the fitba team crystal palace

i quite like palace. in relative terms they've always seemed to me to be a distinctive entity in fitba, usually a fun enough team to watch and a stimulating tribe to be a part of. they have a definite sense of character, quite colourful, dynamic, london-y. lots of good little players over the years, strikers and wingers particularly.

i think they have a kind of interesting... idk, baseline seedyness to them that could possibly just be an indelible shadow of the old "team of the 80s" spiel but maybe stands for something deeper. like a nouveau riche franchise plaything club shallowness only without any actual evidence of it (and indeed hugely more to the contrary). they play decent football (never once cloggers to my recollection) but no image of "playing the palace way"; they have a good youth system but no image of "school of science", and so on - perhaps you could say the same of many clubs but with palace it comes from something other than mere lumpen stagnant anonymity. termites not white elephants. quite possibly they are the least twee club in britain, but never comfortably so - club and supporters alike have an unusually high-strung temperament, quick to lash out at perceived slights, owing not simply to pugilist tribalism but to a particularly palace sense of anxiety.

Right, if we're gonna psychologise SE LDN fitba we may as well draw the unholy triangle. All 3 clubs closer to each other than would dare admit, though Millwall are the ones who sacrifice size for notoriety. Palace are the most physically remote so lend themselves naturally to an outsider mindset (as opposed to spanner-in-works Millwall attitude). This means it's difficult for Palace fans to feel like they definitively *belong* anywhere (as opposed to Charlton fans who feel largely that their team belongs in a perpetual second-tier promotion fight in between inevitable top-tier relegations). Recent hears have seen Charlton fluctuate more than either, which may seem out of character but in fact bespeaks a higher tolerance for shit than Palace (Brighton play-off semi aside) - a useful quality to have, as it occasions greater pride in fatter times. Millwall will tolerate anything so long as people notice them, it's cute. In short, three mid-sized league clubs, Millwall arguably too small, Charlton too twee, Palace too arrogant.

And insecure.

Well, not so much arrogant as false-arrogant i.e. insecure.

yeah, i think they've been in championship (meaning the league below the top) for 35 of the last 40 years or something. begets a kind of shrill insanity i suppose.

palace are the only brit team afaik to have self-styled ultras of course, and it's not nearly as tongue in cheek as you'd imagine.

oh and the cheerleaders too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_F.C.#Famous_Fans

says a lot

Wonder how many of them actually are fans. I've thought of another interesting fact about CP, Angus Deayton played for them, or for their youth team or sumthin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjI350aMeEA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaON9RmVbI

huh

there don't seem to be any black ppl which seems strange given that croydon etc is probably 20% black at least

deems is mostly right about qpr, although neither watford nor crystal palace did anything like qpr the last couple of seasons

there is a gaping lacuna somewhere around clapton where the eastern vertex of the the CP--QPR--W quadrilateral of mediocrity should be located

"Our academy is absolutely essential to us," said Parish. "For one thing, it helps us establish real deep roots in the community in which we play."

Palace have a tradition of promoting local heroes. Gary Issott, the academy chief, said: "London is hugely populated so we can draw on a good pool of players. And the demographics of our area works in our favour."

Moses went to school in South Norwood after arriving in this country from Nigeria and Zaha settled in the area having moved from the Ivory Coast.

Issott added: "A lot of African lads end up here, you just wait for them to walk through Heathrow or Gatwick."

scouting for fops

The 1990 FA Cup, come on. That run in full: Portsmouth, Huddersfield, Rochdale, Cambridge, Liverpool, Man Utd.

I feel like they might've had something cool going on 70s into 80s, but can't put my finger on it. I might be another getting mixed up with QPR.

