Warren meets... Michel Kuipers

A week or two ago, Three Bridges hosted Crawley Town. In the Reds net that night was Michel Kuipers and I had a chat with him about his early career as a Marine, his decade at Brighton and what the future holds.

WL: Michel, you began actually as a Marine, was that something you wanted to do when you were young?

MK: Yeah, that's right. I first had to do my national service - I didn't just want to waste my 18 months of national service and ending up like a lorry driver or something like that so I decided that I wanted to do something special and I did a 6 month in-test for the Marines and I ended up staying there for four and a half years.

WL: From the Marines you then joined Bristol Rovers, a bit of a change! How did that all come about?

MK: During the last year or so when I was in the Marines, I played for an Amsterdam club and we won the league, managed to get some publicity; newspapers, TV, radio. They were surprised by the fact that this team, for the first time in 25 years had won promotion and I got invited to a trial week at Bristol Rovers. Ian Holloway was the manager there at the time and after a week of trialing, he offered me a two-year deal.

WL: For one reason or another, it didn't really work out there. You then moved to Brighton and didn't really look back!

MK: Yeah, definitely. Me and Bobby Zamora both came at the same time. Bobby and I were both at Bristol Rovers and we both moved together to Brighton at the same time. We had some very successful years, he got a fantastic move to Tottenham and I stayed at Brighton for ten years! So, for the both of us, we really improved both our careers with the move to Brighton.

Zamora went on to play for England

WL: And in the ten years, you must have had a few memorable moments, can you pick out a couple of highlights?

MK: There's a lot! Winning my first Championship was really special and then winning another Championship the year after was even more special. Winning the play-off Final at the Millenium Stadium was memorable, sometimes, even staying up on the last day of the season in the Championship was also very special. There are loads of special moments, you know, beating Manchester City on penalties and saving the last penalty from Michael Ball to win the tie and to knock out the richest club in the world  - There are some very special moments that will always stay with me.

WL: Yeah, you've been rewarded for your loyal service to Brighton with a testimonial in around two weeks time. This must be something that you're really looking forward to.

MK: Yeah! I'm definitely looking forward to playing at the Amex Stadium. It's something that I campaigned for  for ten years. Finally the stadium is there and it's great for the community and it's great for Sussex that there's a stadium there that can be used, not only for football but to also educate youngsters during the day. A lot of people don't realise what goes on there during the day, there are a lot of young people using that stadium so it's fantastic news all round!

WL: On leaving Brighton, you joined Crawley. You'd obviously had a spell on loan in non-league at Boston but were worried about dropping down to Conference level permanently?

MK: No, not at all. I was very happy to join Crawley because I was still doing my "Albion in the Community" work. It was good to combine the two and stay in Sussex. I really enjoy Sussex and I'm very happy living here. I thought that I could either move away or work for "Albion in the Community" and play for Crawley and it was an easy decision in the end to come and join Crawley. Two years later and the fourth and fifth promotion and I'm back in League 1 again! It's been very enjoyable, five promotions in your career, there's not many professional footballers who can say that!

WL:  Exactly! So, your first season at Crawley wasn't bad, a fourth promotion for you and of course, the superb FA Cup run to go with it! Manchester United away was alright as well!

MK: Yeah, it was very good! Manchester United away, Old Trafford, in front of... what was it? 78,000 people or 76,000 people, you know, it was really nice and it was a great experience. We gained a lot of confidence from that match and afterwards we never looked back really, winning the league and gaining promotion to League 2. Last season was another great effort by the lads once again went up by getting third spot. At one stage we were out of the automatic promotion places but we fought our way back in and in the end we got something that we deserved; promotion again!

Kuips (R) and David Hunt (L) after the Manchester United game

WL: Indeed. On the topic of that last day at Accrington, how nerve-racking was that for you?!

MK: Yeah, of course but at the end of the day, we went into it in the last place, the third place. All we had to do was to stay in that third position and that's what we did! Now we are in League 1 which will be hard because there are a lot of strong teams and a lot of good players, big teams that used to be in the Premiership like Portsmouth and Coventry, big squads and expensive players. We'll need to test ourselves, especially away from home at big stadiums, a big crowd will be on our backs and we'll sometimes have to defend as a team and stay strong and hopefully we will get all the support we've got in the last two years and hopefully they'll be backing us again!

Michel (C) in yellow, enjoys his fifth promotion!

WL: I hope so! Finally, you're in the twilight years of your career at 38. Do you want to get into coaching in the future or have you began already?

