Tag: Season Review

My end of season review.

Well, that went a lot better than expected. After all, we were the bookies favourites to be relegated, both Four Four Two and When Saturday Comes had us to finish bottom of the league, as did the Real EFL website, and there wasn’t much hope around. In my pre-season piece I had us to finish fourteenth. By the time we were originally due to play AFC Wimbledon, I wrote a piece for their programme on our season to date and how I expected it to end up for us. At that point I had us missing the playoffs on goal difference. But that game got postponed, and we went on an iffy run, so by the time the AFC game went ahead I had tweaked it again and had us with a top half finish. So much for anyone’s Nostradamus abilities.

It is possible the first game of the season set the tone. We beat playoff tipped Bradford City at home. Mark Hughes was toys out of pram again, and wasn’t long left for his job. By the end of September we were second in the league after a 3-0 home win against Sutton United, and for eight minutes were top on goal difference as games were played on that Saturday.

Then came a dreadful October, where we had four losses, a draw, and a postponement in the league, and slipped towards the bottom half of the table. We had been knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the first round away to Exeter City, and we went out of the FA Cup in the first week of November away to Notts County, but did manage to win our Bristol Street Motors Trophy group, and a knockout game, only to go out to Peterborough in January in a rearranged game.

We were going through a run of win a game, lose a game for the first part of 2024, and were stuck in mid table, but only ever a handful of points outside the playoff spots. More often than not we were more places outside the playoffs than we were points behind the seventh spot.

And away win in the AFC game seemed to galvanise us, and we went on a decent run, where apart from a loss to the steamroller that Doncaster Rovers had become, we were on fire. Back-to-back away wins after Easter where we scored four, first against Newport County, and then against the automatic promotion placed Mansfield Town saw us get into the playoff places.

Only for us to forget how to win. We lost at Wrexham, relegation threatened Colchester United beat us, and there were tense draws against playoff rival Barrow, and eventually relegated Sutton United. Which meant going into the final game of the season we had dropped out of the playoff places and into eighth.

Grimsby Town were the visitors on the last day of the season. We won 2-0, and Barrow were held to a draw, and we had beat the odds and the naysayers and made it to the playoffs. The day after was the end of season awards ceremony at Lingfield Park, which we were lucky enough to get a ticket for, and a positive night, looking forward to the playoffs.

The first leg against the Milton Keynes Dons went better than anyone really expected, with a comfortable 3-0 win. The away leg saw sixteen hundred fans watch an amazing 5-1 victory, recording the largest ever playoff margin of victory of any side. And with it, booking the first ever trip to Wembley for the club.

And that trip to Wembley was full of firsts, in our first ever playoff campaign, we played our first game at Wembley, won our first game at Wembley, and had our first ever VAR decision in one of our games – which went in our favour (quite rightly too), and our largest ever match crowd for any fixture, the first time in five figures.

The following day it was a promotion party at the Broadfield Stadium. A chance to celebrate the amazing feat that promotion had been. Quickly arranged the day after Wembley, there were comments about there being two thousand tickets sold for it, and there were definitely more people there than there had been for any of the Bristol Street Motors trophy games back in the autumn / winter.

The trophy for the playoff final win was on display.

And then came out all the on and off field staff. Then the players. The third one out was Liam Kelly, and they gave him the microphone to announce the rest of the players. Which was somewhat of a surprise as he had avoided saying more than two words at the awards ceremony, and is somewhat reticent in any post-match interviews. But what you need to get him going apparently is a few pre mic beers, some sunglasses, and someone else’s shirt (him and Jeremy Kelly had swapped shirts and come out in each other’s).

With that the season is a wrap. How good has that been? Check out my freshly penned poem to the season at the link below – Ode To Crawley Town FC 2023-24.

