January 20 2003

Selhurst Park

Two contrasting newspaper reports aroused Jamesey's disbelief and ire...

The past couple of seasons have been refreshing in that, apart from conventional match reports and gossip, you could read a newspaper without seeing yet another headline about Palace's imminent bankruptcy.

Although the Sunday Telegraph (19/1/03) doesn't bother to cover our home draw with Burnley, it publishes a top half-page on the views of a certain Trevor Francis on youth and football fame, entitled "Yesterday's hero fears for the future". Trevor compares his own experiences as a 16-year-old prodigy with big-bucks modern counterparts like Wayne Rooney of Everton.

Having spent most of the article predictably whingeing about how tough it was 30 years ago and how counter-productive has been the emergence of the dreaded agent, Trevor gets round to the interesting stuff as far as Palace fans are concerned - Wayne Routledge and Gary Borrowdale. "He {Trevor} knows all about nurturing talent," burbles the article happily.

And there's more to come. "In the 'it takes one to know one' department few are more qualified at handling young players than Francis". The final paragraph practically purrs with delight, reflecting on how our youth players at the training ground near Beckenham "have an impressive teacher".

You will have to search hard in my contributions to this site to find much Francis-slagging. I was surprised by his appointment and, whatever the knockers say, he was an exceptionally gifted player. But it was a shock to the system to see him depicted as a form of youth messiah!

As far as I know, the Academy and the arrival of Routledge, Borrowdale and Gareth Williams happened well before TF's appointment. And it always seemed to me that he far preferred to buy in established players from outside - Adebola, Akinbiyi, Johnson, Derry, Granville, Butterfield, etc - than give our youth players a chance. Surely Routledge only really got into the starting line-up because of our long injury list?

But whatever the journalistic merits of the Sunday Telegraph article, at least it was warm towards CPFC. Never was my gob more smacked than when I opened the Daily Telegraph (20/1/03) and for the second day running saw a major piece on the club we love.

Entitled "Palace yearn for return of diamond life" (whatever that means?) and written by a person (and I am being restrained here) called Tony Francis, the article kicked off by exemplifying Leeds and Crystal Palace as two clubs that "arouse so little warmth that you'd get more out of an extra strong mint".

The writer continues: "There is something about Croydon and Selhurst Park that creates a blockage in the affection duct".

We are labelled as "Del Boys" and the familiar targets of Venables, Allison, Noades and Goldberg are trotted out and sneered at.

Despite continuing in this vein for almost the entire article he certainly hits on a solitary home truth. "Palace...lack the ability to crank up a gear when matches are on cruise control".

Well Tony Francis, I beg to differ with you by pointing out that in nearly 50 years as a Palace supporter, I have never encountered much animosity in any form at all, apart from obvious sources such as Millwall, Charlton, Wimbledon, etc.

In fact, Tony Francis, very much the opposite have been the sentiments in my experience.

We are perceived as a smallish, family, friendly south London club. Our fans don't go round smashing other stadia or try to wreak violence on rival supporters.

We have an interestingly poetic name and wear an attractive strip that everybody seems to like. As underdogs, the entire non-Man U nation supported us in the FA Cup Final of 1990.

And again, as underdogs, we were always backed by neutrals against the big-money boys in our old Div 1 and Premiership days. In our administration era we received massive support from other clubs and our own supporters raised a record sum for salvation which was widely admired by others.

In short, Tony Francis, I don't know what gin-clouded, Lunchtime O' Booze world you inhabit, but you can take your arrogant, inaccurate, misguided and generally ignorant opinions and stick them up your editor's backside.

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