Angry Raynor hits out at 'spoilt' supporters

FURIOUS Paul Raynor branded Crawley Town's supporters "spoilt" and "silly" after they booed their side off following Saturday's home defeat to Mansfield.

The Reds assistant manager was angry at the fans who turned on their team, chanting "what a load of rubbish" during the second-half and hurling abuse at boss Steve Evans.

Town were outclassed for much of the game and Mansfield thoroughly deserved their 2-0 victory, despite going down to 10 men with little over 20 minutes remaining.

But Raynor was unhappy with the crowd's reaction to the defeat and said they should put the performance in perspective of where the team have come from over the past few seasons.

He said: "You always get a small minority who want to boo but they must have been very spoiled by previous managers here. Silly people are usually inclined to make silly comments and you can't do much about it.

"If we had won today we would have been in the area of the play-offs which for a club of our size would be fantastic."

Despite Town still having a chance of making the play-offs, supporters have become increasingly frustrated this season, having seen popular players Jamie Cook and Jake Wright leave the club in the summer.

The fans have started to vote with their feet, as the average attendance at the Broadfield has been lower this season than in previous campaigns.

And even though Mansfield are considered one of the best sides in the division, Saturday's crowd of 883 - which included 177 away fans - represented one of the lowest seen in the Blue Square Premier this season.

However, Evans said that gates were down all over the country on Saturday and a low turnout was expected.

He said: "I think the weather was a huge factor. In the morning the club took more calls than ever before from fans asking if the game was still on and a lot of people would have been put off.

"The England game didn't help either. If you look at Wrexham they got 2,000 on Saturday and they would normally expect 3,500."