Heartbreaking story of Crawley boss who lost mum, dad, brother and wife before football turned his entire life around
SCOTT LINDSEY carefully pulls out a photo at his home in Kent.
It is a snap from the early 1970s of the Crawley boss as a toddler with his brother Matt, dad Keith and mum Jean.
Sadly Lindsey, 52, is the only person alive today.
The Red Devils boss has suffered so much tragedy he could write a book that would make tough men cry.
Even his beloved wife of 16 years, Hayley, mother of his three daughters, passed away almost five years ago after suffering liver cancer aged 44.
He will have all four of them in his heart as he leads Crawley out at Wembley in the League Two play-off final against Crewe on Sunday.
In 1995, Lindsey’s brother Matt, aged 25, and house-mate and highly-promising England Under-21 keeper Alan Nicholls, 22, died in a motorcycle accident.
Nicholls – who famously lit and smoked an entire packet of cigarettes in one go in front of stunned England team-mates such as Robbie Fowler, Sol Campbell and Trevor Sinclair – was so good he was voted Plymouth’s second-greatest keeper of all time.
Lindsey was a hard-as-nails defender playing for Dover against Stalybridge in the Conference while pal Nicholls, who was at Gillingham, played in the game for the opponents on an emergency loan.
He said: “The Gillingham manager Tony Pulis told Alan there was a northern team that had come down that day without a keeper and asked if he’d help them? They’d chuck him a couple of hundred quid.
“The game was on my dad’s 49th birthday. My family lived in Scunthorpe, where I grew up, but he travelled to all my games. But dad told me the night before he was having car issues.
“Next morning, I heard this motorbike revving up outside and it’s my brother and dad. Matt had the world’s fastest bike. I couldn’t believe dad had come down on the back of it.
“I drove Alan, my brother and dad to Dover. I got sent off for two yellow cards and we lost 3-1 – but Alan was brilliant.”
Lindsey decided he would drive his dad home – to spare him another 250 miles on the bike. And he invited Nicholls to make the car trip with them. His brother followed behind.
During the journey, Nicholls remarked he “would never ride on the back of a motorbike again” after a friend scared him while riding through Birmingham.
After a couple of hours they stopped at a petrol station near Peterborough on the A1.
And what happened there and during the next few hours will haunt Lindsey forever.
He said: “After Matt fuelled up, he complained he was bored doing 70mph behind my Peugeot.
“And Alan said, ‘I’ll get on with you!’. I was stunned after what he’d told us in the car – but he said, ‘Yeah, but we’re only going to be doing 70mph.’
“Then while he got kitted up and Matt was smoking, I made the worst mistake of my life. I decided to get going with my dad, thinking they’d catch us.
“That was the last time I saw them alive.”
After 40 minutes, Lindsey was concerned they had not caught up and U-turned – and not far from where they last saw each other there were blue lights everywhere.
The motorcycle had come off the road, which ended up killing both men, and Lindsey and his dad had to identify both bodies in a morgue hours later before driving to Scunthorpe to break the news to the family.
Lindsey turned up at Farnborough three days later to play for Dover but got sent home by then boss Peter Taylor.
He said: “It was my way of dealing with it. I used football as a release.
“There were no psychologists to speak to – you had to deal with it.”
But if that tragedy was not bad enough, his dad died in 2003 aged 56 after suffering a sudden brain haemorrhage – being found dead at home by Lindsey’s mum.
And then heartbreakingly his wife Hayley was diagnosed with kidney cancer – which she bravely battled until she passed away in November 2019.
Lindsey gave up his coaching role at Forest Green to care for his sick beloved and three girls.
But his wife persuaded him to take up a part-time manager’s job with Chatham.
He said: “Hayley was in a hospital bed in our living room. We had carers coming in three times a day and my mum was living with us at that point.
“It was tough and Hayley told me, ‘Go and coach Chatham. It’ll be good for you. I want you to do it.
“You’ll only coach Tuesday and Thursday for two hours and then manage 90 minutes on Saturday. And you’ll never have to leave Kent.’”
After Hayley succumbed, like he did when his brother passed, Lindsey threw himself at football – managing Chatham two days later. His team did a whip round to register a star in honour of his wife for his three daughters.
He said: “I suddenly was mum and dad at that moment. I had gone from being in a macho League Two dressing room to platting my girls’ hair and taking them to school.”
Mum Jean passed away in 2022 aged 73 – having battled health problems for many years. He said: “She was a wonderful woman. My three girls adored her.”
Lindsey’s biggest football role model was his dad Keith, who had a vast EFL career playing for Gillingham, Scunthorpe, Port Vale, Doncaster, Southend and Cambridge.
He said: “Dad was everything to me. It was through him I got into football. He took me and my brother to watch Scunthorpe against Liverpool in a cup game.
“Afterwards he took us to meet Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan. It was only then I knew my dad was an ex-player. He said, ‘I used to play with them at Scunthorpe!’ From that moment I wanted to be a footballer.
“When I was playing at Stafford Rangers in the Conference, we had some words on Friday night – I showed some disrespect to him.
“Dad said to me, ‘How are you getting to Colchester United tomorrow?’
“I said, ‘You’re taking me. He said, ‘No I’m not, you’re going to find your own way. See you need me, I don’t need you and you’re going to start respecting me more than you’re doing.’
“My mum worked out all the train times of where I had to change to make the journey from Scunthorpe to Colchester. She told me I had 15 minutes to shower before the cab turned up to take me to the station.
“I asked my mum, ‘Why’s he being such a d**k?’ She said, ‘You disrespected him!
“So I headed from Scunthorpe and changed at Doncaster. Then down to London and back out to Essex and got to Layer Road just about on time. I was knackered.
“As I went to warm up, who do I see in the stands? My dad!
“I went on to have an unbelievable game. It was one of my best.
“Afterwards I walk into the clubhouse and my dad is there having a pint and he asked how I thought I had played? I told him I thought I’d done well.
“He said, ‘It’s the best I’ve seen you play.’ It was rare for my dad to praise me like that.
“Then he picked his pint up, finished it then said, ‘Right, see you later.’ He got into his car and made me get the train home. I got in at 10pm that night, he was sitting watching Match of the Day! I never disrespected him again.”
Despite all the tragedy in Lindsey’s life, there is also a lot of happiness.
His managerial career has taken off after doing a superb job with Swindon before transforming Crawley from a team fighting relegation to one competing for promotion at the national stadium.
His three daughters Millie, Maisie and Mollie will be at Wembley – as will Scott’s niece Kayleigh, daughter of his late brother.
And he now has a new partner Kelly who, along with her three kids, will be there to cheer on Crawley.
However, Lindsey believes all his absent loved ones and friends will be there through him.
He said: “I always feel mum, dad and Matt’s presence at football games – and Hayley is always in my heart.
“I’ll be proud to walk Crawley out at Wembley – and then we must get to work and win.”