Manager Rob Elliot revealed Crawley’s players will be rewarding the 68 fans who cheered them to a long overdue victory on a freezing night in Mansfield.
The Reds ended a run of seven winless games with a late 1-0 victory, and the club have promised the travelling support “a pie and a pint as a thank you”.
Substitute Ade Adeyemo turned home a deserved winner after 81 minutes, and Elliot said: “It was probably our best performance for a while and it just gets that monkey off your shoulder.
“When you are in a tough place that win can seem a million miles away, so the lads deserved that.
“The fans have been amazing. They have had a tough time with a lot of travel and money spent.
“So the players have said anyone who had a ticket tonight will get a pie and a pint from the club as a thank you.
“You have to believe and you have to fight and the players were superb to a man.
“They are the standards we want to see – and we managed to maintain them for 90 minutes, though we won’t get carried away – it’s just one win.
“We need to keep moving forward in small baby steps.
“Second half we built the pressure and their keeper was outstanding. It could have been more were it not for him.”
Home goalkeeper Christy Pym made two saves to deny Will Swan in a scrappy first half.
But Crawley went up a gear and forced a string of fine stops from Pym before he spilled another Swan shot and Adeyemo was on hand to bury the follow-up.
Mansfield almost levelled in stoppage time, but Charlie Barker produced a magnificent goal-line block to keep out Aden Flint’s powerful far-post header from a corner.
Stags manager Nigel Clough said: “That’s four defeats on the spin now and you can see our confidence dwindling by the minute.
“We now need to scrap and fight to stop this run like we did at Charlton earlier in the season. We need to work a bit harder and stop the rot.
“I thought we were good value for a draw tonight, though I thought Crawley played well, especially in spells in the second half.
“It was just ironic that Christy made a mistake when he had been immaculate – he made some fantastic saves tonight and then spilled the easy one which cost us the game.
“One slipped out his hands and their lad was able to tap it in from close range.
“Christy has had one poor game all season – at Lincoln. Apart from that he has been immaculate as always and just when we needed him to see out that last 10 minutes he’s spilled one.
“For the next 10-15 minutes we pushed as much as we could and Flinty was inches off getting us an equaliser. That’s the way it’s going.”
