A look back at past games against Saturday's opponents Accrington Stanley
Saturday’s meeting with Accrington Stanley in Sky Bet League Two will be the eighth between the clubs and Stanley have the edge with four wins. Reds have won twice and there has been one draw.
We did not play each other until August 2004, when we had made a great start to our first season in the Conference. Reds were unbeaten when they headed to Lancashire but skipper Kevin Hemsley conceded an early penalty and it turned out to be a tough afternoon for Reds, who ended up losing 4-0.
When the return game took place in April Reds were second in the table, a false position considering they had played more games than the other play-off chasers. Steve Burton and Dan Marney scored in either half to secure a 2-0 win, our first in seven games, and we finished the campaign in 12th spot, two places below Accrington.
In September 2005, Reds lost 4-2 at the Crown Ground despite goals from Burton and record signing Daryl Clare and when Stanley arrived at the Broadfield Stadium in March 2006 they were on their way to the Conference title while Crawley were fighting the drop and had just cut the players’ wages by 50%. Accrington won 1-0 and went on to win the title while Reds ended the season in 17th place after a strong finish to the campaign.
That was our last meeting for six years as Stanley established themselves back in the Football League. When Stanley arrived for the first League meeting in October 2011 Steve Evans’ men were on a run of seven consecutive wins while the visitors had not scored for over six-and-a-half hours. Stanley shocked us by taking the lead six minutes before half time but substitute Hope Akpan cracked home a brilliant leveller 12 minutes from the end to rescue a point.
The return game on the final day of the 2011-12 season will go down in Crawley Town folklore. Over 600 fans made the trip, knowing that a victory would see us rise to League One for the first time. With a quarter of the final game of the season remaining, Scott Neilson entered our history books by scoring the only goal of the match. Despite the odd scare we saw the game out safely, sparking a pitch invasion from the travelling Red Army followed by joyous scenes as caretaker manager Craig Brewster and the players celebrated back to back promotions.
Earlier this season we lost 3-0 at home to Accrington, who scored twice just before half-time after Luke Rooney had been sent off.
