Heroes & Villains – Crawley Town
Heroes – Bruce Winfield
Bruce Winfield was a former Director and Owner of Crawley Town and under his ownership, Crawley had their greatest moments in their history.
Winfield helped to source extra revenue for the club and helped ease them out of a difficult financial time. He and fellow-Director Susan Carter became Key Shareholders at the club. With investment also finally coming in to the club, a new era was beginning at the Broadfield Stadium.
The team worked wonders on the pitch under the management of outspoken manager Steve Evans. They reached the Fifth Round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history and drew Manchester United away.
Crawley narrowly lost 1-0 but didn’t disgrace themselves in front of 10,000 of their travelling fans.
Winfield passed away in March 2011 at the age of 60. Three days before he died, he discharged himself from the hospice where he was residing to watch Town beat rivals AFC Wimbledon. One of the stands at Broadfield Stadium has been renamed the ‘Bruce Winfield Stand’ in his honour.
Villains – AFC Wimbledon
Until researching for this article, I was never aware of a rivalry between these two clubs. It’s a relatively recently rivalry too, owing to AFC Wimbledon reaching the Conference for the first time in 2009 and it was in that year that the two met for the first time.
Crawley were promoted to the Football League as champions of the Conference in the 2010/11 season. AFC Wimbledon had to go the distance, finally gaining promotion through the play offs.
The two played each other for the last time in this 2011/12 season before a three year hiatus as Crawley were promoted to League One. They were relegated three seasons later though and the clubs rivalry resumed.
In the five matches between the two, both sides have won twice and there has been one draw.
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