MK: Yeah, I'm doing my coaching now at Crawley and obviously still playing but I also do the goalkeeper coaching as well. Paul Jones has come in this Summer and he's been fantastic really. He's a very good goalkeeper and he's very eager to learn. My style of goalkeeping is the new generation; it's very specialised in techniques and detail. All the training sessions that we do are the latest ones. We work a lot on footwork and distribution. Every game I watch him and I analyse him and I set him different targets and every time, he has succeeded in hitting the targets that I set him. It's fantastic to work with him (Jones) and I'm very pleased that he is at the football club because he is a very good goalkeeper and a very nice lad. I think that with the goalkeeping union point of view, it's going to be another successful year!

Me and "The Former Dutch Marine"!

Many thanks to Michel for taking the time out to speak to me.

Record Attendance Sees Reds Share Spoils

Crawley snatched a point as the opening of the club’s new East Stand oversaw a 1-1 draw with play off chasers Crewe Alexandra.

The new East Stand basking in Sussex sunshine

Crewe, famed for their conveyor belt of young talent that brought through “names”  such as Robbie Savage, Danny Murphy, Nicky Maynard, Dean Ashton and Luke Varney, included their latest prodege, 17 year old winger/striker and England under 18 international Nick Powell in the starting XI.  In fact, 7 of the Crewe starting XI came through the ranks of the club.

HIGHLY RATED: Nick Powell

The game began and Crawley had the first chance, Scott Davies’ early floated corner kick was headed just wide at the near post by loanee Leon Clarke.

That was all the home side really had to offer for the next twenty minutes as the front pairing of Powell and Ajay Leitch-Smith looked menacing against the makeshift centre back pairing of John Dempster and Warren Cummings.

Winger Byron Moore was another player causing problems and, after receiving a neat ball from loan winger Billy Bodin who had cut in from the left; two touches later and the ball was curled into the bottom corner of the net only for the linesman to adjudge the wide man offside.

It wasn’t long until he scored another, and a goal that did count.  A long ball was punted up for Leitch-Smith to chase, Warren Cummings had time to clear, however, Leitch-Smith nipped the ball off of the defender before passing to Powell who, in turn set up Moore to curl the ball right into the bottom corner of Michel Kuipers’ net for 1-0 Crewe.

Moore opened the scoring for the visitors

Crawley rallied a little; a Sergio Torres pass found Hope Akpan, who cut onto his right foot only to blaze over the bar from about 20 yards.

Crewe had another couple of chances as a quick corner found Powell who’s dangerous, low ball in was beaten away from Kuipers and out for a corner.  The out-swinging corner came in from Ashley Westwood but centre back and captain David Artell headed wide of Kuipers’ back post.

The two sides went in at half time with the score 1-0 to Crewe.

The second half began and it was almost 2-0 instantly to the visitors as Kuipers pushed away a strike from Leitch-Smith only to see Moore following up but the ‘keeper superbly flung himself over the other side of his goal to keep the score intact.

Kuipers keeps the score intact

Moore then let fly from 25 yards as Steve Davis’ side looked to grab the second goal to perhaps kill the game off, however, the strike swerved well wide of the target.

Reds boss Steve Evans, who was strongly linked to the Rotherham managerial vacancy this week brought on the attacking duo of Sanchez Watt and Scott Neilson in a bid to change the game in the home side’s favour.

Crawley upped the ante as the visitors tired however when in good positions, Watt, Dannie Bulman and Sergio Torres decided to pass to the Crewe backline instead!

Finally the goal did come, some neat, intracate passing set Josh Simpson clear, his low cross looked to go through to Billy Clarke but a bobble saw the ball bounce up and hit Adam Dugdale on the arm; referee Brendan Malone awarding a penalty and Gary Alexander stepped up to slam home the penalty straight down the middle with just 2 minutes of normal time remaining.

ALEX HALTS ALEX: Gary waits for Malone to blow his whistle

Final conclusion, playing poorly and yet not losing is a sign of a decent side, it could be a big point at the end of the season and next up is a trip to Underhill, Barnet on Monday afternoon.  Another positive is finally seeing the attendance record broken for the first time since 2004 with a crowd of just over 4,700 witnessing the game.

Barnet's Underhill "Stadium" is the next venue

Photos courtesy of www.crawleytownfc.com

Crawley Crushed By Rampant Robins

I was looking forward to it, a massive game for both sides and one which I believed (although there’s still a long way to go) that if we won we would go on and win the league (again).

After finishing my day at uni, it was a quick one and a bit hours “up” to Wiltshire from Southampton, 66 miles in fact.