The Malcolm Allison years, there was prob'ly a buzz about them then, but I think even then they were being outshone by QPR w/ Stan Bowles + Rodney Marsh etc

Unless I've got my 70s football all arse over tit

Vince Hilaire is the name flashing in neon on the Sunset Strip George Street within my skull

late 70s we'd already slipped back down a division and palace were on the up with venables, then we took venables and switched fortunes again

Kit looks like Barcelona, team of the eighties, incredible 4-3 v Liverpool 90 semi, incredible 3-3 v United 90 final, finished third with Wright, Bright, Salako etc.....erm....Brolin.........keeper with baggy jogging bottoms.....eleventh hour rescue from bankruptcy

Selhurst Park looks a pretty good ground

have a good friend who's a season ticket holder, says the catering is the worst out of any ground he's been to

selhurst park is not a pretty good ground. they are not getting this one.

te defixio

An email from Des Hinton-Beales: "Surely for this game to be fair Palace should have had infinite loans in the two weeks since the semi?" he writes. "I'd even accept the caveat that we can only borrow ex players. Clyne and Moses would do nicely and who wouldn't want to see the dream duo up front of Kevin Phillips and Ian Wright? Only kidding Watford, you've played some lovely football this season and your manager is a stand up guy. May the 'most deserving'/'club' with the west countriest manager" team win."

gotta feel for livebloggah glendenning if thats the best email hes got

crissy p should of scored by now

idk if i can remember a team running a second half like this and bringing it into extra time

kevvy p all my days

signori one step pen into the top corner takes some ballz

someone nuke croydon plz

just as i was rereading

London Walks

they deserved to win that

still not entirely sure zaha is going to raise himself above the slightly ragged moderately successful english winger tier

they will get 10 points next season as a generous estimate

need to walk off this parochial angst tbh, maybe I'll go to Erith

I am Zappi's friend with the season (only the Selhurst 12 this season tho' Zappi) and can confirm that the catering is still as bad as ever. We have our own beer though, imaginatively 'Palace Ale', brewed by none other than Neil Morrisey. There is also the now annual 'Palace Beer Festival' that takes palace at Selhurst each summer.

Most Palace fans will be happy to accept relegation back again to the championship, as the money is earmarked to either do up Selhurst, or the (unlikely, but possible) dream of moving back to Cyrstal Palace Park and building a new stadium on the old NSC site. However there is already talk of Livermore on loan; behind the the dreadful accent Holloway seems to know what he is doing (after we looked appalling stumbling into the play offs); he's been there before, and history is littered by teams that go up by accident and stay there.

hi flowersdie, welcome to ilf

Er, Thanks. I've been here for a while...

idk about ollie these days tbh

once he lost kenny jackett at rangers he started undermining his good work wrt morale and transfers with some infuriating stubborn things tactically and from afar that pattern has seemed to continue ever since

he has also apparently developed the lethal concoction of simultaneously becoming very cranky and very preeningly self-aware of his ledgebantz status

obv it would be nice to have him back for a predictably disastrous spell someday

haha i was just thinking yesterday of sending this thread to you flowersdie

There's at least one other Palace fan knocking about on ILE as well, I believe, unless Flowersdie has had a swift name change.

there is a gaping lacuna somewhere around clapton where the eastern vertex of the the CP--QPR--W quadrilateral of mediocrity should be located

Do West Ham have too much history to qualify for this or something? Pretty sure there was a point in the early 90s when all four were playing in the Premiership and I'm pretty sure QPR were the best of the lot at the time.

ah yeah, 'ambrose'

speroni, jedinak, williams, murray seem like a decent base to start from. possibly parr and garvan too

talk of resigning boyce, watson and even aj on the boards i see

oh and bolasie

and ward!

the rest of that defence though bloody hell

was frankly distrubing to watch delaney and gabbidon in tandem and looking competent on monday

quite possibly they are the least twee club in britain, but never comfortably so - club and supporters alike have an unusually high-strung temperament, quick to lash out at perceived slights, owing not simply to pugilist tribalism but to a particularly palace sense of anxiety.

