CO-OWNER Sue Carter insists Crawley will stay full-time even though they are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with their Blue Square premier rivals.

Reds sold their fourth player in a month this week when striker Jamie Cook returned to Oxford United for a fee believed to be about £30,000.

Last month youth teamers Danny Mills and Ronnie McCrae moved to Peterborough while last season’s player of the season Jake Wright joined Albion.

The club’s finances are strong and the debts Carter and the new board, which was constituted in 2008, inherited from previous owners the Majeed brothers have been cleared. But further player sales cannot be ruled out all the time Reds struggle to attract the support of some of their rivals.

Carter said: “We don’t want to be in the situation we were in during the not too distant past but part-time football is not something under consideration.

“Financially we are fine. We don’t owe money to the Inland Revenue or the council but we have to maintain stability going forward.”

Reds will always find it tough to compete with the division’s big spenders while they struggle on some of the lowest gates in the league.

Only one match so far this season has attracted a four-figure crowd despite the club’s Triple T initiative which offered terrace admission for the three games against Gateshead, Grays and Tuesday’s clash with Histon for £25. Fewer than 100 people took up the offer, many of them supporters who would have gone anyway.

The difference between the haves and the have nots would have been brought into sharp focus at Kenilworth Road on Tuesday when Reds lost 3-0 in front of a crowd of more than 6,300 – eight times the number who turned up for Crawley’s clash against Grays last Saturday.

Carter said: “I’m not sure how we can possibly compete with six or so clubs in this league with those resources.

“It’s like putting a Ford Fiesta up against a Ferrari on a racetrack – it’s not a fair race but that is the environment we find ourselves in.

“I don’t know what it will take to get more people through the gate. People told us it was too expensive so we made it £8.33 for three home games and we had less than 100 takers.”

Boss Steve Evans has been able to boost a squad depleted by injuries with four loan signings in the last week, all of whom are in the squad for tomorrow’s trip to York City where Reds will be looking to end a run of three games without a win against a side unbeaten at home.

He still believes his side can be competitive in the league even though he has had to offload five players since the start of the year.

He said: “I can’t keep stressing it. It is very hard for us to compete with the likes of Luton, Oxford, Mansfield and half a dozen other clubs – people have to wake up and smell the coffee.

“This season we have sold two good kids and Jake Wright and Jamie Cook and look who we have brought in – we have signed players no one has heard of, with all due respect to them.

“But we will continue to work hard on the training ground and I can promise there will be a massive effort from us at York tomorrow.

If we play with the same energy levels and perhaps get some luck with one or two decisions we will be fine.”

Evans may again start with a 4-5-1 formation with Jefferson Louis the lone striker. Three of his loanees – central defender Dominic Collins and midfielders Chris Carruthers and Kieran Djilali – are likely to start at KitKat Crescent.

York (from): Ingham, Purkiss, Sangare, Parslow, Meredith, Smith, Nelthorpe, Ferrell McWilliams, Barrett, Lawless, Gash, Brodie, Rankine, Mimms, O'Hare.

Crawley (from): Jordan, Forrest, Collins, Broadhurst, Rents, Carruthers, Killeen, Pinault, Hutchinson, Djilali, Louis, Barton, Rayner, Quinn, Malcolm, Cogan.

bruce.talbot @theargus.co.uk