If you are reading this and have never gone to Swindon Town FC then you won't have encountered the famous "Magic Roundabout".  Its a little hectic and I doubt you would want to partake in driving lessons around that area!

HECTIC: The Magic Roundabout, Swindon

After quickly popping into the local Tesco’s, just a stone’s throw away from The County Ground we entered their “Away Supporters Bar”, grabbed a drink, bought match ticket met up with my Dad and got in there.

Now, Swindon away brings back good memories for me.  It is up there in my top 5 Crawley Town moments after Ben Smith’s 119^th minute equaliser in the FA Cup replay at their place in an enthralling 3-2 win to us.  We were undefeated there; played 1, won 1!

GREAT MOMENT!: Ben Smith's winner last season

After how much I was bigging us up to my Sports Journo mates and how we were going to “Do ‘em”, surely the lads couldn't let me down?

A surprise move from boss Steve Evans was putting Michel Kuipers in goal in place of Scott Shearer. Why? I’m not sure.  Other than that it was the same side as normal with the diamond midfield in between the two up top and the back four.

Anyway, the game started of brightly for us, straight from the off, Billy Clarke, who had the pleasure of me watching him for the first time played a neat ball to the overlapping Dean Howell; the marauding left back’s cross-cum-shot looked like it lacked power and was just going out for a goal kick but clipped the bar.  Unfortunately, no other player in a white shirt (Away colours) was there to tap in.

A less than convincing next ten minutes occurred before a bit of controversy erupted when Billy Bodin ran at Claude Davis, the defender clipped Bodin in the Swindon half – However this didn’t stop around eight of the Swindon side surrounding the referee baying for a red card.  Fortunately the official rose above the poor sportsmanship and only deemed the foul a yellow.

SPORTSMANSHIP?: Not from Swindon

Swindon soon thought they had broke the deadlock when, after a spot of pinball in the Crawley box the ball fell to Paul Benson who flicked the ball past Kuipers and into the net, but, as the former Charlton Athletic frontman was off wildly celebrating he didn’t notice the assistant referee’s flag.

OFFSIDE: Benson didn't notice the raised flag

It wasn’t long after though, when the Robins did get the breakthrough.  A free kick was given after captain Pablo Mills brought down the lively Paul Caddis and, I’ve got to admit I called it by saying “He’s gonna have a pop from here”.  Next thing Allesandro Cibochi saw his direct effort clatter against Kuipers left hand post before falling to Luke Rooney who, left footed, fired into the corner of the net.

OPENER: Rooney fires home for Swindon

Crawley rallied late on in the four minutes of first half stoppage time; one of Clarke’s three successive corners was powerfully headed goal bound by Mills only to be tipped over the bar by goalkeeper Wes Foderingham.

The next chance fell to Kyle McFadzean where, after Clarke’s deep kick found the head of the giant Claude Davis who headed the ball back into the mix, McFadzean saw his header unbelievably flicked, Banks-esque around the post.

The next ball in saw home captain Paul Caddis hack clear as the referee blew for half time.

Fifteen minutes later, the teams were out and it was much of the same as Paulo Di Canio's side came out of the blocks and began to lay siege on Kuipers' goal with Rooney and Matt Ritchie having efforts before Bodin scored the second goal of the game; the former Torquay loanee saw the ball bounce up nicely before the youngster smashed a dipping volley past Kuipers for 2-0 Swindon.

Evans made the change of bringing on another striker in Karl Hawley at the same time replacing the in-affective Arsenal loanee Sanchez Watt.

Minutes after the Red Devils' boss brought on Josh Simpson for Sergio Torres Swindon grabbed their third and finished off any chance of a Crawley comeback when Benson tucked away from close range and, despite Kuipers and Co raising their hands for offside the goal was given.

BENSON: Bagged the "clincher"

The home side shut up shop, bringing off Rooney, to chants the same as which Manchester United fans shout at namesake Wayne and threw on the Italian Rafaelle DeVita and  from this moment onwards, apart from a late Davis header missing Foderingham's goal post by inches that was that and the away fans were contemplating a gloomy trip back to Sussex or, in my case Hampshire.

To sum the game up in one word was "Disappointing".  A few in the car on the way back were banging on how good Swindon were, I disagreed saying that we were absolute... and that they didn't really stand out.  I just felt that our players had their minds focussed on the Stoke game on Sunday and a few were ducking out of challenges with the big FA Cup game looming in their minds.  We were second to every ball but this blog isn't a way for me to rant and let off steam so I'll finish now.

COYRs!

Photos courtesy of www.swindontownfc.com and www.crawleytownfc.com