Crystal Palace’s topsy-turvy season carried on in the same vein on Friday after securing their FA Cup semi final place with a comfortable victory over Championship side Reading.
With the impressive cup run contrasting the woeful league form in 2016, many are now beginning to dream about Alan Pardew’s men going one step better than the class of 1990.
The semi final itself will no doubt be a great occasion for the club. It will be Palace’s first FA Cup semi final in twenty-one years and their first visit to Wembley since putting Watford to the sword in 2013.
In a season of English football where the scripts are being disregarded anything is possible and Palace now have one of their best chances at capturing that first elusive ‘major trophy’.
With the cup progression in full swing alongside the league regression many supporters are now asking the question ‘What is more important, Premier League survival or cup glory?’
2016 has been utterly miserable in the Premier League for Palace – winless, hopeless and at times rudderless. Having spent 2015 upwardly mobile on the back of renewed confidence and restored faith, Pardew’s side now resemble a beaten and fallen Icarus – a contorted mess at the foot of the summit, their once convincing wax wings falling victim to the piercing January sun.
The cup run is providing much needed medical relief to a squad of crestfallen players and wounded supporters, the four cup vaccines so far keeping the blood pumping through the Selhurst aorta. With such lustre and nostalgia attached to the fabled competition, why then would so many take Premier League survival over cup success?
It has been an eventful week for ‘modern football’. News that the Premier League will embrace a cap on £30 tickets for away fans was seen as a resounding success from the endless work being done by supporter groups at ground level over the last year. The rampant commercialisation of football is increasingly leaving a sour taste with fans of the game so a move like this will only help boost the Premier League’s image both domestically and abroad. It is a step in the right direction, but there is still so much work to do to continue to make football affordable for fans.
The greed at the top level of football was put in the spotlight following Charlie Stillitano’s mindless comments about how Leicester City’s success in the Premier League was an unwelcome development for the ‘elite’ clubs that would be damaging to the commercial appeal of the Champions League.
Of course, his comments were met with widespread condemnation, but it does not take away from the fact that the supposed big clubs for years have had an eye on ensuring their hegemony in populating the most profitable positions domestically and continentally can continue. With regards the Premier League itself, the media seems at pains to highlight that the significance of survival this year means getting a slice of the windfall awaiting the twenty Premier League teams next season.
Football is about winning games. Football is about winning trophies. Football has the power to provide fans with unbridled moments of joy and elation, but also to saddle them grief and despair when it does not go your way. It is not about spreadsheets or bank balances, or fencing off and protecting the larger teams.
Stillitano’s comments brought a lot of vocal, and justified, criticism from fans. Football was not invented by Manchester United. The Champions League is not a birthright of the five ‘elite English clubs and their equally ‘illustrious’ European counterparts. The Premier League is not the centre of the universe.
Arsenal are regularly criticised for celebrating finishing fourth as if it is an achievement. Is settling for seventeenth position really what football is about? Ask Newcastle United fans about Mike Ashley’s lack of ambition, the principal goal each year simply to survive whilst continuing to benefit from the standing order in place with the Premier League each year.
Twenty-six years later, Palace fans still talk about the 1990 Cup Final – still hold that group of players in high regard. In twenty-six years time, if Palace do not end up winning the cup will we laud the group of players who stumbled to pick up enough points that guaranteed a payout to beat all payouts?
Imagine the highlight reel – tastefully edited clips of Parish collecting an over-sized cheque culminating in a final scene where his smile widens as he counts the zeroes.
‘Where were you when Palace got the cheque in 2016?’.
A moment to resonate through the ages like when Kennedy or Lennon were shot.
While it is unlikely that Palace will go down (unlikely, not impossible), life would go on. Crystal Palace have been here for over 110 years and will outlive all of us. She threatened to leave in 2010 but thankfully saw sense.
Football is about winning, and winning the FA Cup would be the single greatest moment that most Palace fans will likely experience. There is more to life than the Premier League, and there is more to football than the Premier League. Sure, everyone would be devastated were Palace to go down. But three points against a team such as Preston North End would be enjoyed every bit as much as three points against the Newcastle and Sunderland’s of the world in the Premier League. Especially with an FA Cup trophy sitting in the cabinet.
And while people will point to the plight of Wigan Athletic and Portsmouth, two unlikely cup winners in recent years, as evidence of how things can rapidly fall apart, ask them would they trade their cup success for a Premier League position.
I suspect we know the answer to that question.
2 comments
Wow. Fantastic article. I really, really enjoyed that
A great article to read but not sure I share the sentiment. Reckon I would swap those 3 cup wins against premier sides right now for 9 points. That would have us sitting comfortably in 10th place with a good chance to push on and finish higher. We can always win the cup next year !!
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