I was actually expecting our first pre-season game to be announced (as per the club twitter feed) at about 4pm, so the news we are heading back to Crawley came as a bit of a surprise… I suppose we should be thankful Fulham managed to hold off Blackpool for the Fair Play place in the Europa League, we can only imagine the chaos two Championship clubs in Europe would have caused.
As it is, the July 29th date (a Friday night, and it still hasn’t been explained why the game couldn’t take place on the Saturday) means the gap between Eastlands and Broadfield is just sixty-nine days, surely the shortest close season in Dons history, Intertoto Cup notwithstanding? Plus three weeks and six days between first scheduled preseason game and our first competitive fixture, will Brown treat the Crawley clash as a competitive warm up or go at it all guns blazing? I’d prefer the latter, but how much of a shit I’d actually give depends on exactly who the winner will play, which will be determined by the first round draw on Thursday… a trip to Palace or West Ham would really get the blood pumping… Its going to need to be a big reward, as this will be our seventh meeting with Crawley within two years, and even the prospect of our first game back supporting a Football League club can’t mask the disappointment.
Elswhere, a new WHAK was released revealing all the other goings on at the League and Conference AGMs, I was waiting to hear if any juicy gossip emerged before writing my farewell to the BSP (indeed, non-league football in general..), and having now read it I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered waiting. Still, no rush, I have forty-six days at least…
The Anonymous Don 