Johnny Friendly
A piece on our (and a couple of others) preseason friendlies needed a friendly title, so here is this 1983 single by JoBoxers, the third single off their debut album ‘Like Gangbusters’, it got to number thirty-one in the UK Singles charts and stayed on the chart for eight weeks.
With Crystal Palace winning their European trophy it meant we would be in the preliminary round of the Carabao Cup, and that being the case was obviously playing havoc with us sorting out pre-season friendlies. The usual one against Three Bridges was off the table, apparently due to the reluctance of playing on 4G to start the pre-season. Whitehawk announced they were playing us on the 21st of July, only for that to disappear from their website and social media. We announced one against Worthing on the 4th of August only for that to bite the dust the following day when it was mediated by the EFL that our away fixture in the preliminary round of the Carabao Cup away at York City would be on the evening of the 3rd of August. A couple of days later the pre-season schedule was released, away at Eastleigh on the 25th of July, away at Oxford United on the 28th of July (a strange one that, you don’t usually play pre-season friendlies against higher level opposition away from home), and a final one at home against Reading on the 31st of July. There were also two secret behind doors games against Premier League / Championship opposition which may or may not be named after the event.
But I started my preseason before that, On the fourth of July I independently went to a game between Quorn and Barwell up in Leicestershire, which is covered in the second of two Leicestershire Retro Kev pieces below.
Then it was on to Corinthian-Casuals on the eighteenth of July in southwest London, currently in the Combined Counties League Premier Division South, as they were hosting AFC Whyteleafe who sit two steps above them in the pyramid in the Isthmian League Premier Division.
We have played Corinthian-Casuals. Once in an April 1955 friendly at home which finished in a 1–1 draw. And then in a replayed 1975 FA Trophy Prelim match, drawing 1–1 away and then winning at home 2–0. We have also played Whyteleafe (in their previous incarnation) in the 1986 Gilbert Rice Floodlight Cup Semi final at home, beating them 4–2 before going on to beat Banstead Athletic in the final. And then in the FA Cup 1st qualifying round in 1997, losing 3–2 away from home. I found a random programme from a Whyteleafe game (not against Crawley) in one of their previous incarnations, one of many picked up over the summer.
I got to the ground as early as I do anywhere else, so much so they were still letting staff and players in and hadn’t manned the turnstiles yet. When they did, I paid my five pounds and wandered around, taking lots of photos, both of the ground, which is a nice place, and the various realms of history they have up around the place. Nods to the Corinthians and them supplying the entire starting elevens for a couple of England games in the 1890s, and that the ultimate all-round sportsman CB Fry was a player here, and their links abroad, especially Brazil.
I was amused by the sign over their club shop calling it the megastore.
I bought lots of items to the surprise of absolutely no-one and then found a seat as close to the halfway line as possible and settled down to watch the game.
Pregame announcements were short, and basically said there are lots of new player son both sides and with the officials and we don’t have a list of names. No further announcements were made.
There was a decent pace to the game and attack was definitely the order of the day. Both sides getting caught offside early on and then both having shots from the edge of the box which ended up slicing well wide, CC get into the box on a well worked move and hit the crossbar. The Whyteleafe number ten looked a handful and is involved in the build up which sees half a dozen passed through from the left into the box and the ball being slotted pass the keeper for a Whyteleafe goal.
The ref was just about keeping up with play, and he has got a pretty unique method of scuttling in trying to do so. The main surprise being he only got in the way of the ball once in the game.
CC have a free kick on the edge of the box which they drive under the wall but straight at the keeper. At the other end Whyteleafe get into the box and have claims for a penalty, the ref blows and gives a free kick for a dive, which it definitely wasn’t. Just before half time a long clearance is mis-controlled by the Whyteleafe defender and falls to a CC player whose first time shot from twenty-five yards out beats the keeper at his near post and it is level. The next minute is a bit mad, the CC keeper makes two good saves on the trot, the ball breaks and CC rush forward, and play it in to an unmarked man on the edge of the box who fluffs the chance, it rolls out to the other side of the box and the winger has a shot saved at the near post but the flag has gone up and it’s half time.
