I’m old but I’m happy round 2

[TF10]

I can remember Ian Evans leg being broken by George Best, Seeing Kenny Sansom’s debut, monkey nuts form the old lady on the Holmesdale, having my scarf confiscated at school after promotion form the third division in nineteen seventy - seven, Burnley and the fifty-two thousand, cheese and onion rolls in the Glaziers club, the Flatterer, the team of the eighties, the dissolution of same, the wilderness years, the lifeline club, the hooligans, bricks at Brighton, not rock, the re-emergence in the late eighties, the late push into the play-offs in eighty-nine, the Blackburn game, that Pardew cross, Wright, Bright, the new era, the nine – nil, that semi final at Villa Park, seeing Nigel Martyn in the pub that same night celebrating with his wife, relegation, promotion, some highs, some lows, semi-finals, finals, kits, mirrors, mugs, scarves, knickers, I went away, I came back, I moved away, I returned, I introduced my son to the madness, even my daughter though not her thing, disillusionment with football, too much money, too much corruption, diving, too much anger, hatred, a brief sojourn to egg ball chasing, but I am back, and I am glad to be witnessing something very special, however brief, six games ago, the outlook was bleak, relegation was tangible, more wilderness years loomed, but now, now, we have something, and though I doff my virtual fedora to Roy, Oli G is the real deal…….. How to hang on, not just to the Ezes and Olises, but to persuade this entire squad to give us one more season to see what could happen. It may be a flash in the pan, but somehow, I do not think so, there’s a feeling, a cohesion, a burgeoning swagger. Yes, the lure of money and medals is great and undeniable, football careers are fleeting, but why sit on the bench at Moneybags United when, just possibly, you could be part of something very big, happening right here, right now in South London.

Facts and figures may be a little lost in the ‘Sands’ of time (see what I did there?), but you get the point.

Could we just be the team of the twenties, or at least twenty four/five?

 

[TF10]

My Dad wrote the above a while ago, and it got my creative juices flowing to write something that’s sat in the notes on my phone since toward the end of last season.
Last Saturday got me thinking about what it means to be palace:


When I was a young boy, my father said to me, listen here my son, you’re CPFC.
Except he didn’t, not for me.
However, despite letting me choose my own sporting path, there was only one team it was ever going to be, it runs in the family.

Growing up countless Saturdays and Tuesdays driving down to Selhurst via the two brewers, gave me memories to cherish. It wasn’t about the result or watching an AJ, Dougie or a Clinton Morrison masterclass (although this was amazing), but it was about time with my dad.
An under stirred hot chocolate didn’t combat the Selhurst chill, but his big coat certainly did, as well as getting in the car afterwards listening to the phone in.

We mainly watched the eagles in the second tier. but as a child we ventured into the premiership for but a year.
We couldn’t make the Cardiff play off final, as we were on a family holiday, but that didn’t stop a young me running around the resort, palace top on trying to find the score. The staff were unable to broadcast the game. Crystal who they said. In a very Scrooge way, a sunburned Brit said, ‘you boy, palace have won, Neil Shipperly’. We were up, maybe because of dad’s lucky shirt hung in the hotel room, who knows?

An incredible season as far as my memory serves me. Andy Johnson taking the league by storm was mesmerising as a boy who’d go home and try to recreate the goals in the garden, wearing my shorts low to look like Wayne Routledge.

And it would be quite poignant during that season that the last match day programme I collected of my Grandpa’s short life was a game against the recently crowned invincibles of Arsenal. In hindsight, quite ironic as it now highlights the fragility of life, when as a boy you look at your male role models as invincible.

Then a move toward rugby, and the south west of the country steered us away from the lights of Selhurst and the buzz of the Holmsdale road. I knew this wouldn’t be forever, it’s too addictive, but I remember the old man getting frustrated with how things had changed in the game I love to watch with him. It was different to how it was for him as a youngster, and I can understand that now. Maybe for the nostalgic reasons I talk about earlier.

