Each of these articles takes a good half day to produce – more when I get sidetracked reading the programmes or old press cuttings I am hoping to use as a basis for the piece. Either that, or I am sitting wondering what to write about as in most cases I have pretty well covered our previous meetings against other teams, including Saturday’s opponents, Orient, who we first met in the short-lived Seanglian League in the early 1960s.

Luckily, while tidying my office, a photocopied page of The Crawley Observer from 50 years ago (25^th April 1975, to be precise) fell out, giving me one of my other fall-back options, that being a look at this day (or month) in the past.

The main headline in the paper was a report on a Sussex Professional Cup Final match at Town Meadow when, after battling through to the final (well, actually one match, beating Horsham 1-0 at Town Meadow on 10^th December 1974 in the semi-final), we would meet Brighton and Hove Albion. Our previous victory in the competition (when only our two teams and Hastings United competed as professional sides) had been in the 1969/70 season when we had beaten an almost full-strength Albion side 1-0.

Sussex Pro Cup Final programme

Sussex Pro Cup Final Headline

This time we got so close. Having gone behind early on, we recovered to go 2-1 in front (Mick Mancini, Peter Frost) only for Albion to equalise in the 56^th minute. We regained the lead ten minutes from time through another Mancini goal from an Ali West cross, but disaster struck just two minutes from time when Andy Beer let in a shot under his body to take the tie to extra time. No further goals were scored, and in those days before penalties we would take the final to a second game. That game at the Goldstone didn’t actually take place until the start of the next season, on 18^th August 1975, when we went down 3-2 (John Bailey, Mancini) in a very closely fought match.

Returning to the previous season and that press cutting, I noticed a column in which club chairman Brian Finer hit back at The Observer for what he saw as inaccuracies in a previous feature, which had trumpeted “Twelve Wasted Years” as a reflection on our time in the Southern League since 1963. He used his column to point out that the priority was to reduce the debt burden on the club before any significant attempt was made to field a stronger side. He also highlighted the fact that earlier in our SL journey, we had built a social club, installed floodlights and concrete terracing with cover (I will add that these were several years previously). On the pitch, he stated, we had won the SL Merit Cup (as overall highest scorers in both divisions) and the Sussex Professional Cup, and reached the FA Cup first round twice in the early 1970s. We also had a youth team in those days and they had won the Sussex Youth Cup two years in a row and were in the final again.

He also challenged the facts of the feature writer who had claimed that fresh loans were being raised to clear debts, which he stated was incorrect. Finer was often quick to challenge what he perceived as inaccuracies in the local press, and it is refreshing that the newspaper did allow his right of reply and that it was reasonably prominently sited.

As for our youth team and their cup successes, I note from a comment in a programme on 1^st May that it was thanks to his previous involvement with them that Mr Les Turnbull had joined the board of directors. This is very poignant timing as 50 years later to the very day is the funeral of Les’s wife, Audrey, who also played such a big part in keeping the club going through some difficult years, and who continued to be a loyal Red Devils fan right up to her death just a few weeks ago.

Les Turnbull joins the board 1st May 1975 with fellow director Ken Symons

Les Turnbull joins the board 2011 with Bobby Charlton

For those wishing to pay their respects, Audrey’s funeral takes place at 3 p.m. on 1^st May at Surrey and Sussex Crematorium, with a celebration of her life being held afterwards at Crawley Football Club function room.

Audrey Turnbull with “Les Turnbull” Cup

Returning to 1975, Les obviously wasn’t looking for glory from his appointment as that season had probably been as bad as any in the club’s history. The year had started with our longest unbeaten run of the season, a 0-0 draw at home to Met Police on 1^st January followed on the 4^th by an exciting 3-3 draw at Poole Town (Vic Bragg, pen, Mancini, Dave Easton) and then a tight 1-0 win at Town Meadow (Mancini) against Salisbury on 11^th January. That encouragement coming after we had lost 7-1 at Hastings United on Boxing Day was, however, as good as it got, with just one draw and 17 defeats coming in the remaining league matches. We finished bottom of the table on 11 points, having scored 31 goals and conceded 102, 15 points adrift of second-bottom side Dorchester Town (one of only three teams we had beaten that season). One other point I note from that season was that somebody had the inspired idea for us to change from our traditional red kit to all white, perhaps in the hope that we would play like Real Madrid? Thankfully we returned to red for the 1975/76 season!

The following season, with Les’s involvement, saw a slight improvement. Well, at least we didn’t finish bottom, though we only escaped that ignominy on goal difference, finishing third from bottom. We did however win nine games that season as some of the young local players from the previous season gradually gained more experience at semi-professional football.

The other game featured in the Observer article mentioned above was our long trip the previous week to Devon to play Bideford, who at the time were second bottom in the table. Sadly that game went the way of so many that season with a 2-0 loss, enabling Bideford to leapfrog Dorchester in the league. (In fact we lost all six games we played against that side.) Bideford would pull out of the Southern League at the end of that season due to the travel costs. I can vouch that it was a long, fairly tortuous journey for us, as I drove it for at least two of those matches, with the previous season’s trip part of a two-day double header with Dorchester (lost 2-0) on Friday 12^th April 1974 and Bideford (lost 1-0) on the Saturday. My overnight accommodation for that trip was the back seat of my Ford Cortina, parked outside the players’ holiday camp chalet accommodation in Weston-super-Mare. Oh, how we spoiled the players in those days!

May 1940 Crawley Church School 3 Council School 0 at Yetmans Field

Moving back 85 years to May 1940, and a match that Ian Mulcahy, the creator of the excellent Crawley Town History website, drew my attention to this week. Not a game involving our club but a local football match, played on the Crawley FC ground at the time, Yetmans Field (see map with field in green), and featuring a stalwart of Crawley FC as its referee, Ernie Dennett, but also at least one future player, that being my dad, John Fox. The game was an inter-school match between the Church School in West Green (roughly at the junction of Victoria Road and Ifield Road) and the Council School from Robinson Road (where Asda is now). My dad, who would go on to play in goal for Crawley in the late 1940s, was in goal for the victorious Church School. I recognise one or two of the other surnames as possible future Crawley players (for example Hall and Horn), but does anybody else recognise a relative in the teams?

Yetmans Field on location on map

My dad would go on to join Crawley after his war service and would play the last first-team league game for Crawley at Yetmans Field on 23^rd April 1949 ahead of the move to Town Meadow that summer, the game against Southwick ending in a 2-2 draw (Doug Bastable, Dennis Voice). He also played the last recorded game there, a friendly against the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, who were based a short distance away on the REME site on the London Road (where B&Q is now sited). We won this one 3-0 (D.Bastable pen, George Heldman, OG) to end our time at Yetmans Field.

REME site London Road

Finally, a quick mention of an exhibition Steve Leake and I are putting together for July/August at Crawley Museum. It covers our escape from relegation when Scott first joined us, the glory of last season, and ends with this season’s struggles in League One. We may well be asking for photos and memories of matches and events in these seasons, so please get thinking!

Mick Fox – mjfjo@yahoo.co.uk