2023-24 Prediction League; Game 17 v Crawley Town (away)

Div3North · 09-11-2023, 22:25

Crawley Town

V

Accrington Stanley

2023/24 Prediction League Game 17 v Creepy-Crawley Town (away)

This week’s Starter for Ten; on 6th November 2012 Stanley played out a Goalless Desmond at Morecambe, and on 10th November we lost at home 4-2 to the Cobblers, largely due to a hat trick from the Clayton End’s favourite Fat Bastard (who was a hell of a player, frankly). But what was unusual (although not unique) about those two games?

Well, we managed to get a draw at the DeepMoatCrocodileFilled Stadium in the FA Cup, and if we can finish the job off we’ve got the Posh or Salford Moneybags (away) in Round Two; t’riffick!

And the loss to Colchester in the League the week before doesn’t seem so bad now, since they played Swindon on Tuesday night in their re-arranged game and did them 3-1 (and they’re now 18th, having won their last three) …………. Terribly sorry for the Swindon fans, after going 7-0 down at home to non-League opposition (Aldershot) in the Cup (their What3Words password for the players’ entrance square is now changed to “snigger.chortle.guffaw”)

And speaking of the Colchester game (which we only lost because Joe predicted we would - such is his influence) 13 of us got one point each (mainly for their one goal), five people got nowt, and one - a certain Mr Valairian - got four for the win ……… I’m convinced he wished it on us!

And the cull of managers goes on apace; Paul Hurst at Grimsby, Nigel Pearson at Bristol City, Liam Manning at Oxford (to take over the Bristol job) ………. and I bet Gareth Ainsworth wishes he hadn’t left Wycombe, having only lasted a tad over eight months at QPR …….. and Joe Edwards (who?) is the new boss at Millwall …. (he was on Frank Lampard’s backroom staff at Chelsea and at Everton in the days when Lampard actually had a job), Graham Alexander is the new manager of Bratfud, Craig Short holds the reins at Oxford, as do Stephen Clemence at Gillingham, Marti Cifuentes (I always use his bathroom cleaner) at QPR, Sean Pearson at Grimsby and Tom Shaw at Lincoln ( I think I know his prize male hen - Cock Shaw) ….. 13 new managers (or interim managers) appointed since 11th October!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crawley is a town in West Sussex: it’s 28 miles south of London, 18 miles north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles north-east of the Sussex county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census. The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and was a centre for ironworking in Roman times. It developed slowly as a market town from the 13th century, serving the surrounding villages in the Weald. Its location on the main road from London to Brighton brought passing trade, which encouraged the development of coaching inns, and then a rail link to London was opened in 1841.

It's on the western edge of the High Weald, which produced iron for more than 2,000 years from the Iron Age onwards. Goffs Park—now a recreational area in the south of the town—was the site of two late Iron Age furnaces: ironworking and mineral extraction continued throughout Roman times, particularly in the Broadfield area where many furnaces were built. In the 5th century, Saxon settlers named the area Crow's Leah—meaning a crow-infested clearing - or Crow's Wood. This name evolved over time, and the present spelling appeared by the early 14th century ……………. It is, however, my belief that the place was named after the former England international, and Lancashire and Hampshire County cricketer, John Paul “Creepy” Crawley - but who am I?

Famous Crawlians include Dan Walker, Romesh Ranganathan, John George Haigh (the Acid Bath Murderer), Mark Lemon, the first editor of Punch Magazine, boxer Alan Minter, Gareth Southgate, Daley Thompson, Peter Vaughan (Grouty in “Porridge”), and The Cure ………. it’s also right next to Gatwick Airport, and the only place I know that was once twinned with Eisenhüttenstadt in the GDR (although that ended in 1968)….. it’s also now twinned with Dorsten in Germany, and somewhere I’ve never heard of in Lithuania ……. or it might be they’re twinned with the whole of Lithuania ………….

Second Starter for Ten, then: Andy Cole (Newcastle and Man U) played 15 times for England between 1995 and 2002 ……. his first four appearances (Uruguay 1995, Italy 1997, France 1999 and Poland - also 1999) were each played under a different England Manager (El Tel, Glenn Hoddle, Howard Wilkinson and Kevin Keegan) …….. but how many times did Cole score for England (on the pitch, of course!)? If it helps, he scored 187 Premier League goals, putting him fourth in the all-time list, behind Shearer, Kane and Rooney …..

Crawley Town FC was founded in 1896 as Crawley Football Club, and helped to found the West Sussex League later that year, before transferring to the Mid-Sussex League. The club disbanded in 1935, but was re-established in the Brighton, Hove & District League three years later. They switched Leagues once or twice more, and changed their name to Crawley Town Football Club in 1958. They went semi-professional in 1962 and were accepted into the Southern League the following year.

