TT Opposition Q&A – Crawley Town by Aidan Parfitt

TT OPPOSITION Q&A

“We’ve been fantastically backed by Mr Eren and our thanks go out to him for that

Crawley_Town_FC_logoAidan Parfitt discusses the Red Devils of Crawley Town

 

Hi Aidan so before we talk about your team – tell us a bit about yourself and how long have you followed Crawley? 

I’m 21 and I’ve been a Crawley supporter home and away since I was 6, and only missed a small amount of games over the last 15 years

So who are your owners and how have they coped with this crazy year? 

Our owner is Ziya Eren, a Turkish businessman who’s been involved in the club for 4 years or so now, when he came in he brought a great group of people with him including Erdem our technical director who’s done a lot for the club in the recent years, I must admit most Crawley fans have been surprised with how they have coped, we have our biggest squad ever (32 players). Of course there has been financial struggle too, but all clubs have had to go through that. However, we’ve been fantastically backed by Mr Eren and our thanks go out to him for that 

How have the supporters got behind the club?

The club have activated a few initiatives throughout the recent months including a takeaway food company run by the club called ‘Ballerz’ which by all accounts has been very successful for the club. Also a more recent one is a thing called reds wall where fans can buy a plaque and have their name and a message on it, which goes on the main wall of the main stand and that’s brought in some revenue for the club.

What’s your expectations for 20-21 and how’s your form been recently? 

My personal expectations with the squad we have is the play offs but being realistic about a 10th place finish would be good. Our home form is fantastic and we haven’t lost at home in a year (14 games), but our away form is the opposite having only won once away since August 2019, a very weird form reading. 

What’s been your highlights of the season so far?

We had back to back 4-0 wins against Morecambe and Tranmere (see below), so they were pretty special plus beating free scoring Cambridge 2-1 at home.

Who are your key players and why? 

Glenn Morris (the cat) our keeper has been outstanding for us, and has made some key saves for us at important times over the last few seasons,. Jordan Tunnicliffe our centre back has been great since coming in at start of last year, swooped most of the awards for last season and has just carried on again this year, and our forward Max Watters has come in and scored for fun, 6 in 6 in all comps after being released from Doncaster which I’m sure they are regretting now  

What would you say are the strengths of the team? 

Our build up play is a huge strength of ours, we have knocked the ball around nicely this year sometimes just the final ball let’s us down. Our defence is pretty strong too with the experienced Tony Craig coming in this year it’s really tightened us up  

Who’s the gaffer and what tactics does he like to use? 

Gaffer is John Yems, despite being fairly well aged has never had a first team management job in Football League, but he came in and transformed us last year from a team looking like relegation candidates to a solid mid table side. He will want us to play football and get forward as quick as possible. 

The FA Cup game from 2011 is a painful memory for Gulls fans, what are your memories of it? 

Great memories of it for me, when Dannie Bulman lifted that ball over and Matt Tubbs smashed it in I went mad. Nice day in a nice part of the world and a great result, and the reward for the win was a trip the theatre of dreams (sorry to mention it).

And finally, with both teams in form it should be a cracking cup tie – what’s your match prediction? 

It should be a great game and I’m going to have to go for 2-1 win for Crawley. Best of luck to Torquay for the rest of the season and hope to see you back in the EFL soon.

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I simply live and breathe Football and have supported Torquay United since 1989. I am a season ticket holder on Bristows and a Trust member. I set up TorquayTalk in 2017 to give true supporters a voice and honest opinions on their club.

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