FAN'S VIEW: Away results and support need a boost

Crawley Town might be flying at home in terms of results this season, but away from home it really is a different kettle of fish.
Crawley Town fan Steve Herbert SUS-160111-112347002Crawley Town fan Steve Herbert SUS-160111-112347002
Crawley Town fan Steve Herbert SUS-160111-112347002

Another lacklustre performance on the road at Notts County at the weekend gave us Reds fans another wasted day out.

Having seemingly rescued a point with an absolute wonder-strike from 30 yards from super striker James Collins with four minutes left, we then managed to concede a stoppage-time goal that consigned us to yet another away defeat.

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Something needs to change on the road and I’m sure Dermot and Matt will be doing all they can to find a winning formula away.

Having said that I’ve been fortunate enough to see us win at Charlton, Exeter and Crewe this season, but these away results are a rarity for the loyal traveling Reds fans.

It would be great to see some new faces away from home.

I have this week created an event on the ‘CRAWLEY TOWN 4 LIFE’ facebook group, to try and take a large away following to ‘Barnet’ on Saturday 11th March. It would be fantastic to see a huge Red Army descend on this game.

Something needs to be done to boost away support and as it’s a nice local one, I’m hoping we can take in excess of 500 supporters to the game, numbers that we haven’t seen in recent seasons on the road.

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Talking of away games, the Crawley Town away travel providers G&H have announced that all under-16s who book on their coaches to away games will now travel for just £10 for the rest of the season.

This has been achieved thanks to a generous financial donation by Reds fan Allan Porterhouse. This is a superb offer and an absolute fabulous gesture by Allan.

This coming Saturday we’re back at fortress Broadfield with a home game against Stevenage, who like ourselves are a product of a 1946 government act to create eight new towns within a 30-mile radius of London.

Like us, Stevenage struggle to attract big support, with average gates of around 2,000 very similar to Crawley.

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This in part is due to the football supporting public of these towns following predominately London clubs due to family generations sticking to their roots.

It is a fact that runs true with many Crawley fans that I know.

We do mostly have alliances to other clubs, due to family loyalty and the fact that we have only had a football league club in the town for six years now.

It takes time to build a fan base, it certainly won’t happen overnight.

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People who know me know I’m also a Hammer, thanks to my dad’s connections with East London. So I’m used to seeing my teams lose!

What I have found though is that more and more people are turning their backs on the overpriced Premier League and supporting their local lower league clubs.

It’s fantastic to see and I for one would rather spend a cold wet Tuesday night at the Checkatrade rather than eating prawn sandwiches at The Olympic Stadium!