I would get frustrated watching from a far, struggling to get back up to the dizzy heights of the prem, ‘don’t get angry at something you can change,’ he would wisely say.

So distance did cause a bit of a disconnect, and a lack of TV coverage and certainly didn’t help when you live so far away from our boyhood club, but there was always a love for the boys in red and blue that was like a once raging, now smouldering fire ready to have petrol poured all over it again.

And then came a rare TV fixture for the eagles, the incredible night at Old Trafford, or for us, The Swan, Wadebridge.

Zaha calmly into Ambrose, who sent a thunderbolt of a shot into the top bins. All two of us palace fans in a packed Cornish Pub couldn’t believe our eyes.

That era just after of a young Wilf, Yala, dominant Mile, Moxey, Delaney, Johnny Williams and co became heroes in my eyes, they did it, under a dancing Holloway at Wembley, got us back to the premier league, brushing aside Brighton along the way, despite their ‘shitty’ attempt at pre match distraction.

We were back, maybe just for a season like last time, but I’m sure to most of us, but certainly to me, that was enough. A young man living down in Cornwall, I was able to say, that’s my team, and I support them with my dad.

But it wasn’t just a season was it Dad?

These first few years in the top flight were probably still during his stubborn attempt to defy the potential pre Madonna nature of some of the big teams, and the big money business it had become.
But for me it was my uni years, living closer now to ‘home’ surrounded by other sports fans, it was a badge of honour to be a palace fan, defying the odds and pulling out shock results and staying up, year on year, and here we are in 2024, still here, about to finish another season on a high.

But this 23/24 season has been a special one for me.
We finish on a 6 game, maybe 7 game unbeaten run, twatting Man U 4-0, beating Liverpool as well as Newcastle, West Ham and Wolves, the football has been amazing. The players seem fitter, better and most importantly more passionate to play for our brilliant club. Watching Olise, Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, Anderson and the rest of the current crop make the premier league look effortless has been a sight to behold. If you ask the sky pundits, we are finally winning because we are brilliant, not because ‘the other team was poor.’

But for me the most important thing, that due to a spare season ticket going, this season, especially the latter part under Oli G, has given me my Palace loving dad back. He was always in there, but not like this one, who will chat to me for 10 mins after a game about the state of play, who will shout at the TV when Eze puts us one up against Liverpool.

I am eternally grateful for this, as although we have a lot in common it’s something I’ve always loved and I’m glad we are both there again.

So just to wrap up, as my wife is about to bring another Palace fan into the world, I’m so happy that hopefully one day, we get the chance to do something I never got to, which is go to Selhurst as 3 generations of Palace fans, and sing glad all over together.

Thank you dad for all the memories ❤️💙 COYP

 

[Sea Eagle]

My Dad wrote the above a while ago, and it got my creative juices flowing to write something that’s sat in the notes on my phone since toward the end of last season.
Last Saturday got me thinking about what it means to be palace:


When I was a young boy, my father said to me, listen here my son, you’re CPFC.
Except he didn’t, not for me.
However, despite letting me choose my own sporting path, there was only one team it was ever going to be, it runs in the family.

Growing up countless Saturdays and Tuesdays driving down to Selhurst via the two brewers, gave me memories to cherish. It wasn’t about the result or watching an AJ, Dougie or a Clinton Morrison masterclass (although this was amazing), but it was about time with my dad.
An under stirred hot chocolate didn’t combat the Selhurst chill, but his big coat certainly did, as well as getting in the car afterwards listening to the phone in.

We mainly watched the eagles in the second tier. but as a child we ventured into the premiership for but a year.
We couldn’t make the Cardiff play off final, as we were on a family holiday, but that didn’t stop a young me running around the resort, palace top on trying to find the score. The staff were unable to broadcast the game. Crystal who they said. In a very Scrooge way, a sunburned Brit said, ‘you boy, palace have won, Neil Shipperly’. We were up, maybe because of dad’s lucky shirt hung in the hotel room, who knows?

