Change of ownership? Have you just won the Euromillions jackpot?
There’s always rumours but you’d think Crawley fans of all people wouldn’t necessarily see a change of ownership as definite good news? Took us many years to recover from one such change and you still hear about the mental scars today.
Realistically, any new owner will be caught in the Broadfield bind. The current stadium with its non league roots can be tarted up for life in League 2 OK but anything beyond that starts to get very difficult, you won’t get the fans coming to such a small stadium to provide the revenue for wages of the higher league players needed. The spending of the HK Paul era (and Evans’s management and recruiting) got us out of this league but it was clearly unsustainable.
Where we are now suits the infrastructure and the fan base. Huge investment will be needed beyond that and I don’t know if there are many owners out there to fund such a remaking of the club from the ground upwards. Better to enjoy what we have now with solid owners who are prepared to eat up the manageable (hopefully!) million plus losses a year to keep us in our cheering and moaning pass-time on a Saturday
Change of ownership? Have you just won the Euromillions jackpot?
There’s always rumours but you’d think Crawley fans of all people wouldn’t necessarily see a change of ownership as definite good news? Took us many years to recover from one such change and you still hear about the mental scars today.
Realistically, any new owner will be caught in the Broadfield bind. The current stadium with its non league roots can be tarted up for life in League 2 OK but anything beyond that starts to get very difficult, you won’t get the fans coming to such a small stadium to provide the revenue for wages of the higher league players needed. The spending of the HK Paul era (and Evans’s management and recruiting) got us out of this league but it was clearly unsustainable.
Where we are now suits the infrastructure and the fan base. Huge investment will be needed beyond that and I don’t know if there are many owners out there to fund such a remaking of the club from the ground upwards. Better to enjoy what we have now with solid owners who are prepared to eat up the manageable (hopefully!) million plus losses a year to keep us in our cheering and moaning past-time on a Saturday
That's a good post. I go to around 10 matches a season, so maybe am less entitled to have a view than the die-hards, but - frustrating though it is - what you have set out is the reality. In many ways, we are lucky to be where we are. I haven't seen us win this season!. However moaning can be fun too. And the pre-match pints in Redz are always fun, even if the rest isn't.
Where we are now suits the infrastructure and the fan base. Huge investment will be needed beyond that and I don’t know if there are many owners out there to fund such a remaking of the club from the ground upwards. Better to enjoy what we have now with solid owners who are prepared to eat up the manageable (hopefully!) million plus losses a year to keep us in our cheering and moaning pass-time on a Saturday
Depends how much longer the current owners fancy chucking a million a year at going nowhere. The honeymoon dreams of the Championship in 8-10 years are gone, and the "Crawley family" broadcasts of Mr Eren have long stopped. I wonder what the ambitions of the club are these days? The owners certainly haven't let us down but standing still can easily become stagnation.
Personally I think the club could do more with what it has. For example organising the youth side so it isn't just a bloated first team squad of players who never play competitive football or get loaned to East Grinstead.
Where we are now suits the infrastructure and the fan base. Huge investment will be needed beyond that and I don’t know if there are many owners out there to fund such a remaking of the club from the ground upwards. Better to enjoy what we have now with solid owners who are prepared to eat up the manageable (hopefully!) million plus losses a year to keep us in our cheering and moaning pass-time on a Saturday
Depends how much longer the current owners fancy chucking a million a year at going nowhere. The honeymoon dreams of the Championship in 8-10 years are gone, and the "Crawley family" broadcasts of Mr Eren have long stopped. I wonder what the ambitions of the club are these days? The owners certainly haven't let us down but standing still can easily become stagnation.
Personally I think the club could do more with what it has. For example organising the youth side so it isn't just a bloated first team squad of players who never play competitive football or get loaned to East Grinstead.
Yes we are “good” at this youth/hidden gem strategy but don’t have a good youth setup in place for them to play. I watch three bridges when I can and quite a few of the first team are either local players or local players that came through their youth setup. Along with a manager change they are starting to see the benefits and have turned their season around.
Not sure we are going to comfortably stay up , difficult set of away games left against top ten teams and if our home form continues the way it has then we will not pick up many points .. Still 11 games left for most teams which is 1/4 of the season and we are only 12 points clear , luckily a lot of teams below but we are not safe... Time to concentrate on the team and stop slagging off the officials and your own fans, maybe if it wasn't so crap at home we may get more fans through the door, and that's down to you Mr yemms
"it was just the thing for their Q4, 'Deeply funny' was the rave review" - Father John Misty
Crawley are 14 points ahead of Oldham and 21 ahead of Scunthorpe. There is no way they will catch that up.
We should already be planning for the summer. Clear out of a bloated squad and maybe a change of ownership too.
