A look at past meetings with Saturday's opponents Forest Green Rovers.
Crawley have a reasonably good record against Saturday's opponents, winning seven and drawing four of the previous 17 meetings in non-league and, since 2017, in the EFL.
In our last match against the men in green, Forest Green ran out 2-1 winners in April at The People's Pension Stadium, despite Reds going in front through Dannie Bulman's long-range strike.
Last September in what was Gabriele Cioffi’s first away match in charge, Reuben Reid scored the only goal of the game in a match which also saw Joe McNerney sent off in stoppage time for a second yellow card.
During the 2017-18 campaign Forest Green won 2-0 at the New Lawn when Christian Doidge and Reid secured the win inside the opening half an hour to halt our post-Christmas surge up the table. Thomas Verheydt (pictured) had scored the Reds goal in a 1-1 draw in the return fixture at the Broadfield Stadium, equalising after Doidge’s opener.
The good news is that neither Reid or Doidge are no longer at Forest Green.
We had some tasty fixtures with Forest Green in our non-league days. In August 2010, just three weeks into our title-winning season, Matt Tubbs scored a penalty in a 1-0 win at home. However, that wasn’t the real story as the second half saw a whopping four red cards – two for each side – in a 14-minute spell before Tubbs struck.
The first came for Rovers’ Sean Bartlett for a second booking, then Kyle McFadzean suffered the same fate seven minutes later. Two minutes after that, Reds' goalkeeper Michel Kuipers was dismissed following an incident in the penalty area. Nick Jordan saved the subsequent spot-kick and, following the re-start, George Caines saw red for a last man challenge in the area and Tubbs struck the winner.
In the corresponding fixture in Gloucestershire three days into 2011, Matt Tubbs bagged a brace after Craig McAllister’s opener as Reds recorded a 3-0 win on the march to the Conference title on a snowy afternoon at the New Lawn.
