[Lord Snooty]

Crawley Town v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Saturday November 9th - 15:00 ko
at Broadfield Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Crawley in West Sussex to the Broadfield Stadium on Saturday afternoon for the first ever meeting between the two clubs. You wait thirteen years for a new opponent (Dover in 2011) and then you get two in a row with Crawley following on from last week's opponents, Tamworth. I suppose you could make a case for three in a row with the midweek game against Manchester United's under 21 side.

Talking of Tamworth. Are we really a team that can't defend a throw in? We've always had trouble defending corners, but a throw in?

So how do we improve from last week? Answers on a postcard to the usual address please, cos I don't have a Scooby Doo! Hopefully Michael Duff will. I just hope we don't go on another spectacular losing run which followed our exit from the Carabooboo Cup. Surely not.

Crawley on the other hand, were denied a money spinning replay against Maidenhead by the pathetic new FA Cup rules. They were a goal down in the 5th minute of injury time when Toby Mullarkey scored from a goalmouth scramble. A replay would have been just reward for the plucky League One side against the National League team, but instead they went and won the match in extra time with Tola Showunmi getting his first goal for the club. Their reward now will be a home tie with fellow League Oners, Lincoln City.

On Tuesday night they had a goal less draw away at Burton Albion, whilst Wycombe Wanderers were winning 5-0 at Stockport County to go top of the league. Wasn't expecting that. And we travel down to play them next week. Unless we manage to get it postponed by getting another player called up for an international game. At the moment we only have two in Brodie Spencer and Callum Marshall, the Northern Ireland lads.



Tickets: We have been allocated 1,345 for this fixture, with 145 tickets located in the East Stand seating and 1,200 tickets loacted in the terraced KR-L Stand.

Pay on the Day will be permitted on Saturday afternoon from two outlets. Crawley Town’s Ticket Office is able to take both cash and card payments.

Tickets for this fixture are priced as follows:

PRICES – THE EAST STAND (SEATING)

Adults (21 and over) - £20
Concessions (60s and over/Students with ID) - £15
Young Adults (17–20-year-olds) - £8
Young Person (14–16-year-olds) - £7

PRICES – THE KR-L STAND (TERRACING)

Adults (21 and over) - £18
Concessions (60s and over/Students with ID) - £13
Young Adults (17–20-year-olds) - £8
Young Person (14–16-year-olds) - £7

Children under the age of 14 can enter the stadium to watch the game free of charge, but they must be attending the game with a paying adult.

Official coach travel will be available for this fixture, priced at £35 per-person. Departure will be from our St Andrew’s Road Car Park at 7.30am.



A brief history of Crawley Town: formed in 1896 as Crawley FC, it only took them 115 years to get into the Football League. They played around in different non leagues until they were disbanded in 1935. It didn't take long for them to be re-established and came back in 1938 in the Brighton & Hove District League. They became Crawley Town in 1958 and then joined the Southern League in 1962. They won the Southern League in 2003/04, which took them into the Football Conference (now known as the National League).

Their players were still playing as part timers, but after a 12th placed finish in their first season in the Conference, they decided to go full time. That wasn't a great move as the team struggled on the pitch, attendances and finances dropped, meaning that they over spent their budget, which brought points deductions and eventually administration.

The financial troubles continued for a long time, till 2010, but despite all the points deductions, they never got relegated and so by the time it was all sorted out, new manager Steve Evans and his assistant, former Town player Paul Raynor had money to spend on rebuilding a team ready for a push for promotion.

The rebuild went well. So well that they reached the 5th round of the FA Cup, losing narrowly by a goal to nil against Man Utd at Old Trafford.

They eventually won promotion to the League Two in 2011, but this was achieved just days after the death of Bruce Winfield, the club owner who had saved them and sadly never got to see the team play in the Football League.

Their first season in the big time got off to a great start and they were top of League Two at the turn of the year. Another FA Cup run to the 5th round, where they lost 2-0 at home to Premier League side Stoke City, messed up their league form, but they did hang on to an automatic spot, finishing 3rd behind the Towns of Swindon and Shrewsbury. I wonder if that was the first time three Towns have been promoted together. No I'm not having a look.

Evans and Raynor had both left for Rotherham before promotion was secured though, so it was Craig Brewster who saw the job through. He didn't get the job full time though as Sean O'Driscoll was appointed in May, but left to take over at Nottingham Forest before taking charge of a single Crawley game.