An incredible season as far as my memory serves me. Andy Johnson taking the league by storm was mesmerising as a boy who’d go home and try to recreate the goals in the garden, wearing my shorts low to look like Wayne Routledge.

And it would be quite poignant during that season that the last match day programme I collected of my Grandpa’s short life was a game against the recently crowned invincibles of Arsenal. In hindsight, quite ironic as it now highlights the fragility of life, when as a boy you look at your male role models as invincible.

Then a move toward rugby, and the south west of the country steered us away from the lights of Selhurst and the buzz of the Holmsdale road. I knew this wouldn’t be forever, it’s too addictive, but I remember the old man getting frustrated with how things had changed in the game I love to watch with him. It was different to how it was for him as a youngster, and I can understand that now. Maybe for the nostalgic reasons I talk about earlier.

I would get frustrated watching from a far, struggling to get back up to the dizzy heights of the prem, ‘don’t get angry at something you can change,’ he would wisely say.

So distance did cause a bit of a disconnect, and a lack of TV coverage and certainly didn’t help when you live so far away from our boyhood club, but there was always a love for the boys in red and blue that was like a once raging, now smouldering fire ready to have petrol poured all over it again.

And then came a rare TV fixture for the eagles, the incredible night at Old Trafford, or for us, The Swan, Wadebridge.

Zaha calmly into Ambrose, who sent a thunderbolt of a shot into the top bins. All two of us palace fans in a packed Cornish Pub couldn’t believe our eyes.

That era just after of a young Wilf, Yala, dominant Mile, Moxey, Delaney, Johnny Williams and co became heroes in my eyes, they did it, under a dancing Holloway at Wembley, got us back to the premier league, brushing aside Brighton along the way, despite their ‘shitty’ attempt at pre match distraction.

We were back, maybe just for a season like last time, but I’m sure to most of us, but certainly to me, that was enough. A young man living down in Cornwall, I was able to say, that’s my team, and I support them with my dad.

But it wasn’t just a season was it Dad?

These first few years in the top flight were probably still during his stubborn attempt to defy the potential pre Madonna nature of some of the big teams, and the big money business it had become.
But for me it was my uni years, living closer now to ‘home’ surrounded by other sports fans, it was a badge of honour to be a palace fan, defying the odds and pulling out shock results and staying up, year on year, and here we are in 2024, still here, about to finish another season on a high.

But this 23/24 season has been a special one for me.
We finish on a 6 game, maybe 7 game unbeaten run, twatting Man U 4-0, beating Liverpool as well as Newcastle, West Ham and Wolves, the football has been amazing. The players seem fitter, better and most importantly more passionate to play for our brilliant club. Watching Olise, Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, Anderson and the rest of the current crop make the premier league look effortless has been a sight to behold. If you ask the sky pundits, we are finally winning because we are brilliant, not because ‘the other team was poor.’

But for me the most important thing, that due to a spare season ticket going, this season, especially the latter part under Oli G, has given me my Palace loving dad back. He was always in there, but not like this one, who will chat to me for 10 mins after a game about the state of play, who will shout at the TV when Eze puts us one up against Liverpool.

I am eternally grateful for this, as although we have a lot in common it’s something I’ve always loved and I’m glad we are both there again.

So just to wrap up, as my wife is about to bring another Palace fan into the world, I’m so happy that hopefully one day, we get the chance to do something I never got to, which is go to Selhurst as 3 generations of Palace fans, and sing glad all over together.

