DREAM DECADE HAS FLOWN BY

IT’S A WHOLE ten years since Matt Tubbs helped fi re Crawley Town into the Football League for the first time in their history – but, for the free-scoring striker, it feels just like yesterday.

- Johnny Morton

On joining the ambitious Red Devils for a then club-record fee from Salisbury ahead of the 2010-11 Conference campaign, manager Steve Evans made it crystal clear what the club’s expectations were – promotion at all costs!

It quickly became evident that Tubbs was to play a key part in ‘Project Promotion’, as it soon became known, and on scoring twice in only his second outing against Cambridge United he never looked back.

That year, he finished as the Conference’s top marksman with 37 goals in 41 league games as the Red Devils cruised to the title with 105 points – 15 clear of closest rivals AFC Wimbledon.

“It feels like yesterday,” said the 36-year-old, now retired and in charge of a football academy at Brockenhurst College, Hampshire.

Promotion