Always thought of them as the Portsmouth of London, although probably the pre-Redknapp, pre-financial insanity Pompey. There's also that ability to personify their entire fanbase in one man - twat with the bell vs that racist dude that Cantona went ham on.

Kind of hate them tbh.

Pretty sure there was a point in the early 90s when all four were playing in the Premiership and I'm pretty sure QPR were the best of the lot at the time.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 29 May 2013 14:18 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

top of all london clubs in 93 ta very much

haha writing that vaguely sympathetic projection-laden post kinda immediately turned me back against palace tbh

portsmouth comparison is probably spot on actually

I was worried about the Holloway apppointment initially. I lived in Leicester when he was there, and can remember how dire they were when he took them down, but after a shaky last few weeks of the season, when we couldn't buy an away goal, never mind a point, he got the tactics at Brighton and against Watford spot on. So far there have been no wacky antics (ok - barring that dance thing that was leaked) but thankfully nothing approaching the 'let's have a coffee' bollocks that he used to come out with in press conferences; I have a feeling he's trying to shake that image.

ah yeah, 'ambrose'

― OH NO, SECONDS LEFT, SECONDS LEFT, AND THERE IT IS. REGRET. (imago), Wednesday, 29 May 2013 14:20 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol are u implying a suspicion of him being darren ambrose

Both clubs have real shithole grounds as well.

I was thinking of that 94-95 season, the most outlying Premiership season ever, where QPR and Wimbledon were comfortably top-half teams, Arsenal and Chelsea in midtable mediocrity, and Blackburn won the Premiership. Also four teams got relegated, including Palace fourth from bottom.

RIP NOADES

Noades provoked controversy with his comments on the racial make-up of his team: ""The black players at this club lend the side a lot of skill and flair, but you also need white players in there to balance things up and give the team some brains and some common sense."[2]

Noades always vehemently denied the racism stuff, and reckoned he had been misquoted/cleverly edited (as he does again at the 55 minute mark of the interview here)
http://www.palaceradio.net/podcasts.html

although his argument doesn't extend much beyond 'some of my best friends are black'.

Some good stuff on Ian Wright in that interview. His first contract was £30 a week, to cover expenses only.

Do palace fans look fondly on the noades legacy? I was surprised to see the players wearing black armbands yesterday & just assumed that everyone hated him.

Noades split the fan base, although hardly down the middle.

After 4 years of false starts since buying the club in 1981 (which included the disastrous appointments of Dario Gradi and Alan Mullery as managers), Noades split the club from the ground in the mid-80s, and Selhurst Park was from then on owned by his company, Altonwood, who mainly own golf courses around South London and the South East. As such, much of the Charlton and Wimbledon rent money from the ground shares went into Altonwood, rather than Palace. When Mark Goldberg tried to buy the club in 1998, the original deal also included buying the ground from Altonwood, but Goldberg ran out of money to go ahead with the purchase, and so bought only the club (for almost £23 million, doh), with rent money now being paid to Altonwood each season. It was Noades unrealistic valuation of the ground that put paid to a deal being made with the next chairman, Simon Jordan. Noades left Palace pretty much as he found them, bottom of the first division and on the brink of admin, except this time without owning their own ground. He had a good vision; that is Palace as part of a large sporting leisure empire of the South East, but never really realised it.

Against this, Palace came third in 1991, Wright and Bright (and Thomas, Cookie Coleman etc - the team that went up to the old first division had been bought for practically nothing), appointment of Coppell, a couple of cup finals (including a Zenith Data Systems cup final win!) and pre Goldberg a club that continually bobbled between the top two divisions, which earns him grudging respect amongst most Palace fans, although this is done by the majority of them with the knowledge of the above.

