Crawley Town at Wembley: 92-year-old fan thought Old Trafford would be his lifetime memory as Crawley Town fan, now he is off to Wembley

The 92-year-old has supported the Reds since 1958, when he moved to the town from London with his wife Sylv. In all that time he experienced highs and suffered lows watching Crawley Town and it’s all been worth it to be able to watch them at Wembley this Sunday when they face Crewe Alexandra in the League Two play-off final.

Reds hammered MK Dons by a record 8-1 aggregate score to reach the final and now they face the biggest game in their history. And Ron, who wears a Crawley Town jester’s hat to every game he goes to, thought he had already had his ‘lifetime’ memory being a Reds fan.

But now that has been exceeded and he along with 19 of his family and friends will be travelling to Wembley on Sunday. Ron and Sylv have three sons, Mike, Peter and Dave, six grandchildren Claire, Hannah, Ben, Jodie, Jas and Jared and two great grandchildren, Avie, Imogen and Maisie with two expected later this year. Hi son Peter lives in Spain but as soon as knew Crawley had got into the play-offs, he booked a flight over so he could be here for the final – even before Reds had played MK Dons.

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Ron said: “I thought my lifetime memory of being a Crawley fan would be going to Old Trafford. But now we are going to Wembley. I never thought we would be there but we are and we are going.

“I have a big family and they all want to go. We are looking for about 20 tickets and hopefully we will get them all together and we will make some noise.

“It means everything. With my friends and family coming with me, I think we will be a colourful site. I shall be wearing my hat. I still can’t believe it, it will be lovely.”

Crawley have been underdogs all year with all the pre-season predictions condemning the Reds to relegation. But that have defied it all and after finishing seventh and beating MK Dons in the play-offs, they could be promoted to League One.

Ron was one of many who did not expect them to have the success they had this year – and it was quite late on before he believed they could achieve something special. He said: “It has been a bit up and down all season but we seemed to have saved our best performances in away games. I only realised we may do something special when we won 4-1 at Mansfield Town. I thought ‘hello, something might happen here’.”

The Bermondsey-born former RAF serviceman cites his favourite Crawley players from the past as Vic Bragg, Steve Breech, Terry Robbins and, more recently Matt Tubbs and Dannie Bulman. But have any of this year’s squad been added to that list?

"For the first time ever I haven’t got a favourite player. The goalkeeper frightens me at times but what a character, [Danilo] Orsi doing his celebration, it’s great. But they are all good. The really strong thing about this side now, when they make changes, the players who come are just as good as the ones going off.”

That squad and how they have all gelled is down to Scott Lindsey and his staff. Ad it was very clear Ron is a big fan of the gaffer. "Scott’s doing a wonderful job for us and I have to laugh at Swindon,” he said. “When we got him they all said ‘good riddance, good luck Crawley you are going to suffer under him’. Where are Swindon now and where are we?

“I don’t we have had a manger who has related to the fans like we have. You can see it’s genuine, it’s not put on. He loves the fans and we love him.”

But does Ron think his beloved team can finish the job and win at Wembley? “When this first happened we all thought ‘this will be a nice day out for us’,” said Ron. “We didn’t care what happened. We should have been playing Doncaster Rovers but they blew it. But we are playing Crewe, we haven’t beaten them this season but there is always a first time. But I think we are favourites. We didn’t just beat MK Dons, we tore them apart, we embarrassed them. 8-1? Incredible.

“We were unbelievable.”

You can see all the Wembley ticket information here.