crawley Museum on Thursday. The museum is always worth a visit but has even more reasons to go there for the next couple of months.
Come on you reds.