Palace Stop the Rot – but is it Enough?

In May last year, Palace appeared in the FA Cup Final and secured mid-table respectability in The Premier League.  Now, just nine months on, a change of manager and millions of pounds of American investment, has failed to arrest an alarming slide in fortunes for the South London club.

A scrappy win against struggling Middlesbrough has stopped the rot, just, but the problems at Palace run deeper than what is happening on the pitch.

Just before Christmas, manager Alan Pardew, he of the ludicrous Wembley touchline dance, was relieved of his duties. He had failed miserably in his attempt to build on the relative success of the previous season, and paid the ultimate price. He blatantly lost the support of the dressing-room and in order to try and turn this round, the club turned to Sam Allardyce, the Red Adair of football.  Could he leave behind the stings and stitch-ups of his brief England reign?

Big Sam has also failed to galvanise the troops, managing just two Premier League win in eight games. Last year’s glimmer of hope for the fans also fell by the wayside, as they were dumped out of the FA Cup by a Manchester City team who barely got out of second gear.

The woes facing The Eagles were thrown into sharp focus just two weeks ago, with an appalling first-half display against struggling (and Allardyce’s last club) Sunderland. The boos rang out round Selhurst Park and the proposed investment in the tired old stadium seemed a million miles away.

To make matters worse, as the players trudged off after the 45-minute horror show, a fan jumped the barriers, evading stewards on the way, to confront Palace centre-back Damien Delaney.  The media reported the incident with predictable outrage, and the perpetrator was arrested, but is this just a sign of the ever-widening gap between the football supporter and the multi-millionaire players?

In the (so-called) good old days, you could expect to rub shoulders with your local professional footballer in the pub, or on their allotment as they harvested their vegetable patch.

In the ‘cash-is-king’ 21^st Century however, getting up close and personal with even the most mediocre player is nigh-on impossible. They glide around in super cars, surrounded by hangers-on, minders and sycophants.  The salaries commanded by these young men are eye-watering and football fans find themselves increasingly marginalised as the financial gap widens.

Players, with one or two notable exceptions, are NOT fans of the clubs they play for. They are employees, mercenaries, touting their wares to the highest bidder.  They kiss the badge, hold up the shirt and use all the right soundbites but to them, football is (just) a job.

Football is a tribal ritual, rooted in working class England and the fans, for the most part, are the embodiment of this.  The reward for their toil during the week is a couple of hours at their temple, worshipping their heroes from the banks behind each goal.  The vast majority of them eat sleep and breathe their clubs, adorning their houses (and bodies) with symbols of their devotion.  Owners, managers and players come and go but the fans, the lifeblood of the club, are there all the time, win lose or draw.  Weekends are made or ruined on the actions of the team

Fans accept that there are owners prepared to pay these players incredible sums of money and if Palace Chairman Steve Parish is prepared to sanction a £100k per week contract then so be it.  This is OK, as long as the fans see maximum effort and commitment, every single time the team takes to the turf.

They can kiss the badge as much as they like if they perform well and score (or stop) goals.  Fans watched those 45 minutes against Sunderland, and saw a team who WERE playing for each other and trying their utmost to get themselves up the table.  Casting their eyes over the Palace players, that commitment was sadly lacking.   They looked like they didn’t care, the ultimate sin in the fans’ eyes.  They looked as if they were safe in the knowledge that their bank balances were larger, by tens of thousands of pounds, and to hell with the consequences.

Palace fans are experiencing difficult times, and when you get to half-time, 4-0 down to a big rival, is it any wonder that fans react?  Perhaps we should be thankful that more of the Holmesdale faithful didn’t go over the barriers.

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