Crawley's surge to success

Like many others, I did not expect Crawley to win promotion to League One.

After a seventh-place finish in the regular season, Crawley’s momentum in the play-offs has been key, with a huge 8-1 aggregate victory over MK Dons in the semi-final, the biggest EFL play-off win and the most goals scored by a side in their first two games in the play-offs. This was Crawley’s first time playing at Wembley and, after starting 2024 in 14th, their run of 10 wins and four draws in 21 games put them on course for promotion.

All this is more remarkable on the back of last season, when Crawley finished 22nd and only just avoided a drop into non-League, a level they were promoted from in 2010-11. Back-to-back promotions then saw them reach the heights of League One the following season but being an established EFL club this high up the pyramid is a relatively new thing for a club that only reached the top tier of non-league football in 2005. The outcome at Wembley made Lindsey’s side the first since Coventry City in 2018 to earn promotion in their first ever appearance in the EFL play-offs in a season where many tipped them for relegation.

They have a special leader in Scott Lindsey, who steadied the ship after five managers in 10 months including short spells in charge for Kevin Betsy and Matthew Etherington in 2022-23, and has made an unserious club a serious footballing side.

“There were nine players in the squad today who were playing non-League football last year, which is unbelievable,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s about them because I’ve given them the information — and it’s a lot of information, in detail. But they have taken it on and executed it fantastically well all season.

“In order for you to get the culture right, you may have to be a bit ruthless and change personnel, which I’m fine with. It’s a key thing to management and I felt that needed to happen. I was the fifth manager that came in that season so they needed some kind of stability. But there were a lot of loose professionals in the building, a lot of people not wanting to work hard but wanting their money going into their bank account every month.

As well as raising standards, in Lindsey they have a manager determined to build a playing identity with only two League Two teams boasting a better possession percentage this season than Crawley’s 57.1 average. They also have a leader who has overcome great personal challenges after the 52-year-old cared for his wife Hayley when she had stage-four liver cancer before she passed away at the age of 44 in 2019.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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