An Ode To Crawley Town FC 2023-24

Along the way there have been other things to reflect upon. December and January saw a wonderful temporary display of Crawley Town’s history put together by Steve Leake and Mick Fox at the museum. For a relatively new fan such as myself it was a fascinating trove of information, and I hope that a permanent home for at least some of it can be found to display it at the stadium. It would be good for our fans, and for visiting supporters to see that Crawley is far more than the new town / Gatwick airport appendage that so many see us as. As a season ticket holder and a lifetime member of the museum I was happy to have donated to the cost of them putting the exhibition together.

We have made friends with other fans (more Helen’s doing really), which considering I’m an introverted misanthrope isn’t bad going for me. I recognise a lot more familiar faces nowadays, especially from going to more away games in the second half of the season. My big yellow puffer jacket is easily recognisable, and we have seen ourselves in the stands in the EFL highlights show, and on the back of the Crawley & Horley Observer a couple of times.

Speaking of the EFL highlights show, that, along with iFollow are biting the dust. Due to the new Sky Sports contract they are disappearing next season. And the new Sky contract does worry me somewhat. Obviously, there is the good part of there being more money coming into the club. But with the number of televised games at our level increasing exponentially it does mean that the nice steady 3pm Saturday afternoon and 7:45pm Tuesday night fixture pattern is going to take a beating, and often at short notice. Games will be shifted. Any day of the week will be possible, as will pretty much any time of day for Saturday (and Sunday) kick-offs. It will make trying to organise going to games difficult. No early booking of hotels or trains, just increased costs for the fans, something we already know Sky doesn’t give a shit about. (As the rearranged Stockport County game showed.)

This season has also seen our first forays into going to away games with GH travel on the fan coaches. Only the short hop journeys to AFC Wimbledon and Sutton United, as that is about the limit of what my coach induced travel sickness will allow. But they are well organised and there is a good atmosphere on them, and for short trips I’d like to think we would use them again.

Now we wait for the season ticket release for the 2024-25 season. Regardless of whether there is a price increase or not we will definitely be renewing our season tickets and having the same seats in the east marquee. Having moved up a division, the teams we are playing has taken a massive overhaul, and although we have the third most travelling to do in the division, there are a lot of places that are prime for tourism and football weekends.

It is going to seem an empty three months before the new season starts. Speaking of the east marquee, it would be good if there could be more turnstiles in the southeast corner to help reduce the congestion getting into busy games (which we have more and more of now) – especially with the additional bag checks there are now. And if I am in cloud cuckoo land thinking, put a solid back on the east marquee. Part of this is because as I keep losing weight (and get old I suppose) I get cold a lot easier now, and not having the wind whipping in through the flappy unsecured tarpaulin would be a bonus.

And if there was a genie available for wishes, then on my list, it would surprise no one to know that bringing back the programme would be at the top. Getting them at away games is one of the highlights of going to away games for me. The next thing would be the merchandise available. When we go away, we like to have a poke around in their club shop, and they have so many all kinds of everything there, and it makes our offerings seem embarrassing. I think there are missed opportunities here. The final wish is for survival at the very least.

So the title for this piece came from stretching the lyrics of Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players (not the cover by the Red Hot Chili Peppers). And so it brings the season of loosely based song lyric titles to an end. It’s quite the eclectic playlist that has been put together over the course. The full playlist is below.

Average White Band – Let’s Go Round Again

Reverend & The Makers – I Could Have Been The Heavyweight Champion Of The World

Style Council – Come To Milton Keynes

Paper Lace – Billy Don’t Be A Hero

Donovan – Mellow Yellow

Peter Gabriel – Digging In The Dirt

Alexei Sayle – Ullo John (Got A New Motor)

Kelis – Milkshake

Bill Haley & His Comets – See You Later Alligator

Rolling Stones – Jumping Jack Flash

James Brown – It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

Paul McCartney – Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time

U2 – New Year’s Day

Sabrina Johnston – Peace In The Valley

Lionel Jeffries – P.O.S.H.

