Scott Lindsey lights a candle in memory of his wife Hayley every day and places it on a cabinet next to the urn containing her ashes along with fresh flowers.
And at Wembley on Sunday, the Crawley Town manager will look up towards the seat where she watched his team win promotion in 2017, thankful that football helped to mend his broken heart.
Lindsey has sustained his candlelit ritual for four-and-a-half years since his wife died from kidney cancer at the age of 44 in November 2019. “Two days after she passed away, I was in the dressing room at Chatham Town, picking the side and delivering the pre-match talk. And we won 3-0,” he said.
“I went through hell watching her deteriorate and I needed to take my mind off it instead of being at home and feeling trapped in the darkness. Maybe that’s not everyone’s way of coping with grief, but football was my escape.
“Before losing Hayley, I had lost my brother (in a motorbike accident), and two years after my wife I lost my mum - also to cancer. All these things were awful to go through, and yet they probably shaped me for the better as a person.”
Lindsey, now 52, will become the first Crawley manager to lead the team out at Wembley in their 128-year history at the League Two play-off final against Crewe Alexandra, leaving Accrington Stanley as sole outliers among the 92 clubs never to play at the national stadium.
Striker Danilo Orsi’s hat-trick at MK Dons in the semi-final fired the Red Devils to the highest aggregate win (8-1) in play-offs history. Crawley will be backed by around 18,000 fans, six times their average home gate, and there is a sense of a new flame at the Broadfield stadium - to go with Lindsey’s daily candle memorial.
He said: “I have a new partner now. She has three children, I was left with three children when Hayley died and there are nine of us living in one house because her mum lives with us as well. Even my partner will light the candle if I’m not there. Urn, candle, flowers - it’s a big part of our daily routine.
“It’s a terrible way to find out, but I’ve learned how precious life can be and how important it is to make the most of every day. Last season we finished third from bottom of the League, and I could quite easily have said, ‘Let’s consolidate and work our way up the table in stages year-on-year.’
“But I thought, ‘F*** that - we’re going for it.’ I hate that word, consolidation. It’s a cop-out. Every single moment counts because you never know what’s around the corner, so I demand that we work harder than the opposition, I demand that we run further and faster than the other team.
“We’ll travel away to Morecambe on a Tuesday night, get back at 5am and by first thing Thursday the whole game is clipped up on video ready to debrief and the dossier on our opponents next Saturday is prepared.
Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are set to lock horns in a huge bout on May 18 with each fighter attempting to etch their name in boxing history as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999. The stakes couldn't be higher as the pair will go head to head for the prestigious WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF titles.
“The boys come in and ask, ‘When does this guy sleep?’ But I want them to know I’m not content to settle for consolidation. I want them to feel as driven as me. What I went through was horrific, but football has given me a way out of the darkness.
“I have been to Wembley twice before - on the coaching staff at Swindon when we lost the League One playoff final against Preston and as assistant manager of Forest Green Rovers when we were promoted into the Football League in 2017.
“I’m not very good at showing my emotions, but I will probably look to the area where Hayley was sitting last time.
“I know there’s a lot of bells and whistles that go with playing at Wembley, and rightly so, but Crewe beat us twice during the season and that’s a worry in itself.”
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