November 11 2003

Selhurst Park

Yet another home weekend fixture is switched to a weekday evening... for no sensible reason that Jamesey can detect

Put it down to my vintage (I'm sure many will), but I like my football on Saturday (or even Sunday) afternoons.

Maybe younger HOL members, weaned on floodlit evening matches, have grown to prefer Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

But, to my mind, Saturday afternoon is the prime time for football, although I am all too aware of the social and cultural changes that mean Saturday is not the obvious first choice which once it was.

I was naturally irritated - but not altogether surprised - to see that our weekend fixture against Crewe Alexandra (Sat, Nov 15) had been switched to Tues, Dec 9.

Reason: A load of Euro 04 play-offs. CPFC players involved: Kit Symons (Wales), Aki Riihilahti (Finland) and Teeratep Winothai (Thailand).

Well, forgive me, but I was unaware that Thailand had been moved into Europe (by George, the EU is growing fast), and, what's more, Aki and Kit are hardly vital squad players.

Yes, I know Kit is now our player/manager but until Simon Jordan gave him the ultimate casting vote and he was able to select himself against Preston North End (Nov 8), he was struggling for first team action.

In other words, losing that particular trio would not have made one iota of difference to our chances of defeating Crewe Alexandra on Nov 15 and consolidating an improvement after a not-half-bad display against Preston on Kit's managerial debut.

I have carefully examined Crewe's official website and can find no mention of they having players involved at the weekend, so one assumes that the postponement was at Palace's behest?

So, what are we left with? The prospect of kicking off on a freezing December night when I, for one, would rather be snugly at home, in front of the TV with the heating full on.

From a commercial point of view, it makes no sense either. Saturday matches always put more bums on seats than evening games.

The long-suffering away supporters face far greater travelling and work manipulation problems than at weekends.

I also know several south coast Palace fans whose trains home don't run late enough during the week - especially as we now kick off 15 minutes later that the entire Nationwide League.

So don't accept these arbitrary decisions without moaning. With a chairman whose reputation for listening to supporters' views is not well known, it is hard to know how to register a real protest. But surely we can try?

Let's have football not sod-all when Saturday comes...

Email Jamesey with any of your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com

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