27th April 1959. Dragged along by a school friend to watch Palace play Arsenal in the Southern Floodlight Challenge Cup Final, the precursor to the Football League Cup. Lost 1-2, set the pattern for the future, sometimes! Crowd was 32000 plus apparently, not bad for a 4th Division club. First sight of the person who, to me at least, was the most gifted player to wear a Palace shirt: Johnny Byrne. Also highly thought of by Sir Geoff Hurst who did a talk at our local theatre earlier this year (and who has aged a lot better than me!) when I lobbed a question to him about JB.
Completely hooked by that match and went to most of the home games in the period 1960 to 1970 and witnessed Palace rise from the 4th to the 1st Division before work then took me to deepest, darkest Gloucestershire! Before moving away I did see Palace’s first game in the top flight against Manchester Utd in August 1969, a year after they had won the European Cup. They had some reasonable players in their team (eg George Best, Bobby Charlton, Denis Law etc!) but we did manage a 2-2 draw! Thereafter, caught up with Palace periodically at away games in the Midlands and South West the highlight being the 2004 Championship Play Off Final against West Ham at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. Now too old and clapped out to cope with live matches but never regretted supporting Palace for over 63 years and never been tempted to switch allegiance to a bigger or more successful club. It’s been quite a journey!
Rambling over!

Best of luck mate. Good to hear. I lived in the midlands in the 99s - we probably were at loads of games together!

Red and Blue Army!

I don't know exactly, but dad started to take me to matches in the late 50s. I was probably 10 or 11 yrs old and, frankly, not too bothered about the football, but I thoroughly enjoyed the banter. We always stood on the same spot on the Holmesdale terrace, so dad could meet his brother and close enough to easily get a Bovril at half time.

I do remember going off to pick up empty beer bottles and then take them to the shop to collect a penny for each one. Gradually I became more interested in the games and so the die was cast. Always an avid Palace supporter ever since.

Mrs POG lived in Copers Cope Road before we were married in the church you can see from the training ground and she often reminds me (not necessarily in a good way) of our wedding day in 1971 when, as soon as we got in the car to drive to the reception I asked the driver how Palace were getting on. I'm pleased to say we beat Ipswich 1-0.

Dad and I watched games standing on the muddy slope of the Holmesdale Road end. He cheered and I rattled.

My first game was April 63. An evening home game against Peterborough that we lost 2-0. I was 8 at the time, and went with my late Dad. Still an avid fan nearly 60 years on, but don’t get to see so many games now.

So a Johnny come lately then!

Coming up to 60 years for me it frightens me to say. My late Dad used to take me mainly to midweek matches as he worked Saturdays, I must have been 7 or 8. We used to stand in what was the Main Stand (the only stand then!) enclosure. It used to intrigue me to watch the lights around the ground as people lit up fags-different world! 2 games that stick in my mind are one between Palace and Coventry which for some reason was on a Saturday evening when they were a go ahead team under Jimmy Hill and I think we both got promoted that season to Division 2. The other one was the end of season game against Fulham which is mentioned on another post and when we got promoted to Division 1 for the first time. That was a Saturday afternoon game and again my Dad couldn't go so my Mum took me- we both ended up on the pitch at the end!
I've never dabbled with the big teams and they were happy days but I have to say that we were always a bit of a Cinderella club with brief moments of success followed by years of struggle.
How refreshing it is to see the club being run today at all levels by people who know exactly what they are doing and aiming for.