It's not

Red and Blue Army!

It’s been known. Cynthia Payne...

Didn’t the Hayes to Charing Cross line stop at Woodside? It's probably 40 years since I last used it. I could be totally wrong.

Red and Blue Army!

Nah

It still runs. Reckon you are thinking of Elmers End. The trains run up to Hayes but you get off there to get the tram to Addiscombe and Croydon.

Nice little line but many stops. Very reliable from London Bridge

Does anyone remember this model that Ron Noades used to display whenever he could?
I think there is more chance of Uncle Ron still completing this than SP's delusions of grandeur.

Attachment: Selhurst Park14.jpg (462.68Kb)

I remember that model well. In the mid 90s a mate and I learned of its existence. Legend had it that this glimpse of a golden future resided in the foyer, just inside the posh entrance to the exclusive 'high end' suites and bars in the main stand.

If you remember the main stand in the 90s you will know I am playing fast and loose with the words 'foyer', 'posh', 'exclusive' and 'high end'. The area did have heavy wooden front doors though.

Anyway, after one home game us two teenage oiks took it upon ourselves to wander in through those heavy wooden doors and see the future for ourselves. Sure enough, there was the model located on a plinth behind a glass case, cordoned off by some ornamental red and gold rope, like the crown f**in jewels!

We looked at it for all of three seconds before a bunch of overweight middle aged stewards in bright jackets came bundling down the stairs telling us in no uncertain terms to sling our hooks. You'd have thought we had come to steal the ZDS cup or something.

Looking back at it now I thinks its best described as 'a concept model'. The concept apparently being to replicate the Holmesdale on all four sides. And also to build around / over / instead of Sainsburys.

I think Ron was serious about it, as Palace got planning permission for a new main stand not long after the Holmesdale was built, and that new stand was indeed an exact replica of the Holmesdale - literally so, in that the new main stand would have been no bigger than the Holmesdale, and would have run not from corner flag to corner flag, but from from the Whitehorse Lane end to around the edge of the penalty area, leaving a huge void between it and the corner flag. It would have been 2/3rds of a stand!

The reason for this was to protect the amenity of the houses we have now agreed to buy, demolish and replace.

I suppose the prospect of buying up those houses was all a but much for CPFC in the 1990s, even in the halcon days of reaching a cup final and finishing third in the league.

How times change. Those houses are probably worth half a Benteke now. God knows what that says about the modern world, but it has made buying them and knocking them down possible.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (18 Nov 2020 5.43pm)