Guns ‘n’ Roses – Paradise City

Kim Wilde – The Second Time

Andrea True Connection – More, More, More

Russ Conway – Side Saddle

David Christie – Saddle Up

The Cure – A Forest

UB40 – Cherry Oh Baby

Del Shannon – Hats Off To Larry

Pet Shop Boys feat Dusty Springfield – What Have I Done To Deserve This

Camera Obscura – We Have Made It In A Man’s World

Leftfield & Lydon – Open Up

The Smiths – Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

The Dubliners – Molly Malone

Weird Al Yankovic – Close But No Cigar

Jr Walker & The All Stars – What Does It Take (To Win Your Love For Me)

Teardrop Explodes – Reward

Aerosmith – I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing

Doris Day – Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

The 5^th Dimension – Up, Up, And Away

Bobbie Gentry – Ode To Billie Joe

Ohio Players – Love Rollercoaster

And of course, there is the track I’ve mentioned no end in passing this year, Modern Romance – Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey

Which brings this piece, and this season to an end. Roll on next season.

Come on you reds.

If I were to say that this season didn’t live up to expectations or didn’t quite go according to plan, then you would know that those words were somewhat of an understatement. If I said it was an absolute shit storm, then that would be very unfair to shit storms.

Pre-season there was optimism. Signings were made, there was a new manager, and a lot of goals were being scored by us in pre-season friendlies. (Although to be fair, there were quite a few being let in at the other end as well.) The playoffs looked possible, albeit that wasn’t a view shared by the football magazines. Four Four Two had us coming fourteenth, whilst When Saturday Comes had us finishing twentieth. Perhaps they were being kind, and it may be easier to see from further away.

The wheels were coming loose before a ball was kicked in anger. Stalwart keeper Glenn Morris was shipped out on loan to Gillingham, and then the WAGMI wombats released a ‘hype’ video which slagged Carlisle off. It didn’t go down well, and not just with Carlisle, but our own fans as well. We started with an away loss and followed it up with a home loss and became the strongest team in the league – holding the rest of them up at the bottom of the table.

There was respite with a decent win against League One Bristol Rovers in the Carabao Cup (soon to be followed with another against Premier League Fulham’s reserves), but my first away trip, up to Harrogate saw a dreadful 0-0. League performances were not matching those in the cups. Kevin Betsy’s style of play may have worked at youth level, but it wasn’t suited to League Two battling. And after much clamour for it to happen, he was sacked. Lewis Young took over as interim manager and our results improved, but WAGMI saw something in the stats that made them go and take a gamble (yes, I went there) on Matthew Etherington. Not helped by being able to play Tom Nichols, who had been presold to relegation rivals Gillingham and WAGMI didn’t want him getting injured, that management tenure lasted three games before they parted company. Which meant Darren Byfield was caretaker manager as we played Stevenage the day before New Year’s Eve. He was joined on the bench by Preston Johnson, which considering the other co-chair Eben-ezer no good, had put a whole load of Ill-advised tweets up during the day didn’t go down well. Especially as it was obvious who the three senior players he was on about (but didn’t name) as they didn’t make the trip.

The mood at the game was ugly, but it was an amusing spectacle. Stand up if you love Crawley, sit down if you love Crawley, stand up if you hate WAGMI, sit down if you hate WAGMI, shoes off if you hate WAGMI, at which point I looked to my right to see three hundred Crawley fans waving at least one of their shoes/trainers in the air. The Stevenage stewards looked worried at the chants of ‘I know you won’t believe us, we’re coming on the pitch’ and ‘Preston Johnson, we’re coming for you.’ The pitch invasion didn’t materialise, but instead the fans were surrounding the team coach and the chant was ‘Preston Johnson, we’re waiting for you.’ They had a long wait as he was spirited out of another exit, and he didn’t appear on the bench at the next game away at Newport County.

January saw Scott Lindsey appointed as manager (and he’s survived to the end of the season). And he helped us to survive the threat of relegation. A lot of January games were postponed for various (and sometimes quite dubious) reasons, but it gave him more time to get used to a changing squad. A lot of the senior players were shipped out, including the three ‘not’ mentioned in the tweets. Teams recalled their loan players, and some of the fringe players were moved on. Part of the reason given for Tom Nichols’ sale and the moving on of older players was that they were looking at having a younger squad. Only for that to be trashed as after the transfer window closed two out of contract players were signed, both of whom were in the later half of their thirties.

