Loved The Rollercoaster
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.
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 5th 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.
Originally published on my own website (without the pictures) at the link below.
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