It never ceases to amaze me how knowledgeable the fans are at this level. A guy sat a few seats along from me spent most of the half talking to the guy in front of him, turns out he’s a Fulham season ticket holder, is one of the 350 co-owners of Clyde FC, and they were talking about the issues faced by Kingstonian. There were a row of CC under 21’s in front of me, who seemed to know every player on both sides, where they’d come from and what league any team was playing in.
The second half shows no signs of being defensive, there are shots and corners at both ends, and a thunderbolt from thirty yards by Whyteleafe crashes back off the bar. At the other end, a CC shot is deflected twice, wrong footing the keeper only for it to just dribble wide. There are now a collection of CC fans behind that goal and singing. Only it appears they are all singing different songs. Meanwhile at the half the Whyteleafe fans had moved down the other end and taken their banners with them.
With the full-time whistle due very soon it is all Whyteleafe, there are half a dozen shots blocked by the keeper and defenders in quick succession only for attempt number seven to beat them all and end up in the net and win it for Whyteleafe at the death 2–1.
And I headed back off home, one of 194 souls who’d seen a decent game.
The same afternoon saw Crawley playing the first of their behind doors friendlies, not too far away from where I was at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground against a Chelsea XI (or more likely XXII). Initial (and false) reports came through that we had lost 7–0, but a more accurate one came through next saying it was only 3–1 and that our scorer was ‘Armstrong’, only for it to turn out on the third and so far most accurate report, that it was actually Orsi who scored.
The second outing was more secretive and was against Cardiff City, depending on the version of events, we either lost 4–1, or we played two sixty-minute games, drawing one and losing the other.
The first open preseason friendly was away against National League Eastleigh. So I drove to Eastleigh, a journey which should point out the ideal of sticking to the fucking plan, which in this case was to go by train. I don’t cope well with driving by myself to places I’ve never been before with no real idea of what the best route should be. The sat-nav took me the shortest route, which I wasn’t envisioning being mainly by the A272 through one way village centres and tractor afflicted country roads. It ended up taking a lot longer than the train would have done, and then there is trying to find somewhere to park, and it is all stress and anxiety before I even get to watch Crawley play.
The ground is nice and substantial with a reasonable sized (if not very fully stocked) club shop,
with last year’s away kit only seven quid. Another for the collection then.
Coming out of the shop and the team coach has just arrived, having had its own travel issues getting to Eastleigh, and due to that the kick-off is delayed by fifteen minutes. And it seems as if Eastleigh may well be trolling the Crawley fans as they are playing The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” before we’ve even kicked off. But at least, are far as I could tell, there were no betting adverts anywhere around the ground.
There is no programme, but there are team sheets, which are much needed at this stage of the season, both in helping to identify just which of the plethora of new signings is wearing which number, and from a spelling perspective. And I have both of the programmes from previous games against Eastleigh, a 2008 FA Trophy game we won at home, and a 2014 away preseason friendly which we drew.
And I have a random away game one against Bath City.
Eastleigh started brighter and it took a couple of goal area blocks from Priestly Farquharson to prevent us going behind early on. Then we got up the other end on Pemi Aderoju twisted and turned a couple of men in the box before getting a low shot in straight at the keeper. He was involved again in winning the first corner of the game as another shot was deflected wide.
Ade Adeyemo is playing nominally as right back, but he seems to be further forward than Dion Pereira most of the time, and the two of them link up in the opposing box with Ade slipping it into Dion who turns and fires a shot in from a tight angle which goes in off the underside of the bar and we take the lead after twenty-three minutes.