Thank you dad for all the memories ❤️💙 COYP

 

[Apollofuzz]

I can remember Ian Evans leg being broken by George Best, Seeing Kenny Sansom’s debut, monkey nuts form the old lady on the Holmesdale, having my scarf confiscated at school after promotion form the third division in nineteen seventy - seven, Burnley and the fifty-two thousand, cheese and onion rolls in the Glaziers club, the Flatterer, the team of the eighties, the dissolution of same, the wilderness years, the lifeline club, the hooligans, bricks at Brighton, not rock, the re-emergence in the late eighties, the late push into the play-offs in eighty-nine, the Blackburn game, that Pardew cross, Wright, Bright, the new era, the nine – nil, that semi final at Villa Park, seeing Nigel Martyn in the pub that same night celebrating with his wife, relegation, promotion, some highs, some lows, semi-finals, finals, kits, mirrors, mugs, scarves, knickers, I went away, I came back, I moved away, I returned, I introduced my son to the madness, even my daughter though not her thing, disillusionment with football, too much money, too much corruption, diving, too much anger, hatred, a brief sojourn to egg ball chasing, but I am back, and I am glad to be witnessing something very special, however brief, six games ago, the outlook was bleak, relegation was tangible, more wilderness years loomed, but now, now, we have something, and though I doff my virtual fedora to Roy, Oli G is the real deal…….. How to hang on, not just to the Ezes and Olises, but to persuade this entire squad to give us one more season to see what could happen. It may be a flash in the pan, but somehow, I do not think so, there’s a feeling, a cohesion, a burgeoning swagger. Yes, the lure of money and medals is great and undeniable, football careers are fleeting, but why sit on the bench at Moneybags United when, just possibly, you could be part of something very big, happening right here, right now in South London.

Facts and figures may be a little lost in the ‘Sands’ of time (see what I did there?), but you get the point.

Could we just be the team of the twenties, or at least twenty four/five?

"seeing Nigel Martyn in the pub that same night celebrating with his wife"

He knew how to treat his lady can't beat a slap up meal in a Beefeater 😆. I remember that night in the public bar of the Goodies very well. His signature above the Dartboard (McGoldrick adding his a few weeks later)

 

[Sea Eagle]

My Dad wrote the above a while ago, and it got my creative juices flowing to write something that’s sat in the notes on my phone since toward the end of last season.
Last Saturday got me thinking about what it means to be palace:


When I was a young boy, my father said to me, listen here my son, you’re CPFC.
Except he didn’t, not for me.
However, despite letting me choose my own sporting path, there was only one team it was ever going to be, it runs in the family.

Growing up countless Saturdays and Tuesdays driving down to Selhurst via the two brewers, gave me memories to cherish. It wasn’t about the result or watching an AJ, Dougie or a Clinton Morrison masterclass (although this was amazing), but it was about time with my dad.
An under stirred hot chocolate didn’t combat the Selhurst chill, but his big coat certainly did, as well as getting in the car afterwards listening to the phone in.

We mainly watched the eagles in the second tier. but as a child we ventured into the premiership for but a year.
We couldn’t make the Cardiff play off final, as we were on a family holiday, but that didn’t stop a young me running around the resort, palace top on trying to find the score. The staff were unable to broadcast the game. Crystal who they said. In a very Scrooge way, a sunburned Brit said, ‘you boy, palace have won, Neil Shipperly’. We were up, maybe because of dad’s lucky shirt hung in the hotel room, who knows?

An incredible season as far as my memory serves me. Andy Johnson taking the league by storm was mesmerising as a boy who’d go home and try to recreate the goals in the garden, wearing my shorts low to look like Wayne Routledge.

And it would be quite poignant during that season that the last match day programme I collected of my Grandpa’s short life was a game against the recently crowned invincibles of Arsenal. In hindsight, quite ironic as it now highlights the fragility of life, when as a boy you look at your male role models as invincible.

Then a move toward rugby, and the south west of the country steered us away from the lights of Selhurst and the buzz of the Holmsdale road. I knew this wouldn’t be forever, it’s too addictive, but I remember the old man getting frustrated with how things had changed in the game I love to watch with him. It was different to how it was for him as a youngster, and I can understand that now. Maybe for the nostalgic reasons I talk about earlier.

