After clinching promotion to the Football League this week Crawley’s players could be forgiven for looking forward to the conclusion of an exhausting campaign and their end-of-season trip to Las Vegas.

Not Scott Neilson though. The 23-year-old midfielder made his long-awaited comeback after ten weeks out in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw against Luton.

Neilson broke his toe during the warm-up before the 3-0 win over Cambridge United on January 25 and has missed 19 games including Reds’ historic FA Cup tie against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Now he is determined to make up for lost time by featuring in Reds’ four remaining fixtures and preparing himself early for their assault on League Two.

He said: “It was a shock to be starting on Tuesday but I was chuffed to get out there.

“Since I have been injured I have been doing fitness work every day in the gym and for the last two weeks have really trained hard and I got a reserve game against Aldershot under my belt as well.

“But you still need to get match fit. I was blowing a bit after 25 minutes and telling the lads to slow it down! It wasn’t our best performance but we had a long weekend of celebrations.

“We had a great crack on the coach home from Tamworth on Saturday and it was brilliant to win the title so early but perhaps it caught up with us a bit.”

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