Thoughts of a lifelong fan: you go away and all hell breaks loose!

The funeral was in Truro, and it was good to meet some football supporters (male relatives of the deceased) who knew about Crawley Town and wished us luck for the fight for survival. One of them was a Cardiff supporter with his own relegation worries but a couple were Truro City fans with worries of a different kind, as they are currently in second place in the National League South, just below Worthing.

As far as Crawley Town are concerned, I heard of Robbie Elliott’s departure just as we arrived in Truro on Wednesday evening and to be honest, I was not entirely surprised with the news, if a little about the timing of it. Having a day to think about it whilst in Truro, my thoughts went to how the interim head coach and his assistant would be feeling, and whether they could rally the players to perform an almost impossible escape act and then I get a message that Scott Lindsey is back in charge on a three year contract.

My thoughts are mixed to say the least, but only because of the fact we are points behind, in terms of survival, and even Scott may find it hard to achieve the requisite number of wins in the nine games left. I accept that if we were relegated the prospect of having a whole season with him in charge would help keep supporters behind the club, but I hope the owners have ensured that his contract to June 2028 is watertight and that they will give him the resources to keep him loyal to Crawley Town. I am Mr. Optimistic and hopefully Scott’s rejoining our great club will somehow revitalise the team and help eclipse last season’s success at Wembley and then we can go for the League 1 playoffs next season.

And after having written that on the eve of the Bristol Rovers game and sitting down to write the first instalment of what would truly be “The Greatest Escape” my optimism is growing by the minute. Not to the extent that I am 100% certain of staying in League 1, but whatever happens I am now confident that next season will be one that we can all look forward to whether we stay up and consolidate our place in League 1 or whether we take part in another promotion season in League 2.

The first half against the Gas should really have seen us go in at the break with more than the one goal lead. As it was, our single goal was one of pure beauty, created by Rushian Hepburn-Murphy and scored by Kamari Doyle after it looked like Rushian had taken on, and beaten, the whole of the Rovers side.

The second half was more tense as we successfully held on to our lead and survived seven minutes of added on time and now sit in 22nd place still, but with the margin between us and safety down to nine points and goal difference. Northampton lost today while Cambridge United dropped two points when Barnsley equalised in the 92nd minute. Our remaining games are against two top half of the table teams in Birmingham (A) and Leyton Orient (H) six bottom half teams in Rotherham (A), Peterborough (H), Stevenage (A), Exeter and Northampton (H) and Shrewsbury (A). No predictions from me but next week’s game against Steve Evans’ Rotherham followed by the home game against the Posh could well define our season.

Come on you rip roaring Reds!!!!