[Niles Crane]

These two articles sum up why Crawley's success isn't a fairytale like some might make out:

The club: http://twofootedtackle.com/fa-cup/wh...in-the-fa-cup/

The manager: http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=8698

Some excerpts:

Crawley have spent close to £500,000 on assembling a team for “project promotion”. In contrast, Torquay’s record signing was £75,000 on Leon Constantine in 2004. As Barney Ronay notes, Crawley spent more than that on striker Richard Brodie alone. Their budget is likely to be higher than the majority of League Two teams and some in League One.

Crawley, up until this season, have never been flushed with cash. Indeed, much of their time since winning promotion to the Conference in 2004 has been spent battling assorted financial difficulties, while for a time, it was a rare season that didn’t see the Sussex club deducted points for some form of financial problems.

In 2009 Crawley supporters Bruce Winfield and Susan Carter took control of the club, paid off their debts and with it came a level of stability not previously seen around the Broadfield Stadium. This summer, however, Crawley suddenly became the division’s big spenders after Winfield brought in outside investors (although the club has regularly declined to name who these are).

Suddenly, Crawley were like a kid in the proverbial sweet shop. The aforementioned Brodie arrived from York City, along with other high-profile signings Matt Tubbs from Salisbury and Sergio Torres from Peterborough. Crawley had the cash to buy anybody they wanted and were rebuffed in a move for AFC Wimbledon’s captain Danny Kedwell, a bid that has kicked off numerous spats and ill-feeling between the two clubs.

Why, though, is Steve Evans so despised? It’s easy, from a distance, to assume that the ongoing antipathy towards Evans is an antipathy like any other. An abrasive “larger than life” character will always stir up negative emotions in the supporters of other clubs, but Evans seems to strike something baser – a raw nerve that provokes florid and colourful streams of abuse, something that makes others desperately hopeful to see him fail. There may be an element of truth in this interpretation of the dislike of him, but it seems likely that much of the hatred of Steve Evans is based on something more tangible. Because Steve Evans is a convicted criminal, part of a scam that took a club from the middle ground of the non-league game into the Football League and, moreover, for many non-league supporters, he is also the man that, in spite of his criminal record, for many people, got away with it.