It is still that way at half time. Both Jude Arthurs and Klaudi Krasniqi have played well in midfield, finding space and being available for the ball and using it well, Ade was useful going forward and Aderoju looked a handful up front, and Farquharson was a big solid unit at the back, playing as the right sided central defender with Charlie Barker on the left.
The second half saw a complete lineup change for Crawley. We play some good stuff through the half, we seem to be quicker getting the ball forward, but the age-old problem of that final ball not finding the player in the middle, or the target was an unfortunate theme carried on from last season.
Gianmarco Di Biase looked a very tasty player, he linked up well with Danilo Orsi and forced at least one very good save out of the Eastleigh keeper, cutting in from the left and curling a shot in from the edge of the area. Orsi looked to be working well, but I do worry he’s not fully mentally recovered from his injury as it looked like he pulled out of a couple of 50/50s.
The triallist wearing number 63 looked very good going forward overlapping Danny Cashman from left back — pace and strength, may have been trying too hard a couple of times, could definitely have put a goal on a plate but hesitated and lost it trying to beat another man. Got a decent photo, but no idea who he is.
Overall a decent enough performance by both sides put out. I would quite like to see a game between the first half side and the second half side. I’m not sure from this outing who would be in the first eleven when the season starts, hopefully we’ll get more of a clue in the two remaining friendlies, but I’m glad it’s not my decision to make.
I don’t know if there was an official count of away fans, but it did look like there was at least a couple of hundred Crawley supporters in the away end for this one.
And then quickly on to Oxford United, Helen and I have a couple of weeks off, so went up to Oxford early to have a nice wander around the city pre match. Then went and parked up near the ground and walked in past the club shop, which isn’t in the ground, but nearby in the cinema complex on the other side of the various car parks. Which is different. I got a fridge magnet.
Plus a nice little pin badge harking back to the days when the club were known as Headington United. And there was some kit envy, not at the men’s kit, but rather at the women’s team kit as that is proper funky.
Speaking of Headington United, back in our Metropolitan League days we played against Headington United Reserves for four seasons, before they renamed and then another three seasons against Oxford United Reserves. The record wasn’t great, two wins, two draws, and ten losses. We played Oxford United for three seasons in the Conference getting two wins and four losses. Two seasons in League Two, where it was a win, two draws and a loss, and there was a single loss in the Football League Trophy to add in as well. We have played a preseason friendly against them before, a 0–0 draw back in 2000.
As well as programmes against us, there are a couple acquired over the summer from against other random clubs as well.
And they had a single player appear in the Topps cards of the seventies.
There are only three stands, but the rest of the ground is reasonable.
I did find their old ground details in a late nineties football league grounds book, and the Manor Ground had all four sides.
Realised I forgot my glasses, so a whole lot of squinting was going to be going on. On the official lineup posted by the club there were two changes from the starting eleven against Eastleigh with Kellen Gordon starting in place of Jonny Russell, meaning Ade Adeyemo started as nominal left back, and Gianmarco Di Biase started up front in place of Pemi Aderoju. But we didn’t kick off like that, which I’ll come back to in a bit.
Oxford start well early on with a few corners in quick succession, one of which forces a decent save out of Vito Mannone. Adeyemo is being given a torrid time by the Oxford number seventeen (even if he is a bit dramatic and constantly whining at officials). It’s down the left that a low cross into the box comes from. Mannone gets down and pushes it out only for it to hit Charlie Barker and bounce back in for an own goal and we are 1–0 down.
It’s announced as a ‘Baker’ own goal, as for some reason the guy on the mic, keeps calling him Charlie Baker, and the fans keep shouting Barker. Eastleigh were doing the same thing on Saturday.
Get Kev Neylon’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
We do get our own little flurry of corners which come to nothing and follow it up with some good play dictated by Jude Arthurs and Klaudio Krasniqi which sees the ball out to Stephen Duke-McKenna on the left wing, he cuts inside, and a bit more before curling a shot which goes just inches over the bar.
