Mid Sussex League
Division 3 North
Saturday 13th April 2024
Kick Off 14.00 On Time!
Caterham 2 A.S. Crawley 6, attendance 4
27’ 0-1 (pen)
31’ 0-2
57’ 0-3
67’ 1-3
75’ 2-3
77’ 2-4
90’ + 7, 2-5
90’ + 8, 2-6
@ Old Coulsdon Colts F.C.
Drive Road
Old Coulsdon
CR5 1BD
No Admission or Programme.
We’re at the time of season where teams can’t be bothered to raise a team for games, with the Mid Sussex League being one of the worst for this. Six games were off in this league today due to this, but I received a positive reply from A.S. Crawley via text message that the game was on okay (Caterham didn’t bother replying) and that they were about to set off. I wanted to get a game in here just in case Caterham play elsewhere next season, as they have suffered endless postponements, due to the poor quality of the pitch and it would also complete the division for me. It was clearly evident which end of the pitch was the problem and walking behind that goal end was very soft, even on a bright, sunny day like today.
The sports ground here has a couple of changing room buildings, with the brick built one to the left as you enter the car park being the one used. The pitch is to the left (a lot of smaller sized ones cover the rest of the field) running lengthways away from here. It looked like the groundsman ran out of white paint whilst marking out the pitch, as a good 75-80% was marked in blue!
The match was 7th versus 3rd (out of 8) in the league table. Crawley can’t finish any higher, whilst Caterham knew a defeat would see them relegated. Crawley opened the scoring with a penalty on twenty seven minutes and made it 0-2 four minutes later. It was 0-3 just before the hour mark and Crawley eased off, thinking it was job done. Two goals in eight minutes saw Caterham pull it back to 2-3 with fifteen minutes left, but Crawley made it 2-4 within a couple of minutes and despite having a man sin binned late on, still added two more in stoppage time to give them a resounding 2-6 win. Man of the match was certainly the Crawley No.7. He was fouled for the penalty that set them on their way and went on to score four of the other five goals.
