November 5 2009

Fans

Scores of Crystal Palace fans were left outraged when Simon Jordan blasted a section of the Eagles' supporters, writes Nick Gentry.

The Palace supremo's outburst attacked 'stayaway fans' who have left the club's attendances under 13,000 on the financial crisis that has beset the club recently.

He said: "People need to look at the reality. Charlton, Norwich, Leeds, Leicester and Southampton have all been relegated in recent seasons with enormous attendances - if we’d had as many fans coming as Norwich did last season we’d probably get an extra £5million or £6m a season.

"People can turn around and say we’re in the middle of the recession and there is a credit crunch but they got 25,000 fans. If we only get 12,000 it makes life very difficult. I’m not criticizing the season ticket holders, they support the club."

These comments sparked a furious backlash amongst Palace fans who vented their feelings on the message boards seeing the chairman’s statement as an attack on loyal fans who could no longer afford to attend games or those who lived too far away or had other commitments.

Many fans retorted, claiming that Jordan had lost touch with the average supporter. You have to see their point; Palace have long since been near the top of the Championship in terms of price with £30 being the going rate for the dubious privilege of watching what has often been dull football over the past few seasons.

Others added that the unquestionably poor facilities that Selhurst Park has to offer simply doesn't justify that sort of price. The catering is poor and vastly overpriced and the toilets in some of the older parts of the ground are simply a health risk, not to mention the cramped, cluttered club shop that doesn’t seem to have air-conditioning.

I can see Simon's point though, however misguided it was to say what he did publicly. The club needs to see 17,000 crowds every week just to break even and we’re getting nowhere near that at present which leaves him covering the losses again.

Remember he already guarantees nearly all the debts attached to the football club personally which means financial ruin for him if the club goes belly up.

He continued: "We should be getting 15-16,000 if we’re doing okay and if we’re doing well it should be 22-23,000. The fact of the matter is we’re getting 12,000 fans and the only way we can compete is if someone like me bridges the gap month in and month out. Why should I go on being the only person prepared to do that?"

It isn’t fair, although I don’t see it how blaming 'casual fans' is going to remedy the situation. In fact it seems to have accomplished quite the opposite. There is a malaise at the football club, no-one can be bothered and many have lost their craving for football and attacking these fans won't bring them back.

What will bring them back is cheaper tickets and on field success. Unfortunately this can only be rectified with a 20 goal-per-season striker and a good run at the play-offs which can only be achieved with money which isn’t coming into the club because of low gates.

It’s a catch 22 situation and one would think good leadership would be the way of it but unfortunately Simon himself has lost his motivation that was once so infectious. An interview he did shortly after taking over at Palace gives a deeper look into his psyche and how the man works. There are clear comparisons between the situation he finds himself in at Palace and that of his mobile phone business before he sold up.

The telling section of the interview was this: "By the time he had sold out of his phone business, he had lost much of the drive that had made it such a success. 'I wasn't performing the way I wanted to perform. My energy levels had dropped and I had started to come in at 10 in the morning'."

He’s clearly lost his motivation and therefore isn’t putting in the same energy and enthusiasm into Palace that he once did. A by-product of this is a lack of investment in the team and facilities which lead to poor performances and leaves us now with dwindling crowds.

A takeover needs to happen soon to reinvigorate the club at all levels. If it doesn’t happen and we continue on this course administration is the only outcome I can see.

Fortunately one man hasn’t lost his enthusiasm; Neil Warnock continues to work wonders in difficult circumstances. We are playing some entertaining football and picking up good results and if only we had that free scoring striker we would be up their in the play-off hunt.

The club has become removed from the fans and both parties are pulling against each other, only Warnock is offering any stability, so for the club's sake a compromise needs to be found so we can all pull in the same direction and pull this club back from the brink.

We shall only see the real effect of Jordan’s rallying call when we see how many turn up on Saturday for as we welcome one of the biggest clubs in the League in Middlesbrough to Selhurst Park.