I think the best thing to do is to almost treat these last couple of months as almost a pre-pre season (if you know what I mean) because we have absolutely nothing to play for, it could be a great opportunity to experiment with some of the current squad and maybe give some of the youngsters some game time to see what level they are currently at. For example, I'd quite like to see Taylor Seymour go in goal for at least one game so we can find out how much potential he has of succeeding Morris, and would also like to see players like Florian Kastradi etc given some minutes too. Also we should use to it say to those out of contract 'show us why you deserve to stay here next season'.
If the remainder of the season is played out as PSF the club should refund all STH the difference. Keep going is what we must do and get as high as we possibly can.
Where we are now suits the infrastructure and the fan base. Huge investment will be needed beyond that and I don’t know if there are many owners out there to fund such a remaking of the club from the ground upwards. Better to enjoy what we have now with solid owners who are prepared to eat up the manageable (hopefully!) million plus losses a year to keep us in our cheering and moaning pass-time on a Saturday
Depends how much longer the current owners fancy chucking a million a year at going nowhere. The honeymoon dreams of the Championship in 8-10 years are gone, and the "Crawley family" broadcasts of Mr Eren have long stopped. I wonder what the ambitions of the club are these days? The owners certainly haven't let us down but standing still can easily become stagnation.
Personally I think the club could do more with what it has. For example organising the youth side so it isn't just a bloated first team squad of players who never play competitive football or get loaned to East Grinstead.
Is your middle name gullible by any chance? Seriously did you think the club was going into the Championship? Are you for real?
Again I totally reject your premise that the club stabilising in the Football League is “going nowhere”. Football League status is not “nowhere”. How many other Sussex clubs like Worthing, Lewes or Eastbourne would love this “nowhere”.
I think the best thing to do is to almost treat these last couple of months as almost a pre-pre season (if you know what I mean) because we have absolutely nothing to play for, it could be a great opportunity to experiment with some of the current squad and maybe give some of the youngsters some game time to see what level they are currently at. For example, I'd quite like to see Taylor Seymour go in goal for at least one game so we can find out how much potential he has of succeeding Morris, and would also like to see players like Florian Kastradi etc given some minutes too. Also we should use to it say to those out of contract 'show us why you deserve to stay here next season'.
If the remainder of the season is played out as PSF the club should refund all STH the difference. Keep going is what we must do and get as high as we possibly can.
I probably didn't do a good job of explaining it but what I was thinking more is that seeing that we aren't likely to be in the mix at either end it might be a good idea to maybe take one or two more risks potentially to see if they pay off in any way with better results. Say if we were to tweak the formation a bit or give one of the youngsters a few games, it would be very rewarding to see it work well if it does happen
Depends how much longer the current owners fancy chucking a million a year at going nowhere. The honeymoon dreams of the Championship in 8-10 years are gone, and the "Crawley family" broadcasts of Mr Eren have long stopped. I wonder what the ambitions of the club are these days? The owners certainly haven't let us down but standing still can easily become stagnation.
Personally I think the club could do more with what it has. For example organising the youth side so it isn't just a bloated first team squad of players who never play competitive football or get loaned to East Grinstead.
Is your middle name gullible by any chance? Seriously did you think the club was going into the Championship? Are you for real?
No, some of us said at the time it was b/s as was all the talk about Eren's track record in Turkish football. But of course JCLs like you wouldn't remember that far back.
Again I totally reject your premise that the club stabilising in the Football League is “going nowhere”. Football League status is not “nowhere”. How many other Sussex clubs like Worthing, Lewes or Eastbourne would love this “nowhere”.
That was a decade ago. The point is you need to be contending to keep people interested....as all the teams you mentioned are. Perhaps that's why Lewes v Worthing pulled in more spectators (and sold out) than Crawley v Scunthorpe. Come to think of it didn't Littlehampton v North Shields in the Vase get more?
When the current owners took over the club they set the goal of reaching the championship in 8-10 years. Whether that was a realistic goal or whether they had a feasible plan in place or not, they’ve set themselves to be shot down as we’re nowhere near that goal 6 years later. By the goal they set themselves they’ve failed, the key is whether they really saw that as the end game or whether they were always happy with slow progress or to stabilise the club where we are. I think most fans would be happy to be where we are now with relative security in the football league for the time being, but of course we all want better.
Again I totally reject your premise that the club stabilising in the Football League is “going nowhere”. Football League status is not “nowhere”. How many other Sussex clubs like Worthing, Lewes or Eastbourne would love this “nowhere”.
That was a decade ago. The point is you need to be contending to keep people interested....as all the teams you mentioned are. Perhaps that's why Lewes v Worthing pulled in more spectators (and sold out) than Crawley v Scunthorpe. Come to think of it didn't Littlehampton v North Shields in the Vase get more?
Whats the problem with JCL's? Isnt that exactly what happened in the vase at Littlehampton? Surely its those Tom Dick Harry and JCL's we need to eventually convert some into STH to grow the fan base.