Marked for Matthew Smith
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Apr 2031
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crawley Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout21 Apr 2031
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match19 Apr 2031
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match19 Apr 2031
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crawley Town can tell you which week it ends in.
Market21 Apr 2031
Only the photograph left for Dylan Thompson
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dylan Thompson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crawley Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bassirou Ndiaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Ifeanyi Ndukwe and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Looking ahead21 Apr 2031
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
The dugout21 Apr 2031
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match10 Mar 2031
77 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Player ratings10 Mar 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.46, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market10 Mar 2031
David Hicks has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crawley Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Mar 2031
Stanley Mills is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.36 with 15 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad10 Mar 2031
Bassirou Ndiaye falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match8 Mar 2031
Three points for Crawley Town, 2‑0 the final word against Gillingham in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad10 Mar 2031
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings10 Mar 2031
Ninety minutes of Matthew Smith at his very best
Marked 8.02. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Crawley Town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market6 Jan 2031
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad6 Jan 2031
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Crawley Town will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market6 Jan 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Crawley Town is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market6 Jan 2031
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crawley Town heard it as anything else.
Squad6 Jan 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crawley Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets6 Jan 2031
Crawley Town asked and Wolverhampton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match4 Jan 2031
A 2‑1 win over Portsmouth, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad6 Jan 2031
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match14 Dec 2030
After 12 games, Crawley Town finally taste it again
The first defeat in 12 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against AFC Wimbledon; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Stanley Mills and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match14 Dec 2030
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Looking ahead16 Dec 2030
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Bassirou Ndiaye falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Joe Snowdon, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Robert Clark to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings16 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cristhian Medina trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
Lorenzo Paolucci, 34, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match7 Dec 2030
Another one collected away from home
6 on the bounce on the road for Crawley Town. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Market9 Dec 2030
Only the photograph left for David Hicks
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Hicks will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crawley Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match7 Dec 2030
Nobody wants to play Crawley Town right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Boardroom9 Dec 2030
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. David Hicks has agreed terms with Swindon Town for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Match7 Dec 2030
It finished 1‑0, and it was Lorenzo Paolucci’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Crawley Town.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bassirou Ndiaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
The manager makes an example of Matthew Smith
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match9 Nov 2030
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
Two goals and a mark of 9.03 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
A brace, and Taylor Richards takes the afternoon — 8.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Taylor Richards provided it, and the 8.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match9 Nov 2030
Crawley Town keep winning on the road
5 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match9 Nov 2030
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad11 Nov 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crawley Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
The game went through Matthew Smith — 6.90
Marked 6.90 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match4 Nov 2030
The view from the top for Crawley Town
33 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Player ratings4 Nov 2030
A defender's goal wins it for Crawley Town — 7.74
1 for Matthew Smith, marked 7.74, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Player ratings4 Nov 2030
Successful dribbles: 25. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match2 Nov 2030
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Stanley Mills was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match2 Nov 2030
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Match29 Oct 2030
A 1‑0 win over Peterborough United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bassirou Ndiaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Sep 2030
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market30 Sep 2030
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crawley Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Sep 2030
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market30 Sep 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Charles Agbawodikeizu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crawley Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market30 Sep 2030
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crawley Town heard it as anything else.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Stanley Mills and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Matthew Smith ran the middle of the pitch — 7.23
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.23, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Ninety minutes of Stanley Mills at his very best
Marked 8.42. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Crawley Town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Sep 2030
The words a physio says slowly. 50 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market2 Sep 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings2 Sep 2030
Matthew Smith pops up at the right end — 7.66
7.66, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Boardroom2 Sep 2030
Window shuts: 19 in, 17 out at Crawley Town
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 17 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market2 Sep 2030
Stanley Mills wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Crawley Town hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market2 Sep 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Charles Agbawodikeizu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crawley Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets2 Sep 2030
Crawley Town asked and Ipswich Town said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings2 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match22 Apr 2030
Crawley Town refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 81 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The dugout22 Apr 2030
Lorenzo Paolucci: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crawley Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings22 Apr 2030
Matthew Smith goes up and wins it — 7.85
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.85 for the rest of it.
Match20 Apr 2030
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Crawley Town have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad22 Apr 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crawley Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Apr 2030
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Crawley Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tyler Fredricson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad22 Apr 2030
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Mar 2030
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Matthew Smith will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Crawley Town escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad25 Mar 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crawley Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
The manager makes an example of Jackson Smith
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Words at Crawley Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewis Richards is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings25 Mar 2030
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.03, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Too much change too quickly at Crawley Town
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Match23 Mar 2030
It needed Matthew Smith to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Barnsley, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market25 Mar 2030
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Lorenzo Paolucci has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Crawley Town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Feb 2030
Crawley Town are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 64 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market11 Feb 2030
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crawley Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match9 Feb 2030
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation Crawley Town did not have in the autumn.
Transfer targets11 Feb 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Derby County have kept their man, and Crawley Town go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets11 Feb 2030
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Crawley Town will try again when the window opens; Milton Keynes Dons may not be selling by then.
Squad11 Feb 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” James Crole and Crawley Town agree another 4 years.
Player ratings11 Feb 2030
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match9 Feb 2030
A 2‑0 win over Stockport County, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match5 Feb 2030
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Taylor Richards. 1‑0 against Wrexham, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Nov 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market19 Nov 2029
Only the photograph left for Jasper Moon
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jasper Moon will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crawley Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Taylor Richards was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Words at Crawley Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewis Richards is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad19 Nov 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Crawley Town know it.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
Jérémie Lioka is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
Dion Pereira gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dion Pereira is on it.
Looking ahead19 Nov 2029
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jackson Smith’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Crawley Town needing him to play as if none of it matters.