It was around the same time that the long running investigation into previous manager John Yems came to an end with him being found guilty of various racism related charges. The FA then appealed the sentence as being too lenient, and they got a heavier one on appeal.

WAGMI out demonstrations and chants were the norm for the latter parts of the season. The longer the season has gone on, then the more withdrawn WAGMI have seemed to get. Ducking out of meetings with the CTSA, and comms have been poor or non-existent. A prime example being hugely unpopular acting CEO Chris Galley’s departure from the club happened on the 6^{th of} April but took two weeks for it to be announced.

At the end of the day for the fans, the most important thing is to get results on the pitch. Yet with all the manager changes, what has been interpreted as WAGMI interference with team selection, bizarre transfer policy, and the constant upheaval, the performances haven’t been great. But the fans have got behind those on the pitch (with the possible exception of Caleb Chukwuemeka) and have supported them in larger numbers, both home and away than in previous seasons.

Off the pitch has been more chaotic. WAGMI have tried to improve various things. There are more food outlets and a Fan Zone, and the training now takes place on grass (which doesn’t seem to have helped with injuries) and a scoreboard finally (even if I can only see about 35% of it from my seat). However, the OTT USA style pregame videos haven’t worked. There was the Sidemen debacle, scouting players at a charity game to potentially play in our first round FA Cup game – it didn’t happen, but laughingstock was being bounded around a lot more now.

And the attempted improvements have an uneven feel about them, and don’t really address matters that should be obvious. The canvas at the back of the east marquee needs replacing (or perhaps the whole stand does). And the two turnstiles in the southeast corner just can’t cope with the larger crowds we are getting. It was obvious after the Fulham game with queues back to Redz Bar and hundreds getting in after kicking off that more was needed there. But it hasn’t been looked at. Against Harrogate in the second of the two for £2 games people were still queuing to get in half an hour into the game. The terrace and west stands have four turnstiles each and don’t have the same issues. And as for getting out it is lunacy, it’s ten minutes after the other two stands have emptied before we get out.

One of my particular bug bears is with the programme. It is a bit of a shambles and has been all season. Issue numbering (same issue number for different issues, and then a gap of three numbers in the middle), the results page and its labelling is random, lots of games that don’t have the scorer marked. Issue one had a league table in it, but only the top twenty teams. It was dropped for issue two, which probably was good if it were going to stay the same size, as we wouldn’t have appeared on it most of the time. Sizing issues affected the great retro reds section. Titles were carried forward from one issue to the next with different text beneath it. Having the squad listing on the back should be easy to manage, but Anthony Grant played in the last nine games but still didn’t make it onto the programme. Surely the ability to size a page and proofread should be a basic skill for someone putting a programme together.

Anyway, enough moaning from me, on to what would be my team of the year. I have gone with a 5-2-3 formation. I have looked at anyone who has played for the side at any point during the league season. The keeper was the most difficult choice for me, but I have been swayed towards the end of the season with his penalty saves and have gone with Corey Addai. Three central defenders – Dion Conroy, Harry Ransom, and Joel Lynch, two wing backs – George Francomb and Nick Tsaroulla. Two central midfielders, Ben Gladwin, and James Balagizi, and then Aramide Oteh and James Tilley playing just off Tom Nichols. Yes, there is no Jack Powell, the club’s player of the year. He has scored some good goals and has really gone on a charm offensive and interacted with the fanbase well, but he’s been far too patchy and lightweight at times.

What we could have done with all season is more pace, we haven’t been able to beat teams going forward, and have been skinned at the back far too many times. And the other thing is, JUST FUCKING SHOOT, stop trying to pass the ball into the net, take a shot.

And breath and onto next season.

Come on you reds.