Crewe Alexandra

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Crewe Alexandra
Crewe alexandra.svg
Basic data
Surname Crewe Alexandra
Football Club
Seat Crewe
founding 1877
Board EnglandEngland John Bowler
Website crewealex.net
First soccer team
Head coach EnglandEngland David Artell
Venue Alexandra Stadium
Places 10.153
league EFL League One
2019/20   2nd place ( EFL League Two )
home
Away

Crewe Alexandra (officially: Crewe Alexandra Football Club ) - also known as The Railwaymen - is a football club from Crewe , Cheshire in England . He is based in Gresty Road and the nickname (in German roughly: The Railway Workers) illustrates the close connection to the industry there. The association was founded in 1877 under the motto Iuvare non impedire ("Helping [and] not hindering") and was probably named after Princess Alexandra . According to another version, the name can only be traced back to a restaurant in which the idea for The foundation of the association matured.

history

Crewe was initially located in the Football Alliance , an association competing with the Football League , and joined in 1892 after the Alliance was dissolved as a founding member of what was then the Second Division . After only four years, the club missed re-election by the other league clubs and from then on played as a non-league team . Crewe returned to the Football League in the 1920s and won the Welsh Cup in both 1936 and 1937 before being denied entry to the competition again.

As a team that was permanently placed at the bottom of the Third Division North (and later the Fourth Division ), Crewe had for a long time the reputation of being the worst league team in England. This was compounded by a rough 2:13 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in the fourth round replay in the FA Cup on February 3, 1960, although the club had earned a 2-2 draw four days earlier at their home Gretsy Road. In this first game, the club also recorded its largest attendance to date with 20,000 spectators.

A number of coaches in the 1960s and 1970s, including two-time Ernie Tagg and Dennis Viollet , Jimmy Melia , Harry Gregg (a survivor of the Munich plane disaster that killed many Manchester United players ) and Tony Waddington could not improve the club and Crewe had to regularly file applications for re-entry into the Football League after graduating from the lowest places in the Fourth Division .

The Gradi years

A new era began with the signing of Milan- born Dario Gradi as the new coach in June 1983. As a skilful tactician with the reputation of being able to use the maximum skills of his mostly young players, Gradi led the club to previously unattained heights of the English Soccer. In 1997 he was promoted to Division One , where the team was able to hold out until 2002 with a comparatively low budget.

After only one season in Division Two , the club managed to return to Division One at the end of the 2002/03 season as runner-up - for the first time in its history at this rank . Although Crewe managed to stay relegated in the following season, the club was traded as the most likely relegated team at the beginning of the 2004/05 season. From this position, the first half of the season was surprisingly successful. After the sale of Dean Ashton to Norwich City for the record transfer fee of three million British pounds, Crewe was unable to win another game until the last day of the game, when they were relegated with a 2-1 win over Coventry City only because of the better goal difference of −20 versus −21 for rival FC Gillingham .

A year later, however, Crewe was only 22nd and was relegated to Football League One at the end of the 2005/06 season .

Under Gradi's leadership, the association gained great recognition for its youth work and received the official status of an FA youth academy. Due to the focus on and the development of its own players, the club received its financial competitiveness through the targeted sale of players trained in Crewe, which is currently rare in the lower-class English league football. The Academy in Crewe is known for an emphasis on learning technical skills, which is in line with Gradi's philosophy of making an attractive, pass-oriented football play.

The players trained in Crewe include England internationals Geoff Thomas , David Platt and Rob Jones , Welshman Robbie Savage and Northern Ireland internationals Neil Lennon and Steve Jones . They all came as young players from other clubs, but Gradi also had success in developing his own youth, including England internationals Danny Murphy and Seth Johnson, and England U21 international Dean Ashton and Welsh international player David Vaughan .

Stadion

The Railwaymen have been playing in the stadium on Gresty Road since 1898 , which has been officially called Alexandra Stadium since 2000, but continues to be referred to as Gresty Road among fans .

The stadium is divided into four grandstands with sponsor names:

  • Air Products Grandstand (before sponsorship change: Railtrack Grandstand ) - built in 2000 for £ 5.2 million. It offers space for 6,776 spectators including office accommodation of the association.
  • Advance Personnel Grandstand , also known as Gresty Road End , has 1,000 seats plus four disabled seats.
  • Charles Audi grandstand , also known as Railway End , houses 645 spectators.
  • BMW Bluebell grandstand , previously the Pop Side , has a capacity of 1,687 spectators.

League affiliation

Web links