' I’d hope the fans will be respectful' - Swindon Town caretaker boss 'not sure' what reaction Crawley Town manager Scott Lindsey will get at County Ground

It’s the first time Lindsey will be back at the County Ground since he left the club to join Crawley Town. Lindsey was appointed the Robins boss following the departure of Ben Garner at the end of the 2021/22 season. Despite being fifth in League Two, Lindsey left to join the Reds and help them in a relegation battle.

And recently Lindsey has spoken publicly about the Swindon fans ‘not taking to him’ while he was there and said he thought they saw him as ‘a boring appointment’. But Gavin Gunning, who is taking charge of Swindon this game with goalkeeping coach Steve Mildenhall following the departure of Jody Morris this week, hopes the fans ‘will be respectful’.

"I’m hoping it’s going to be a big crowd which will be positive,” he said. “Scott [Lindsey] coming back, I’m not sure what kind of reaction he’ll get. But he did a decent job here, so I’d hope the fans will be respectful. All we want to do is perform really well at a high tempo to make it an enjoyable game and get people off their seats. And win. That’s what football is about – winning games and doing well. If you win games, you’re a good coach. If you don’t win games, you’re a bad coach. I’ve never heard someone being called a good coach when they’re losing games.”

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Lindsey isn’t the only Swindon old boy returning to his old stomping ground, Ben Gladwin, Anthony Grant and Dion Conroy are former Robins players – although the latter has already been ruled out of this game.

He said: “The old guys coming back doesn’t add anything extra for me or for the lads here, I hope. [Ben Gladwin] is a great guy, and the other boys I don’t really know, to be honest. I’ve come across [Anthony Grant], but I’ve never come across Dion, so that won’t really bother me.

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"And most of the lads weren’t here with them, so I doubt it will affect them. The last game of the season is always a good atmosphere. We want to end on a positive and bring that momentum through to the start of next year. You don’t want to be ending on a damp squib, because then you’re trying to find your way through the off-season. Whereas if you’ve got momentum and lads perform really well, then they fill in the blanks for you. There might be someone pop up who hasn’t performed really well, and a change of manager or scenario turns them into a completely different player – that’s just how football works.

“With Scott coming back, it puts a different picture on it. With the gaffer here just leaving, we want to win the game. Obviously we wanted to win games before too, but it’s a different kind of feel to it, this one. Playing at a high intensity is all you can ask for from your team, and hopefully the quality takes over. There are some fantastic players here who love to play front-foot football and be dominant. That’s all that I’m hoping for. But you’ve got to respect them. They’re not a bad side. They’re languishing down the bottom, but Scott has actually got a decent amount of points since he’s gone in there. So they’re a lot better than they were before he went in.”

Quotes provided by Jonny Leighfield at the Swindon Advertiser