A textbook Palace tragedy

LIKE so many modern marriages, my relationship to Crystal Palace is now conducted almost exclusively through text message.

There has been no great schism — she did not return home one night to find me cosying up to Millwall. Instead, work commitments on Saturday afternoons mean I am reliant on shorthand updates delivered by a season ticket-holding friend.

This could have been a good thing. Rather than end up as one of those characters who would like nothing better than to shuffle off this mortal coil while wedged into the same seat they have occupied for over 30 years, being forced away from Selhurst Park should have created some much-needed emotional distance.

That was the theory. The reality is that being reliant on my mobile correspondent has turned me into a whole new form of weirdo: one who is sent into a fug of fumbling angst whenever his phone bleeps or buzzes as he is attempting to report from a match that actually matters.

Nothing beats being there, of course, but the texted match report has its own drama; and, inevitably, there are a raft of memories sparked by every update.

One Sunday afternoon in May summed it up. The scene is Selhurst Park on the final day of the regular Championship season and Palace need just to beat mid-table Burnley to book a play-off berth. Two minutes in, the texts start to flow...

Palace pen. Burnley dwn to 10.

Football is full of statistical quirks. In Palace’s case, it seems we like nothing better than a little drop of Claret. Burnley were obliging opponents in 1983 when we needed a win to save our Second Division status; four years earlier, the Lancastrians were in town again as Terry Venables’ side aimed to seal promotion to the top flight. Over 52,000 fans held their breath for 80 minutes until a brace of goals almost split Selhurst at the seams. Now, in 2008, the lads from Turf Moor are doing their bit again.

Watson pen glory!

Ben Watson shouldn’t be a Crystal Palace player. The Holmesdale Road regulars like their midfielders to crunch first and ask questions later. Watson, who was once booed — by his own fans — moments before taking a match-clinching penalty, does not fit this mould. He is skilful, canny and always seems to have two seconds longer on the ball than anyone else. He is, in short, a Premier League player but for the time being he is scoring spot-kicks in the Championship. The fans cheer.

Moses glory!

There is no more crowded footballing market-place than London. The city boasts eight clubs in the top two divisions and each believes it should be dining at football’s high table. The scramble for young talent is messy and merciless and Palace, whose resources are perpetually stretched, have to scrap harder than most. There is no shortage of plundering opportunities: take your pick from the surrounding inner-city sprawl, where council estate kids learn their trade the hard way, or the well-endowed schools of Surrey, with their rolling playing fields and gleaming facilities. Victor Moses, now an England U17 international, comes from the latter. We know he will move on but at the moment he is one of our own.

Soares glory! Great atmos.

Selhurst Park is what kind-hearted fans tend to call ‘an old-fashioned football ground’. To everyone else, it is a hole. The Main Stand has an odour that blends 90 years’ worth of cigarette butts, sweat and fried onions.

Away fans are herded into one end of the Arthur Wait stand, where they can’t see one of the goal-mouths or buy a beer. It is a unloved dump but, on days like this at least, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

Sinclair glory!

Chelsea have lent us Scott Sinclair, their teenage winger, as a favour. This is humiliating in its own right, and still more so when most of the fans watching him make mugs of Burnley can remember how Palace used to peer down on the Blues.

In 1991, Steve Coppell led Palace to third place in the old Division One, which wasn’t even enough to secure a stab at the UEFA Cup. That season, Chelsea finished 11th, attracted 14,000 crowds and played at a ground so ramshackle one end of the pitch doubled as a car park. Now we are forced to beg, steal and borrow the players that can’t even get a glimpse of their first team. Strange days, indeed.

Clint glory!

Clinton Morrison will always be a hero to Crystal Palace fans. He encapsulates the club’s ridiculous, wannabe swagger: he has all the mouth you would expect of someone raised in Tooting — or Rootin’ Tootin’, as it’s known locally — and is one of our most prolific goalscorers. He is enjoying himself this season: this is his 16th goal, a tally which has taken him past Ian Wright and Mark Bright in the club’s all-time scoring list.

Palace have won handsomely and the fans enjoy their moment in the sunshine: they know it will not be long before the storm clouds drift back. Sure enough, a week later, their side are squeezed out of the play-offs by Bristol City.

Seven months on, Morrison and Tom Soares have left, Watson’s new contract remains unsigned, Sinclair won’t return on loan and Moses can’t get a game.

As any of the 24,000 shoehorned into Selhurst that springtime afternoon could have told you — or, indeed, the bloke in Ireland studying his mobile with curious intensity — this is one club that doesn’t do fairytales.