Crawley have an excellent record against Colchester, having lost just three times to the U’s in 12 Football League meetings. We have won five and drawn four of the other nine fixtures.
Those defeats came in three successive games between 2017 and last season's trip to the Weston Homes Community Stadium when Filipe Morais scored from the spot but we fell to a 3-1 defeat.
Joe McNerney was shown a straight red card in the first half of our New Year's Day meeting at The People's Pension Stadium but the ten men turned on the style in the second half. Luke Gambin's two goals sealed a 2-0 win and Luke, who was on loan with us at the time, ended up signing for the U's in the summer.
Our last home league win over the U’s prior to then was in March 2014, when Mike Jones’ first half goal sealed a 1-0 success.
Jimmy Smith scored what was only the second Football League hat-trick by a Reds player in a 3-2 success at Colchester in 2016 and in our League One relegation campaign we also won 3-2 in Essex, with Izale McLeod's second-half penalty proving decisive.