Crawley had three seasons at this 3rd tier level before going back to League Two in 2015. In that time they had Richie Barker, John Gregory and Dean Saunders all in the managerial hot seat.

Mark Yates took over for the first season back in the 4th tier, but was sacked by the new owner just before the end of the season when mid table obscurity was deemed to be a failure. Former Chelsea Academy coach, Dermot Drummy (pictured below) was appointed in his place.

He was sacked after another failed promotion bid and tragically committed suicide six months later.

They had a few more shambolic seasons and crazy appointments, one of them being Harry Kewell, but it was under the leadership of John Yems that the club had their best ever result when they beat the Champions of Europe, L***s United 3-0 in the FA Cup.

Yems however, was sacked and banned from football shortly after when he was found guilty of racist abuse to some of his players.

The 2022/23 season saw them narrowly avoid relegation to the National League, so they were favourites to go down at the start of 23/24. However, with Scott Lindsey in charge, they finished 7th and reached the Play Offs for the first time. Incredibly, they beat MK Dons by a Play Off record aggregate score of 8-1 to reach Wembley where they would face Crewe Alexandra.

Goals from Danilo Orsi and little Liam Kelly gave the Red Devils a 2-0 win and promotion back to League One.

Early into this season though, Lindsey left to go manage MK Dons and his place was taken by Rob Elliot, the ex Charlton and Newcastle goalkeeper.

Crawley in popular culture:




Goth rock band The Cure, led by Robert Smith, were formed in Crawley in 1976 by a group of friends at Notre Dame Middle School in the town. They went on to have a string of hits in the 1980s and 90s, most notably The Lovecats in 1983 and Friday I'm in Love in 1992.

They have been active now for 48 years and last week released their latest album Songs of a Lost World, which includes the new single Alone. It is their first studio album for 16 years and have recently done a live session for Radio 2, which was also broadcast on BBC2 on Saturday night.

Here's that new single on YouTube. Whaddya fink?






Recent form - last 6 matches:

Tamworth 1-0 Town (FA Cup)
Town 2-0 Exeter
Wrexham 0-0 Town
Town 3-1 Bristol R.
Town 2-0 Barnsley (EFL Trophy)
Town 2-0 Barnsley

Burton 0-0 Crawley
Maidenhead 1-2 Crawley (FA Cup)
Northampton 3-0 Crawley
Crawley 3-0 Lincoln
Reading 4-1 Crawley
Crawley 3-5 Shrewsbury

Town are 7th in the League One table with 22 points. Crawley are 21st with 11.

[ritchiebaby]

Losing a goal from a long throw-in? Town are getting more and more like Hibs every day. Want to do a goalkeeper swap? You'd never tell the difference.

Lovecats must be in my Top 20 singles of all time - well, maybe 50 or even 100.

[theo_luddite]

It's no

"I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday, I don't care about you
It's Friday, I'm in love
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday, I'm in love

Saturday, wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday, never hesitate .... "

which was the best song about Friday since Friday On My Mind by The Easybeats, or Terry and Julie meeting at Waterloo Station, every Friday Night. Not quite as Kink(s)y as that might seem, but it's got The Cure written all over it.

That must be Snoots's shortest match thread ever.

[Lord Snooty]

I've been busy, theo.

[Lord Snooty]

Healey and Koroma available for selection. Helik is back in training. Ward has been ill but is now back and available. Hogg has a knee injury and Evans a toe injury.

[jjamez]

Evans had a knock to the toe last week and still has it now. Duff isn't being fully transparent here

Hopefully Hoggs knee injury is a minor knock. I've been told before that he's been told one more serious knee injury will end his career

[Lord Snooty]

12 Jacob Chapman
4 Matty Pearson
7 Callum Marshall
8 Ben Wiles
9 Bojan Radulovic
14 Mickel Miller
16 Herbie Kane
17 Brodie Spencer
18 David Kasumu
23 Nigel Lonwijk
32 Tom Lees ©

SUBSTITUTES

Chris Maxwell; Michał Helik, Josh Koroma, Rhys Healey, Jaheim Headley, Ollie Turton, Tom Iorpenda

[Lord Snooty]

Good heavens!

[jjamez]

Awful football. Awful tactics. Our proximity to the playoffs is merely papering over the cracks. This isn't working.

We don't have anything to be able to change the system. We don't have any proper leaders.

[theo_luddite]

Yay, Healey at long last