After recent weather disruptions it was great to be back on the road with CTSA and Clarkes of London last Saturday. Glanford Park was probably a new ground for most of us which always adds a touch of excitement. Our packed coach smoothly travelled up the A1 and it was pretty quiet on board. In fact it wasn’t until the later stages of the Matt Putland quiz that things spiced up. A Rick Astley hit got all, of a certain age, up dancing and singing along,”Never gonna give you up”! The quiz was eventually won by Rob L, who, finally giving up on his quest to start a relationship with a bunny girl, decided to accept second best……..

Nathan Anson, Crawley Town Performance Analyst hitched a ride north. He said, “I normally travel to matches with Steve Coppell but this time decided to travel with the fans, and it’s been good fun listening to the banter and joining in the quiz”.  He revealed, “we have given ourselves some realistic targets for the rest of the season, and if we meet them CTFC could be close to a play off spot come 29th April”.

During the pre match build up we met up with the Sparrow family.  Matt’s dad Tony and brother had made the journey up from Eastbourne. Tony said, “Crawley fans haven’t seen the best of Matt yet, he will soon regain full match fitness and score a few goals for the club. In fact we have put a few quid on him to score the first goal today at 16-1(happy day for them as Matt obliges !). He added, “if Crawley do reach the play offs then Matt will have played a big part of that”!

Inside the ground I meet up with CTSA regulars Debbie and Steve who had built a northern break around the Sheff Utd and Scunny games.  Debbie explained, “we were staying in the Peak District and were just about to the leave the hotel last Tuesday when we heard about the game being cancelled, it was really disappointing to say the least”!  The mood wouldn’t have been helped by Saturdays result, but hopefully they had a good holiday nevertheless.

Glanford Park is a lovely modern stadium. We had the stand behind the goal and as usual had a fairly good view of the action. As to the game 126 watched it live and by now the rest of you will have read various match reports to get a flavour of what went on. Needless to say that we slipped to a consecutive away loss and it hurt. Glum faces were the order of the day on a very quiet coach which got back to base at 9.45 pm. As usual our travel partners Clarkes of London were brilliant on the day.

It might not have been the finest of our days out this season but I bluntly refuse to give up the hope of making that glorious dart for a play off spot. With 17 matches to go, Barker’s new squad in place and everyone capable of beating anyone in this league there is still the possibility of picking up the 10 wins necessary to go close.  It all starts again on Monday evening when Doncaster Rovers come to the Broadfield.  A repeat of our away match would be very acceptable.