Thoughts of a lifelong fan: In the end it wasn't to be for Reds

What was needed next was for the Red Devils to come out on top, a day later, against Peterborough United in the last of the Vertu Trophy group games in order to qualify for the group stages and give valuable playing time to those players who aren’t normally in the Scott’s starting eleven.

In the end it wasn’t to be, with the three-time EFL Trophy winners scoring in added on time to secure their path into the next round and to leave Crawley with nothing but league matches to concentrate from now on. Personally, I think The Red Devils did more than enough to at least take the match to penalties, and that sentiment was certainly shared by Scott in the after-match interview.

Mark Dunford asked a very pertinent question along the lines of “how you give the fringe players playing time now there is “only” the league to play for?” and perhaps turning our back on the Sussex Senior Cup will prove to be not such a good idea after all. When the transfer window opens in January, and we seek to strengthen our first eleven, it now seems inevitable that some of the fringe players will have to go out on loan. Goalkeeper wise, with Davies returning from injury last night coupled with us never having a goalkeeper on the bench, Scott will certainly have some difficult balancing tricks to perform if he is to keep both JoJo and Harvey happy for the remainder of the season. For Harvey, also read Liverpool FC.

Star for me on Tuesday though, had to be Ann Brake, steward and mum of ex-Red Devil Nigel Brake. I was seated, unusually for me, in row H of the West stand courtesy of my granddaughter Beth, and whilst I found it quite easy getting to my elevated position at the start of the evening, trying to go down proved to be quite hazardous for a geriatric like me. I made it down without embarrassing myself too much but when I got back to my seat after my comfort break Ann came over and suggested that at the end of the game, I could exit using the lift. Ann Brake, a Crawley Town legend.

Onward to Saturday and our away game at Gillingham and the chance to make it three wins in a row.

Not quite, but almost, as the woodwork and a terrible penalty decision robbed us of the victory we so richly deserved as we clearly went for that third league victory in a row. Ok, perhaps Bradley Dack’s disallowed goal early in the second half should have stood, and that would have put us two down and maybe struggling to get back into the game, but to say the referee gave them a penalty to make up for it surely must be as ludicrous as the fact that it was awarded at all. The offside decision was a mistake that would probably have been overturned by VAR as would most certainly the decision of the referee to penalise Charlie Barker for what was a fantastic piece of defending,

The Red Devils, missing Dixon and Pereira away on international duty, fought back tremendously well, despite having lost Max Anderson to injury in the first half, and in the eyes of Mr. Positivity the Red Devils could have won the game by at least a two-goal margin. Before Dack had given the Gills the lead at the end of the first half, Josh Flint almost repeated his mercurial run that led to Town’s first goal against Fleetwood, but chose this time to shoot instead of feeding the unmarked Flower who surely would have opened the scoring. Add to that the defensive header from the Gills’ defender which hit their right-hand post and the shot from Ade Adeyemo which was deflected by a defensive foot onto their bar, and we could have been three up before they had taken the lead.

Equalising goals from Bajrami to make it one all, and from Tshimanga to earn the point were no more than we deserved, but rather perversely, despite the great effort displayed, we slipped one place in the table to 20th position, although it must be said that we had actually slipped to 22nd position before we had even kicked off because of what looked like earlier victories for Shrewsbury , Accrington and Harrogate, but a late equaliser from Notts County against the Yorkshire side, saw us bounce back to 21st place. Next up are Ian Rush’s least favourite team, at the Broadfield next Saturday, so get some milk into the lads for next week Scott, and we could really start to climb the table