I would get frustrated watching from a far, struggling to get back up to the dizzy heights of the prem, ‘don’t get angry at something you can change,’ he would wisely say.

So distance did cause a bit of a disconnect, and a lack of TV coverage and certainly didn’t help when you live so far away from our boyhood club, but there was always a love for the boys in red and blue that was like a once raging, now smouldering fire ready to have petrol poured all over it again.

And then came a rare TV fixture for the eagles, the incredible night at Old Trafford, or for us, The Swan, Wadebridge.

Zaha calmly into Ambrose, who sent a thunderbolt of a shot into the top bins. All two of us palace fans in a packed Cornish Pub couldn’t believe our eyes.

That era just after of a young Wilf, Yala, dominant Mile, Moxey, Delaney, Johnny Williams and co became heroes in my eyes, they did it, under a dancing Holloway at Wembley, got us back to the premier league, brushing aside Brighton along the way, despite their ‘shitty’ attempt at pre match distraction.

We were back, maybe just for a season like last time, but I’m sure to most of us, but certainly to me, that was enough. A young man living down in Cornwall, I was able to say, that’s my team, and I support them with my dad.

But it wasn’t just a season was it Dad?

These first few years in the top flight were probably still during his stubborn attempt to defy the potential pre Madonna nature of some of the big teams, and the big money business it had become.
But for me it was my uni years, living closer now to ‘home’ surrounded by other sports fans, it was a badge of honour to be a palace fan, defying the odds and pulling out shock results and staying up, year on year, and here we are in 2024, still here, about to finish another season on a high.

But this 23/24 season has been a special one for me.
We finish on a 6 game, maybe 7 game unbeaten run, twatting Man U 4-0, beating Liverpool as well as Newcastle, West Ham and Wolves, the football has been amazing. The players seem fitter, better and most importantly more passionate to play for our brilliant club. Watching Olise, Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, Anderson and the rest of the current crop make the premier league look effortless has been a sight to behold. If you ask the sky pundits, we are finally winning because we are brilliant, not because ‘the other team was poor.’

But for me the most important thing, that due to a spare season ticket going, this season, especially the latter part under Oli G, has given me my Palace loving dad back. He was always in there, but not like this one, who will chat to me for 10 mins after a game about the state of play, who will shout at the TV when Eze puts us one up against Liverpool.

I am eternally grateful for this, as although we have a lot in common it’s something I’ve always loved and I’m glad we are both there again.

So just to wrap up, as my wife is about to bring another Palace fan into the world, I’m so happy that hopefully one day, we get the chance to do something I never got to, which is go to Selhurst as 3 generations of Palace fans, and sing glad all over together.

Thank you dad for all the memories ❤️💙 COYP

Listen 'ere my son, that made me cry again, thanks for that.! Well, it's still sinking in, even after a superb display last night (updated since) against Wolves, with some notable performances from the ‘up and comers,’ WE WON THE BLOODY (FA) CUP.

As my son says, I did lose my passion for football a while back, and in part that was due to some of the stupid ‘footballisms’ that I’ll go into later for discussion, but it’s back with bells, whistles, Palace shirts, hats, scarves, pants and socks.

With the birth of my grandson, our family now has four generations of fully functioning Palace fans, and it goes back several more. I consciously decided when my son was born not to influence him in any way, if he chose football, fine, if it was ballet, I would have been equally accepting. I don’t really believe in parent to child legacy, particularly in areas such as religion, politics or enforced tribalism, I feel that each person should be able to see the world, and make their own minds up on who they follow, what they like and don’t like, and in every facet of life, my daughter is a time-traveller. I feel it is a sound philosophy, however it very demonstrably has failed miserably, to date my son’s son has three Palace kits, he’s not yet one. I am ethically defeated, but admit to liking it. That said, my Grandson should know that Palace is for life, not just for the powdery hot chocolate days and the latest kit (not sure on the new home kit). I am proud of them both, and look forward to enjoying more glorious days at Selhurst, Wembley, in Europe, infinity and beyond with them, as well as those dour days when my mind goes back to dank, dark, edgy days in the sparsely populated ‘New’ stand enclosure, Palace’s 1984 (it actually was 1984) before Sir Steve of Coppell got things moving again, you know that epiphanic moment.

