Guest blogger Joey Mitchell brings us his view on the incredible journey that Palace have been on in recent years. You can read more from Joey and his Eagles of Selhurst blog on WordPress and Twitter.
Three years have come and gone by in a flash but it has not been easy for The Eagles. Here is an insight into those three years from near extinction to the big time. The Barclay’s Premier League.
In January 2010 the club were placed into something that no football fan ever wants to hear their club go into, administration. The thought of being put into administration is hard enough and due to Football League regulations we were deducted ten points which put us into a relegation cat fight and forcing us to sell key players such as Victor Moses and Jose Fonte. From the moment we were placed into administration at every game whether it be home or away we’d hear the chants of “You’re in ad-minis-tration!” blaring out around grounds, which is never nice to hear especially when on the verge of extinction.
The points deduction and sales of key players ended up with Palace having an appalling run and finding ourselves at Hillsborough on the last day of the season needing as much as a draw to avoid relegation, who ever lost would go down for definite. Palace had two points more than Sheffield Wednesday in the league table therefore having the upper hand. To be fair we were playing away so the home team had a great chance to win as our away record was shocking.
The game got underway, and I don’t know about the rest of you but at this point I was so nervous, my palms were sweating and I couldn’t sit still. Every Wednesday attack my heart would be pounding, getting faster and faster, the thought of relegation was playing on my mind throughout. A breakthrough! Alan Lee heads home and put The Eagles 1-0 up! On the stroke of half time Clarke equalised. The second half got underway and none other than our hero at the time Darren Ambrose put us 2-1 up. Three minutes of normal time to go and we’re so close to securing our Championship status until Purse scores the equaliser, at this point I’m all over the place I don’t know whether to watch or hide my face. On the 93rd minute we hit the post in a 2 on 1 attack and it’s collected by the keeper on the line. The full time whistle blows! We avoided relegation! I have never shouted so loud in my entire life! It’s a day that I’ll never forget and I’m sure many Palace fans won’t either
Highlights here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-7Kv5Fy0M
The group named CPFC2010 came to the rescue, Steve Parish, Martin Long and Jeremy Hosking bought the club and Selhurst Park. We were no longer in administration! Now we were looking forward to the upcoming season with new manager George Burley. We got off to a very bad start causing Burley to be fired after a 3-0 defeat to Millwall in January 2011 which was quite frankly embarrassing to see the least. Dougie Freedman became caretaker manager and got us back on our feet but again we were involved in a relegation battle this started to look like a recurring theme. On the 30th April 2011 with one more game remaining after this match we drew 1-1 away at Hull securing our Championship status yet again for another year! Dougie Freedman became our Manager.
The 2011/12 season didn’t bring much joy in the league. We finished 17th place being clear from the relegation zone much earlier than the previous two seasons. I recall us doing the double over Watford 2-0 away and a 4-0 thrashing at home putting that at a 6-0 aggregate score… just hope you Watford fans remember that as well as I do. We had an incredible cup run that season going through Crawley, Wigan, Southampton, Middlesbrough and a moment that will remain in Palace history forever, going away and beating Manchester United at Old Trafford with an unforgettable and unstoppable strike from 40 yards out by Darren Ambrose! We ended up going on to lose against Cardiff in the Semi-Final on penalties which are cruellest way to go out especially being so close to a cup final. To be fair they were the worst penalties I’ve seen from Palace players.
Highlights here of United away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rusY0iJ30Ck
We entered the 2012/13 season with 3 straight defeats in the League and being knocked out of the League Cup early on to Preston in a shocking 4-1 defeat in which Wilbraham scored his only goal and never scored since. We looked doomed; we couldn’t score many goals, conceded a fair bit and just generally looked bad on field. It looked as if the recurring theme of a relegation battle was due to take Palace. We had Sheffield Wednesday at home I was at this game right behind the goal in the main stand. Sheffield Wednesday came into this game on the back of a 19 game unbeaten run and we were without any points this season. Within 30 seconds Murray put us 1-0 up and opened up his goal scoring account and the fans went crazy! Antonio equalised on the 50th minute before Murray who was on fire this game scored the winner in front of the Holmesdale Fanatics and from this moment onwards Palace never looked back and stayed in the top 6 from October until the end of the season. On that note Dougie Freedman left Palace in October for Bolton Wanderers. Who would replace Dougie? He had us on a great run, could anyone continue that? YES! Ian Holloway! In November 2012 he became our manager winning 5-0 against Ipswich on his debut as manager.
This season Palace had a few amazing wins taking us top of the league on a few occasions but when it really mattered we fell short which ended up going on an 8 game non-win streak and 5 games without scoring. We were slipping down the table and as per usual knowing Crystal Palace we had to do it the hard way securing the play-offs on the final day of the season against Peterborough after going a goal down twice before the hero Kevin Phillips equalised and Captain Mile Jedinak headed in the winner.
A play-off semi-final was in Palace and the dates we set against arch rivals Brighton. This was a fans favourite! We were underdogs to everyone watching because Brighton finished a place above us and were indeed the inform team, we welcomed them to Selhurst which ended 0-0 and heartbreakingly the 30 goal man Glenn Murray got stretchered off with a knee injury missing out on the second leg and potentially the play-off final.
With the main goal scorer gone we were written off by everybody, how would we score goals without a clinical striker? Zaha was our man! The introduction of Bolasie and Williams had Palace in the driving seat, a beautiful cross from Bolasie and well struck diving header from Zaha with 15 minutes to go we had to hang on and cause the biggest upset to everybody who wrote us off and BOOM! Zaha struck again and we knew we had a date set at Wembley on the cards. That has to be an unforgettable moment in my Palace history. I’ll never forget watching the Brighton fans walking out of a play-off semi-final match with their arch rivals early 2-0 down.
The Eagles return to Wembley for the first time since the 1990 FA Cup final clash with Manchester United and were looking to return to the big time! The game had me sweating, constantly moving and genuinely feeling sick. A few chances fell to either side, but extra time echoed. We knew we had half an hour to score or we would be going to penalties, our defence was solid! Zaha has been playing quality all match and has played quality all season for us; with a bit of trickery in the box Zaha wins us the penalty! None other than the veteran goal scorer Phillips would step up to the plate and he fired us back to the Premier League with a beautifully struck £120 million penalty into the top left had corner.
Phillips penalty from a CPFC fans view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dMRJN4hykQ
WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE! SAY WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!
AND THE REST IS HISTORY!
