As Palace fans we are truly in a golden age.
We are in the top half of the Premier League, with arguably the strongest squad of players we have ever had.
Our manager is respected and admired by the majority of fans. He seems the right guy for the job.
Our owners are also respected and admired by as many as is possible in this age.
The ground needs sprucing up and we could definitely do with Marouane Chamakh and Connor Wickham getting back from injury sooner rather than later, but all in all, things are pretty, pretty good.
We are pretty happy and while we know we have no great aspirations to win the league, we have the potential to be as good as the club have ever been in the next few seasons.
Now imagine you were born to be believe you were entitled to compete, if not win, the title every year.
You have a ground capable of holding well over 30,000 supporters.
Except that while Palace are in the top half of the Premier League you find yourselves in the bottom half of the Championship.
And you have an owner so bad he almost failed the fit and proper owner test. A test even the Blackpool owner passed while being in prison.
And that owner dispenses with managers with spectacular regularity.
And that owner has now settled on the controversial Steve Evans, however briefly, to have a go at managing his team.
This is the Steve Evans convicted of committing a tax fraud of more than £300,000 while Boston United manager, a fraud that enabled them to sign players on illegal contracts that the club would never otherwise have been able to sign. These players contributed greatly to getting Boston into the Football League.
This is the Steve Evans who was sent to the stands four times in seven games while manager of Crawley Town for abusing officials, which is perhaps the highlight of his colourful disciplinary record.
This is the Steve Evans whose departure from Crawley was celebrated joyously (and with extreme profanity) in song by his former players.
And it is the Steve Evans who last appeared at Elland Road dressed in Hawaiian shirt, shorts and a sombrero to celebrate Rotherham staying up before the end of the season
Welcome to Leeds United everyone!
Since the news of Uwe Rosler’s sacking and Evans appointment by owner Massimo Cellini broke last week, there has been a universal bewilderment from football fans and reporters.
Not sympathy, because it is Leeds, a club who rarely feature as anyone’s second favourite team.
And yet in the way that every pantomime needs a villain the audience can boo at, football needs a half decent side in Leeds.
Leeds is a large, prosperous city with a great footballing history, particularly from the mid-1960’s to mid-1970’s under Don Revie, and then from the early nineties to the early noughties under Howard Wilkinson and later David O’Leary.
How on earth did they end up in this mess?
Leeds recent troubles can be traced back to over-ambitious purchases, blamed on former Chairman Peter Ridsdale, and a loss of form in the seasons after reaching the Champions League semi-final in 2000/01, with ex-Palace legend Nigel Martyn in goal.
Selling the club to Ken Bates – or an offshore trust whose unknown owners let Bates run things – wasn’t a great move for the fans, although perhaps good practice for the arrival of Cellino, who was able to buy the club from GFH Capital, who in turn had bought the club from Bates.
Cellino had previously owned Italian side Cagliari, where he gained notoriety for being ‘il mangia-allenatori’ – the manager eater, after the club had 36 managers in 22 seasons!
Surely a club with the potential of Leeds, in an area sorely lacking a top division club, could look at the model of ownership at Selhurst Park and find a group of investor supporters with the right understanding of the club’s history and a recognition of the potential financial return if they return to the top flight.
Despite his success in getting promotion at all of his previous clubs, the baggage that comes with appointing Evans makes him entirely inappropriate to be manager of Leeds.
Perhaps Cellino associates Evans’ bad guy image with Leeds own unpopular image, moulded in the days of Don Revie, with a set of players so hardened and loyal to Revie that they were able to rid themselves of Brian Clough in 44 days.
We are very lucky that Palace’s problems in 2010 ended up being sorted out by Palace people. The example of Leeds in the last 15 seasons shows what can happen in a nightmare scenario.
The football authorities are incapable of making common sense decisions that would stop the likes of Cellino and Evans having any influence over a club with the heritage and fan base that Leeds have.
Leeds will continue to be a laughing stock among fans. They will not attract much sympathy at the moment, but the state of that club is a very sad reflection of football in 2015.