They were promoted from the Southern League Southern Section in 1983–84 and spent the next 21 seasons in the Premier Division, before winning promotion into the Conference as champions of the Southern League in 2003–04. The club turned fully professional in 2005 but faced immediate financial difficulties, resulting in them entering administration the following year. They survived, and appointed That Nice Mr Evans as manager in May 2007. He led them into the Football League as champions of the Conference in 2010–11, winning 31 of 46, with a GD of +63 and 105 points (15 clear of the Wombles); they then secured promotion in their first season in League Two with a 1-0 win against us chez nous, spending three seasons in League One before relegation in 2015. The club has played home games at Broadfield Stadium since 1997 (it was the Checkatrade.com Stadium from 2013 to 2018, and the People’s Pension Stadium from 2018 to 2022/3) and they’re nicknamed the "Reds" or "Red Devils" due to the colour of their main kit …… No sh*t, Sherlock…….

The two names that stand out in their List of Current Players are Harry Maguire’s brother Laurence who's there on loan from TwistySpires United, and that they have a MF player called Florian Kastrati - Albanian born, it seems, and a product of the Crawley Academy (they have staff all over the place on the lookout for promising talent, known as the Crawley Trawlies); their squad of 30 has only two players older than 27 - CMFs Anthony Grant (36, signed from Lambeth - when they get rid of him he’ll be Doing the (Lambeth) Walk) and Ben Gladwin (31, from Reading) ……….. Famous managers include Harry Kewell, Matt Harrold, John Gregory, whose playing career was 600 games long, and included the Cobblers, Villa, Brighton, QPR and Derby, Matty Etherington (now at Colchester), who was appointed on 27th November 2022 and fired on December 29th 2022 (Happy Christmas, Matty), and Sean O’Driscoll, who was appointed on 16th May 2012 and jumped ship on 22nd July of the same year to go to Notts Forest, and never actually managed a single game for Crawley……………

Another Starter for Ten, to make up for last week’s absence; which famous GK had a statue to him unveiled this past Wednesday, and where is it?

Crawley finished last season in 22nd place in League Two, three points and a couple of goals off the GreasyPole positions (which were awarded to Hartlepool and Rochdale) ….. They released/sold/let go fourteen, including RW James Tilley to the Wombles, striker Kwesi Appiah to Boring Wood, Jake Hessenthaler to the Daggers and CF Dom Telford to BarrowBluebirds …… they signed eleven, notably Ade Adeyemo from Cray Valley Paper Mills (and well done on the draw at Charlton, lads), CF Sonny Fish from Leyton Orient (now on loan at Tonbridge Angels), AMF Ronan Darcy from Swindon, RB Will Wright from the Gills, and Rochdale’s Irish CMF Liam Kelly

They started well enough, and after ten games they were second in the table, courtesy of six wins, two draws and two losses …….. sadly for them they only managed one point from the next 15 (one draw, four defeats), so now they’re 14th on 21 points …. they’re also out of the FA Cup, losing 3-2 at Notts County, and they also went out of the EFL Cup (Bristol Street Motors, did I read?) 2-1, but they are through to Round Two of the Troffy … leading scorer is Danilo Orsi, with five in the League and seven altogether

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 11th November ……. and like you all, I’m sure, I enjoyed the glamour of the FA Cup on Saturday … Leaders of the Bananarama Chesterfield 1 Unbeaten Pompey (leaders of League 1) 0 …… Cobblers 1 Barrow 3 ….. Lincoln 1 Morecambe 2 …. Swindon 4 Aldershot 7 …. Cray Valley Paper Mills (see above) …… can’t wait for Round Two - just hope we’re in it …… then Man City away ……….

And the memorable thing about Accie’s games on 6th and 10th November 2012 was that the Morecambe game was ref’d by Bobby Madley, and the Cobblers visit to the Wham was whistled by his brother Andy Madley (same thing happened in 2010/11, when the Baggies had the brothers as ref for consecutive games) ………. and apparently this season Spanish Tier Five side Ayamonte CF were ref’d in consecutive games by a brother and sister duo (but because they’re Spanish it doesn’t count - cf Senor Luis “Fancy a Snog” Rubiales) ………… And despite his pedigree in Prawn Sandwiches, Andy Cole scored just once for the England team - against Albania in a World Cup Qualifier in 2001, getting the third for England in a 3-1 away win in Tirana, and scoring it in the 96th minute; that may have been why he retired from international football after missing out on the World Cup squad ……….. and the Wednesday Statue Man is ex Northern Ireland, Spurs and Arsenal keeper Pat Jennings, so it is - and the statue (a good likeness, to be fair - is on Kildare Street in Newry - his home town ……….

Good luck to everyone! ….. Keep the Faith! ….. And thanks for playing!

VALAIRIAN · 09-11-2023, 22:35

I can still see Bayo scoring the diving header - his only hat trick

You cannot blame me for Colchester winning....

Are we still the only two League teams never to have played at Wembley????

As ever my good man, some great facts about the game ahead

Div3North · 10-11-2023, 08:39

When Bayo landed, the shockwaves demolished three properties in the town

And it appears we and Crawley are the only current EFL teams never to have played at Wembley

If you’re talking about current teams which haven’t played at the “new” Wembley, you can add Blackburn, Ipswich and Colchester