League Two 2011-12 season preview

Crawley Town's wealth makes them promotion favourites but Morecambe and Cheltenham could struggle

by John Ashdown 1 year ago

Understandably, much of the focus has been on the new boys in the basement – Crawley Town and AFC Wimbledon. Crawley are overwhelming favourites for promotion, and the hottest favourites in the Football League – in terms of title-winning odds, only Manchester United are shorter-priced. The reason for this optimism? Money. Crawley have it, the rest of the division, by and large, don't. The deal the club put together to snap up Wesley Thomas from Cheltenham is a case in point. "I've heard the package he's on," the Cheltenham chairman, Paul Baker, said, "and he wouldn't get that at a lot of clubs in League One. It's staggering."

Along with Thomas (18 goals for a struggling Cheltenham side last season), John Akinde (from Bristol City), Scott Davies (Reading) and Hope Akpan (Everton) have all joined despite interest from League One sides, and Tyrone Barnett, who, like Thomas, reached double figures in a struggling League Two last season, has signed from Macclesfield for a rumoured six-figure fee. Even with all that shiny new firepower heading to the Broadfield Stadium, the prolific Matt Tubbs (37 goals in 41 games last season) has stuck around, so it's an improved side and one that lost only three times last season – with all of those defeats coming before mid-October. Even recent history is on their side – in the past eight years four teams have gone straight through the division after promotion from the Conference – Doncaster in 2003-04, Carlisle in 2005-06, Exeter in 2008-09 and Stevenage last season. It's hard to see them not finishing in the top three.

Thanks to the cash, and the not-exactly-universally-popular Steve Evans, Crawley will hardly be the neutrals' favourites. That title goes of course to AFC Wimbledon, whose summer, unlike their fellow promotees from the south-east, has been as much about sales as purchases. Danny Kedwell's departure to Gillingham is something of a hammer blow and the manager, Terry Brown, needs to ensure minds are on the task at hand rather than the understandably nostalgic ephemera (for the opening game of the season the team will be wearing a one-off commemorative shirt which is a replica of the one worn when Wimbledon played Halifax in 1977 in their first game in the Football League). I'm not saying that's a bad thing – AFC Wimbledon's rise is one of the great stories of the past decade – but it would be a shame if they now take their eye off the ball.

The interest elsewhere lies chiefly at the County Ground, Swindon (and how many times have we been able to say that since the days of Hoddle and Ardiles?). Paolo Di Canio is in the hotseat and has the job of picking the club up after relegation last season.

In a similar, if less potential-headline-making, situation is Paul Buckle at Bristol Rovers, who heads to the Memorial Stadium after an impressive tenure at Torquay. Like Crawley, Rovers seem financially upwardly mobile and Buckle's recruitment smacks of a side gearing up for a proper promotion push. If anyone pips Evans's side to the title it's likely to be Rovers.

Oxford, who like Rovers have a promising young manager in the shape of Chris Wilder, have raised eyebrows with the signing of Peter Leven from MK Dons and should be there or thereabouts, while Rotherham have, at the time of writing, managed to hang on to Adam Le Fondre – his location when the transfer window closes could make the difference between the play-offs and a season of treading water in mid-table for the Millers.

Even away from the promotion places it should be a season to watch – there are plenty of names, plenty of stories. Lawrie Sanchez is hoping for "extraordinary things" at Barnet, but would probably take a season of dull but delicious safety after the recent stress-filled campaigns at Underhill (17th, 21st, 22nd over the past three years); Bradford, still the big beasts of the division, are now entering their fifth campaign at this level; Micky Adams is back at Port Vale; Accrington were the best side in the division in 2011 and have the third-longest-serving manager in the Football League in John Coleman (only the men at Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium have been in situ longer); at Morecambe the captain and veteran of over 300 games for the club, Jim Bentley, has become manager at the age of 35; Plymouth Argyle's existence remains at stake. Plenty more will play out over the course of the campaign, and, as ever, there'll be a few surprises.