Back in defence Adeyemo and SDM both give away free kicks to the left of the box in quick succession, and if it hadn’t been a friendly then there would probably have been yellow cards dug out there. And then we get a free kick at the other end in the D. Malcolm Ebiowei steps up and smashes it in. A good goal, but I’m confused as he wasn’t on the original official starting list. It’s taken me this long to notice he is playing instead of Dion Pereira and seeing as Periera doesn’t make an appearance on the pitch at all, I’m going to have to assume he picked up an injury in the pre-match warm-up. I’m pretty sure that’s our first direct free kick goal since Harry Forster’s effort to put us up 3–2 away to Salford last year.
There’s a stretcher out for an Oxford injury in our box coming off a fine saving tackle from Kellen Gordon. After five added minutes the half time whistle goes with the score being 1–1.
We only make four substitutions at half time, with Mannone, Barker, Ebiowei, and Gordon coming off and being replaced by Jackson Izquierdo, new signing (and triallist from Saturday) Omari Mrisho, Pele Arganese-McDermott, and Jonny Russell coming on, which sees Adeyemo switch over to being right back.
And we have a decent chance nearly straight away, Adeyemo feeds Mrisho down the right and his low cross is controlled by Gianmarco Di Biase but he then lifts his shot over the bar. A late one on Russell sees him down needing treatment. Again one which would have been a yellow card normally. Whilst he is down, we bring on the rest of the subs. Adeyemo, Priesty Farquharson, Louie Watson, SDM, Arthurs, and Di Biase come off, with Pemi Aderoju, Danilo Orsi, Danny Cashman, Justin Ferizaj, Jude Robertson, and Akin Odimayo coming on to replace them, leaving Krasniqi as the only player to play the whole match for us. And Oxford have made a number of substitutions as well.
Ferizaj’s first involvement is to give the ball away in midfield and Oxford are in on goal, but Izquierdo saves well. An Oxford attack down the left finds little resistance and the cross in is met at the near post, six yards out and steered in and we trail again, 2–1.
At the kick off we attempt to shoot, it has the legs, but the keeper gets back and collects under his own bar, but it would be a shot on target. We then try to gift Oxford a goal with fannying around over a short goal kick, giving it straight to an attacker in the D, but the effort is saved. And Izquierdo is called into action again a couple of minutes later. Since the second raft of our substitutions and Oxford’s is has very much been one way traffic.
Cashman is absolutely clattered and is down, ref lets play go on as Oxford keep the ball, and our physio is on the pitch giving treatment whilst the game is still going on. He doesn’t even check on him as he’s being helped off.
Oxford are creating good chances with every attack, and when an attempted cross field ball to Mrisho is cut out, they rampage down the left again, get a cross into the box and slot it in and we trail 1–3. They don’t look finished either, again down the left, a ball in sees a sliding attacker get a boot on it, but it comes back off the far post, and we somehow scramble it clear.
The ref has obviously had enough and plays no added time in the second half, and it finishes with a 3–1 loss. The crowd was announced as 1,862, no mention of how many away fans, but a manual count by me made it to be somewhere around 90 Crawley fans who had made the trip. Then Oxford put we had 152 there.
I think the last half hour saw us not get back into the swing of the game after the substitutions, but also impacted by Oxford seemingly being better for their subs. Plus, after working so well in tandem with Danny Cashman on Saturday down the left, Omari Mrisho struggled when pushed back to right back after Ade Adeyemo went off, and played with Justin Ferizaj in front of him, and that’s not his natural position either, and it was telling that most of the attacking after that point, and both the goals, came from down that right hand side of ours.
Overall it wasn’t too bad a performance, against a side who have kept a lot of their squad who played two divisions above us last season.
