National League club Dagenham and Redbridge have appointed former Crawley Town player and caretaker manager Lewis Young as first-team coach under new manager Ben Strevens.
Young, brother of Aston Villa player Ashley, spent eight years at the Red Devils, initially as a player then transitioned into the coaching staff after he retired in 2021.
Prior to this, he featured in the Football League for Watford, Burton Albion and Bury, whilst also having spells in the Conference with Aldershot and Forest Green Rovers.
Dagenham & Redbridge currently sit 10th in the National League at the time of writing, eight points off the play-off places with only seven games left to play.
The 33-year-old had two spells in caretaker charge at Crawley during 2022, with his second stint proving to be successful having steered the club to four wins and four draws in his 10 games in charge after the departure of Kevin Betsy.
However, Young was controversially let go by the club on 27th November in favour of bringing in Matthew Etherington (who was to only last three games before quitting the club himself) and had been out of work since.
Despite this, he remains a popular figure amongst Crawley fans and will be a valuable addition to the staff at the Daggers as they look ahead to next season.
Arguably the most successful period of Crawley’s season so far came whilst Lewis Young was in interim charge of the team, with notable victories against playoff chasing clubs Mansfield and Barrow and a draw at Valley Parade helping to move the club away from the relegation zone by late November.
The decision to remove him from his role was made even more bizarre when a now-infamous Twitter thread posted by co-chairman Eben Smith revealed that the club’s hierarchy decided he was not a suitable candidate for the managerial position because of the amount of shots being allowed in total during his games in charge (despite two of these fixtures being against opposition from higher leagues in cup competitions).
Writers View
Young was a very popular and respected coach amongst the players at Crawley and his recent experience will only make him feel more determined to prove his former employers wrong by succeeding in his new role at Dagenham and Redbridge.