V interesting, cheers flowersdie. Noades did similar stuff at Brentford, and the fans now are overwhelmingly anti. He tried to split the club from the ground (griffin Park being the only valuable asset) and proposed moving out to Woking. We were supposedly in a relatively good financial position when he bought the club, and he said he was going to be using his own money to provide funding. Obv that was bollocks and he was just borrowing against the value of the ground. The more conspiracy-minded say he was running up debts to reduce Altonwood's tax liability but I dunno bout that. Left us in a total state, massive debts etc. Of course nobody was complaining when he bought us the third division title. People were being naive when he took over. We probably wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for a new benevolent millionaire (who does actually seem brilliant).

Yes, I'd heard he was up to his old shennanigans at the Bees. Is a ground move still on the cards?

And on the bright side, we've both still survived.

Planning permission for a new ground was approved last month and the aim is to move in time for the 2016/17 season. We've also got a brand new academy and a really impressive youth setup. Leaving GP is not great but I've been assured that it's the only way forward.

Where is the new ground going to be?

good posts

there must be some lingering desire to get a south london club established in the epl and try to make them emblematic in the same way west ham are of the east, at least that belgian buying charlton probably hopes so

xp New ground is on some wasteground next to kew bridge, so still in brentford. There's going to be a load of shitty flats and a hotel as well. Kew residents are in uproar lol.

http://i.holmesdale.net/image.php?p=news/2968.jpg&w=638

well now

ahahahaha

...

ahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa

I wonder how far down the list they had to go before finding someone who'd answer their phone calls.

gwan?

I’m not really fussed really. Whether this is some kind of post-Pulis syndrome, or the sheer relief that it didn’t end up being Sherwood, I don’t know. Lots of people don’t forgive him for jumping ship to QPR when we went into admin. I imagine all of that will be forgotten if we look like we stand any chance of staying up. Still don’t like the way he talks about himself in the third person though. It sort of makes sense, albeit in a very Palace way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azdycWHhvsQ

Sky Sports News presenter Kaveh Solhekol was forced to abandon his post on transfer deadline day after a Crystal Palace supporters' group let off flares outside the club's training ground.

croydon's burning again!!!

Well, here we go again.

worried my fav team might get relegated

This is a potentially glorious time to be a Dover Athletic fan.

this season is a good example of why crystal palace have never been interesting in the pl, they never really invest enough or try and do anything too interesting

not that they should be spending £40m but warnock's appointment was so craven and hopeless that they might as well not have bothered

vitor perreira would be interesting

how has zaha been doing

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/29/244C4E0F00000578-2890167-image-a-12_1419872480841.jpg

Warnock's appointment screamed of desperation in the first place, but then again they were going to offer the job to Mackay so it's not as if a bold progressive move was suddenly shattered.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAMnMweW0AA3bQz.jpg

http://www.cpfc.co.uk/cms_images/gallery/gallery-0961-3721185.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAONKpzXgAAcXF-.jpg

this is my fav team because of their name

the fact that they're called the eagles and their longstanding rivals are called the seagulls making the game between the two "eagles vs seagulls" will never not be funny to me

rtc knows what he's doing, i.e. enraging me

you'll never have greenwich or bexley you fuckers!

and that their grounds are 50 miles apart is bit fucked up on this lil' island.

I've assiduously never investigated quite how that rivalry came about, though i know it dates to the 70s.

Smurf @PalaceSmurf 7h Replying to @CPFC
You spelt West Wickham wrong

they're more on millwall's turf than ours here tbh but it still galls, we never claimed croydon, lambeth and bromley even in our heyday. i mean why would we want to i guess

I've assiduously never investigated quite how that rivalry came about, though i know it dates to the 70s.

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 19 May 2017 23:48 (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

An explanation, of sorts...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4CvRDkdp7g

Technically you can start on the edge of Crystal Palace Park and walk through all five of those boroughs in about ten minutes so I'd say that's fair game.

Less so from Selhurst Park obviously.

https://sport.bt.com/video/watch-team-of-the-eighties-exclusively-on-bt-sport-91364398083931