Olly Huddlestone's latest blog from down under
When Reds' fan Olly Huddlestone went travelling in September we gave him a home shirt and told him to spread the Crawley Town gospel to as many football fans in as many far-flung parts of the world as he could. Here's his latest blog from Australia.
After sailing around the Whitsunday Islands for three days my next stop was Fraser Island. Again, this was a three-day, two-night experience but instead of being stranded at sea we visited shipwrecks, champagne pools and drove off road in 4X4s.
In my 4x4 was Ryan from Leicester, and we began talking after both asking the inevitable question: "So who do you support then?"
Ryan is a massive Manchester United fan and, as many others have during my travels, brought up the 2011 FA Cup fifth round tie between the
two sides when the conversation got round to Crawley Town.
It seems we have stuck in a lot of people's minds since that game with many feeling that Crawley gave a great account of themselves and were unlucky not to
come away with a replay.
Of the eight passengers five were boys and spoke about football for the majority of the three days, while the three girls were crammed in the back and couldn't get a word in!
One of the boys on the trip was a Leeds fan and looked distraught when I brought up the appointment of ex-Reds boss’ Steve Evans. He acknowledged the
success he'd had at Crawley and Rotherham United but described him as crazy to take the job at a club who have had seven managers since June 2014.
Let's hope Reds can prove the magic of the FA Cup is still alive and conjure up a similar campaign to 2011, starting with the first round at home to Luton on Saturday.
Next stop for me is South East Asia!