Three days later it is our only home friendly, against Reading. Of course if Robert Maxwell had had his way, these last two friendlies would have only been the one, as he wanted to merge Oxford United and Reading to form the Thames Valley Royals in 1983, a plan which was scuppered by legal action by one of the board of directors at Reading. Robert Maxwell moved on to buy Derby County, leaving Oxford United to his son. Living in Leicester when Robert Maxwell vanished, I heard a lot of the Leicester City chant regarding him and Derby County at the time, and it’s one of those things that’s been permanently embedded in the back of my head since then. (To the tune of heads, shoulders, knees, and toes.)
There’s a rumour going round (going round)
Robert Maxwell’s gone and drowned (gone and drowned)
Arthur Cox has got the fucking pox
Derby County going down (going down)
But Reading do have the nickname of “The Royals” after the Royal County of Berkshire which they adopted in 1976 (pre-Maxwell at Oxford), and were previously known as The Biscuitmen, due to the town’s association with biscuit maker Huntley & Palmers.
We’ve done a lite version of the programme, so the next few paragraphs were thrown together for that.
There isn’t a great deal in the line of programmes against Reading, neither side were producing them when we played in League One in the 2024–25 season (where we lost away and drew at home), but I’ve got the cover from the FA Cup game (another loss) in 2013, and also one from our last preseason friendly against them back in 2015, a joint one with the other preseason games against Fulham and Brighton & Hove Albion. Their line up in the programme from that day included Hope Akpan and Liam Kelly, both of whom made appearances for Crawley Town.
We won that game 1–0, and interestingly enough, our first league game of the season was against our opponents from Tuesday night’s friendly — Oxford United. We have also played their reserves in a 1998 preseason friendly losing away 2–1, and even further back we played a Reading XI in a 1972 preseason friendly at home winning 2–0, which by all accounts wasn’t very friendly on the pitch and left a fair amount of ill-will afterwards.
In their ranks today they have Liam Fraser, who signed for them after turning down an offer from us after our year in League One, and who was one of their players in the Panini EFL sticker album last season.
They also had Kamari Doyle playing for them last season on loan after returning to Brighton from us. Aside from the aforementioned players, others to have played for both include Kwesi Appiah, Jamie Ashdown, Scott Davies, Tyler Frost, Dean Morgan, Jordan Mutch, Ben Smith, and Jake Taylor.
Looking back at old football cards I found one from the 1992 Proset — Trevor Senior — in his second spell at Reading at this point, in 301 league games for them he scored 153 goals and was the Football League’s top scorer in the 1983–84 season with 36 goals as Reading won promotion from the Fourth Division. He is their record goalscorer in all competitions and was voted second in the fans choice of player of the Millenium in 1999.
Behind Robin Friday, who there isn’t a card for, but who did famously appear (in Cardiff City colours, so tying in with one of our behind closed doors friendlies) on the front of the 1996 Super Furry Animals’ single “The Man Don’t Give A Fuck”.
Further back and the 1979 Sun Soccercards had Gary Peters and Martin Hicks part of a record setting back five which kept a clean sheet for 1,103 minutes in 1979, a record broken by Manchester United in the 2008–09 season. The latter of the two is their record appearance maker and was number ten in that fan vote.
Going back to the days when their nickname was the Biscuitmen I found this neat little programme from their home game against Peterborough United in 1967. Back when they were little pocket-sized programmes which would have slipped neatly into a jacket pocket without folding. None of their voted top ten appeared in the lineup, but Dick Spiers is number three on their all-time appearance list, and Denis Allen is number six on their top goalscorers chart.
Get to the ground nice and early to take some photos, and I pick up a programme, which most of the above made the cut for.
The team news comes out, and we are pretty much starting with the team that finished the game at Oxford on Tuesday night. Klaudio Krasniqi and Danilo Orsi are replaced by two triallists and (numbers seventeen and twenty-eight), Krasniqi drops out of the squad entirely as does Vito Mannone, Dion Pereira, and Gianmarco Di Biase, with there being a triallist goalkeeper on the bench, and the first sighting of Jay Williams for the fans in preseason.