Fast forward a lifetime - We were a little lost at the start of this (2024/5) season; I couldn't bear to look at the table until it snowed, but I had faith (see £20 on Palace to win the cup for details). In Oli we have a thinker, a pragmatist, a visionary, a hugger, a smiler, a mentor, but most of all he is calm, always calm, always considered and always outwardly cool. In fact, if Oli G went to the arctic, he could reverse climate change in minutes. He obviously has fantastic support from the club at all levels, the fans, and the players. I said it last year, and will say it again, this group simply must stay together. Yes, we did well without the likes of Olise and Anderson (German league ok, but a bit like Scottish system or my cousins Subbuteo league, and thanks for the goal Joachim), but with them, or particularly MO, we may well have finished in the top six. Therefore, Forest Hill Steve P (we share that origin), it's down to you and the team, keep the group together, and we move up again, as if you didn’t know. No summer distractions this year, hell we all need a break, so the entire group can take their bodies and minds far away from football, and I can stop writing utter nonsense.

Oli G, the Big OG, Oliver, whatever we call him has achieved legendary status in a matter of months, and will live forever in Palace folklore, but for us to move on, we can only hope he gives us a bit more time. Glasnerball is a phenomenon for sure, but it is his philosophy, it’s not replicable, you can’t franchise it, he has to be there. Before the final, he asked the players to win it for the fans, to give them a bright moment in their lives, a never to be forgotten and cherished nugget of sheer delight that will make them smile, gird their loins and warm their hearts or cockles whenever they cerebrally stumble across it. Oliver Glasner knows football inside our and upside down, but far more crucially, he also very obviously knows people.

Footballisms: Defenders having to perform an idiotically and unnecessarily imposed self-double nelson whilst an attacker can pirouette past like Darcy Bustle is as astonishingly ridiculous as it is, extremely, definitely and undeniably prejudicial, and quite possibly could be legally challenged (I would). The arms or similar upper limbs, in many species serve many functions, one of the most important is to help with overall balance and this naturally occurring phenomenon is particularly helpful during movement, and then most crucially, during rapid manipulation. Thus, the powers that be, have (un)wittingly allowed one protagonist full evolutionary range of movement whilst denying that for their opponent.

Spitting: A learnt behaviour, a mainly male machismatic (sic) metamorphisation of mucus manifestation. Most women footballers seem to be able to play the game without gobbing every two minutes, rugby players also seem to be able to achieve eighty minutes without spreading their DNA throughout the population, save to eject the odd tooth; and accompanying claret dislodged in close-quarter combat. Then we have the snot – rocket, a ball of green gilbert that always seems to be ejected at high velocity through one nostril just at the precise moment the camera zooms in for a close up on the snotteteer (sic). You even see managers and coaches flobbing freely and often furiously from the sidelines. Is there a need for it? To answer that I refer to my Uncle Ken who took me to Selhurst from an early age, his answer, by way of a question, ‘Do squash players spit? I am pleased to say that I definitely notice Palace players spiting far less than many others. Suck it up lads, nobody wants to see it, especially your Mum!

Others for another day: Injury time, stop the bloody clock, we all know where we are then. Sin bin, controversial maybe, but would prevent a load of result changing poor decisions, use the time for a considered review. VAR – just use it properly, it can work. Bonus losing point for scoring two or more goals, we all want more goals surely. Bring back Len Chatterton’s Flatterer and for next season, please, please Big Mal’s fedora.



Fin