Marked for Danilo Orsi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market22 Feb 2027
“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 ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Jacob Chapman and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Taylor Richards was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match20 Feb 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Janoi Donacien, and the manager let it.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A muscle injury and 17 days out for Clint Irwin
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Crawley Town will quote 17 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Francisco Vera will call it something else in private.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Joseph White out for 45 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crawley Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match3 Oct 2026
7 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Denzel 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Taylor Richards 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 7.85. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Market5 Oct 2026
Ade Adeyemo is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Crawley Town has been clear about where Ade Adeyemo stands, which is more than many ever get.
Match3 Oct 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Danilo Orsi gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$3.6M was the most the club would pay and Coventry City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Crawley Town have gone to Watford with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Wrexham keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Taylor Richards and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
One of their own: Denzel
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Denzel’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Crawley Town.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.02 — 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Crawley Town, another week without a signature from Janoi Donacien.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Latta N'Dabrou would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Latta N'Dabrou is living that version at Crawley Town, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Hull City is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Danilo Orsi commits to Crawley Town for another 2 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. David Simmons has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Thomas Foster is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Anthony Howard is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Charles Watson is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lewis Richards, and the manager let it.