Before the game there was a well-supported minute’s applause in memorial of club stalwart Barry Nunn.
Early skirmishes would suggest triallist seventeen is playing left wing, and triallist twenty-eight is playing as an attacking central midfielder.
Pemi Aderoju outmuscles a defender about thirty-five yards from goal and advances into the box, composes himself and then drags the shot wide. Omari Mrisho and Danny Cashman are combining well together, only this time they are both on the right, rather than the left they played together at Eastleigh. Jude Robertson is the fulcrum in midfield, and he is doing a very good job of that role considering he’s only eighteen.
A free kick in midfield is put to the right and headed into the middle Aderoju has two attempts and there are claims for a handball in there, another cross in goes too deep, is put back in and turned into the net, but the ref had brought a halt to proceedings as there’s a Reading player down with a potential head injury in the box. And then up the other end Reading have the ball in the net only for the offside flag to be up.
Half time comes and it’s 0–0.
We make two substitutions at half time, with the triallist goalkeeper coming on, and Stephen Duke-McKenna on for triallist number seventeen.
We have a couple of decent attacks with no end product, and then it is the triallist keeper’s time to shine. He makes a good save as Reading get through too easily. Then a couple of minutes later he makes a great stop with an attacker one on one, and thirty seconds later he makes it a hat trick of great saves preventing another one-on-one opportunity.
On sixty-three minutes we make eight more subs, with Ade Adeyemo, Charlie Barker, Priestly Farquharson, Kellen Gordon, Malcolm Ebiowei, Danilo Orsi, Jude Arthurs, and Louis Watson coming on, leaving on Jude Robertson on from the team that started. That lasts for five minutes before he is replaced by Jay Williams.
We have a quick counterattack with SDM and Ebiowei combining and the former’s cross getting put out for a corner, it comes in and a header is cleared off the line. We are pressing well and have some more corners, and have everyone in the Reading half, and the triallist keeper is up in the centre circle. A ball is played out and the keeper acts as a sweeper and plays a ball along the ground out towards SDM on the left wing, however the defender intercepts and then shoots from seventy yards and the keeper can’t get back quick enough to prevent the ball going in and for us to trail 0–1, very much against the run of play at the time.
This wakes the small Reading support up and the now get at the keeper each time he gets the ball and try chanting at the home support after been conspicuously quiet for the first seventy-five minutes of the game. But at least they didn’t bring their tennis balls with them.
We huff and puff but don’t really look like scoring, and Orsi tries a snidey one on the Reading keeper as he goes to kick clear from his hands, and the full-time whistle goes, and there are some handbags between Orsi and the keeper after the game, which we lose somewhat undeservingly 0–1.
It wasn’t a thriller, no doubt not helped by the manager resting the expected starting eleven for Monday night’s cup game and ruining former manager’s Scott Lindsay’s ‘spying mission’.
Overall the Crawley Town friendlies have done what preseason friendlies always do, let you see some players you haven’t seen before, give a rough idea of what the first side might be, gives a bit of hope, and raises a few worries.
It looks as if CKR is going to play a 4–2–3–1 system. For me the 2 part of that is definitely our strongest area, Jude Arthurs, Klaudio Krasniqi, Jay Williams, and Jude Robertson cover that area particularly well. I have two worries though. The first is the obsession with trying to make Ade Adeyemo a full back, play him on either side of the 3 and he’s great, but he’s not a natural full back, especially not on the left. And most concerning is none of the strikers seem to be anything approaching prolific, we have shown decent play going forward, but I worry where the goals are going to come from.
Come on you reds.
For other Crawley Town pieces from this season check out the list below.
If you liked this post, follow me or get on my email list for future posts. Some may even be more enjoyable than this one.
You can find articles I have already published here.
You can find my books on Amazon, and I have pieces of work in anthologies, details of all of them can be found on my website,
