We welcome Palace fan Alex Tofield to the team who will be writing for TEB every so often. The former ball boy has been a fan of club since mid-eighties which has rubbed off on his two kids. Here is his debut article.
It does not seem so long ago that we were all fearing the worst with Neil Warnock in charge. We now find ourselves in a completely different dimension with ‘Lord‘ Pardew at the helm.
The summer gap has allowed us to catch our breath just enough to be able to grasp reality on our current situation.
As a Palace fan since 1986, I really believe this is the finest period that we have witnessed and that includes the FA Cup run of 1990, lifting the Zenith Data Systems Cup and signing Italian Attilio Lombardo.
We are now attracting high calibre players such as Yohan Cabaye. Everyone around us are now taking notice in a way that we could only have dreamt about just a few seasons ago.
The transformation is so surreal that most of us are still expecting a bump or three in the road. Sooner or later we will have to come to terms with the fact that it may never be the case again. I am sure this is the new era of Crystal Palace and we are here to stay.
Just let that sink in for a moment.
To give the bigger teams a run for their money and only narrowly drawing or getting beat by them is devastating to say the least, but let us not forget where we have came from in such a short space of time.
We have only just set off in our long journey. Just as we are reminiscing on our previous Premier League campaign up comes another. Rather than thinking ‘let us see if we can survive again’ we are now saying ‘we can improve on our tenth place finish’.
Just to think that a great percentage of our current squad that got us promoted and secured safety not just once but twice, is quite staggering. We are now staring the next Premier League season in the face. We are mentally and physically able to deal with whatever comes our way over the course of the next few months.
With just twenty or so days away from our opening game at newly promoted Norwich City, we must quickly discover what our best eleven is. Do we stick with the same eleven that finished last season or do we make a few minor adjustments?
Players come and go at clubs, it is a fact of the game. We cannot afford to be sentimental in the slightest.
Like all other Palace fans I cannot wait for the new season to start. We find ourselves in a great position both financially and mentally as a club. Even though we can possibly push for tenth place or higher, the league as a whole has just got a lot stronger compared to that of last season.
We have to progress and compete as a club both on and off the pitch. I feel that we have done so already by setting ourselves up nicely for the upcoming season. For once we can look forward to it with a real air of excitement.
