The 24th of April 2016 seems like it has been coming for an eternity.
While eager Palace fans with the requisite loyalty points have been surveying their view from their seats for the FA Cup semi-final with Watford, time seems to have slowed down.
The victory over Reading at the Madejski Stadium in March in the quarter-final seems a distant memory now, infinitely longer ago than the six weeks it was. As Palace face the undoubted high point of their season to date, it is hard not to be consumed by the memories from this season, past seasons and the prospect of the memories that can potentially be forged in the coming weeks.
For most, passion for a football club is rooted in nostalgia. From the first moment a significant result as a child becomes comprehensible, every victory, defeat, and outcome embed themselves on a supporter’s psyche through the ages. Twenty-one years since Palace’s last appearance in an FA Cup semi-final, the build up to the game has become embodied by a variety of memories.
TEB’s very own historian Neil Carter and his wonderful Palace In Perspective features probably best encapsulate and contextualise those memories better than most, alongside RednBlue Army’s remarkable Back In The Day project and Richard Foster’s forensic research in The Agony & The Ecstasy; A History of the Playoffs, of which Palace have had their fair share of both.
The anticipation for the game has been palpable in recent weeks, as evidenced in the scramble for tickets and the sharing of many stories on forums and social media. The significance of this competition in the hearts of Palace fans is certainly not lost on our own, nor is it lost on any casual supporter of other clubs observing from afar. From 1976 to the nearly men of 1990, to the two semi-finals against Manchester United in 1995, so tragically overshadowed by the needless and brutal murder of Paul Nixon. There is a resonant and emotional connection in the context of this football club’s history to where we find ourselves today.
Palace have long taken the good with the bad. For most supporters, those good moments were revered and celebrated, whilst taken with a pinch of salt that an equal but opposite bad moment lay just around the corner. Promotion was nearly always followed by relegation. Momentum and form one minute, catastrophic decline the next We saw this in the league in 1995, and similarly again in 1998. It comes with the territory. Supporting your club is easy. Everything going your way less so.
Being a supporter of Palace in recent seasons is no different. We wear the scars of the financial collapse of 2010 proudly, as a sign of what this football club overcame. We were never ashamed. We were never beaten. From the most important game in this club’s recent history in the stands of Hillsborough, to the streets of London weeks later to fight our corner. Palace have always found strength through adversity.
In 2012 when everyone and their dog tipped Palace as relegation certs in the Championship, a collection of players led by Julian Speroni, Damien Delaney, Mile Jedinak, Yannick Bolasie, Wilfried Zaha, Joel Ward, all hopefully lining up three and a half years later, carried us to glory at Wembley against today’s opponents. We silenced the critics, our hearts warmed by Delaney’s tearful outpouring of joy before collecting the trophy.
Perhaps it is sentimentality, but it is fitting that today’s opponents are Watford – a Watford side almost unrecognisable to that of three years ago. Their collection of expensive imports on and off the pitch squaring up against the same Palace nucleus that was their undoing three years ago. For as far as this football club has come in that time, we have maintained our identity. We can identify with the team that will line up, the same way we could in 2013. These players are writing memories of their own.
For us, this semi-final represents that. It is a reward for the miserable few months in the league we have endured, as the side flirts with unlikely relegation. And while many will point to the fact that this is just a semi-final and not a final, that is immaterial. This is hopefully the second last step for this generation of Palace players to etch their names perennially on the walls of Selhurst.
Explore the possibilities. Step one involves repeating the wonderful play-off final victory of 2013, at the same ground against the same team. Step two? Will we have the opportunity to right the wrongs of 1990 and 1995, by carrying out the longest winded revenge act of all time?
Here at TEB, we do not want to get too far ahead of ourselves. The focus is today. The focus is giving ourselves the opportunity to forge the greatest memory in our lifetimes as Palace fans by getting to the final and shaping our own.
On your way to Wembley today, as you regale in tales of old and share the fondest of Palace memories with your spouse, children, grandchildren, siblings, strangers on trains and everyone on social media, fly them loudly and proudly. It may just be a semi-final, but it is our semi-final. For those players, and in particular those who were there in 2010 and 2013, this year’s cup run is a memory in waiting.
TEB has everything crossed that today is the first step in ensuring that it will be our greatest memory.
