Crawley Town Football Club

In September 2021, Crawley welcomed defender Joel Lynch to the club after he put pen to paper to sign an initial four-month deal, which was extended for an extra 18 months in January 2022, taking his deal to the summer of 2023.

The central defender has an excellent professional footballing CV, playing 308 championship games and scoring 19 goals for clubs such as Nottingham Forest, Huddersfield Town, Queen’s Park Rangers and Sunderland.

The defender started his professional career at Brighton & Hove Albion before making a move to Nottingham Forest at the age of 20 for a reported £225,000 fee. Joel made 90 club appearances in Nottingham before landing a move to championship rivals Huddersfield Town, where he played 128 times for the Terriers between 2012 to 2016, scoring nine goals.

In 2016, QPR made a reported bid of £1.3 million for Lynch as the Welshman moved back down to London to go on to play a further 95 games for the Championship club, impressively scoring another seven goals. Most recently Joel played 16 times for Sunderland in League One, but his 2019/20 season was disrupted by injury and then the COVID-19 outbreak. Joel also has one Welsh cap to his name.

Since joining Crawley, Lynch has been a star player within the side, proving crucial when fit in the defence and being voted Crawley Observer player of the year for the 2021/22 season.

Lynch quickly became a fan favourite for his aerial dominance, leadership and qualities within the defence, which helped Crawley achieve a top-half finish last season.