Palace’s Juggling Act Continues

All football supporters have this fantasy. Our club is out performing expectations – whatever they are – there is a conveyor belt of new talent coming into the club and there is plenty of money available to do whatever is needed. Sadly, no club ever lives up to that standard otherwise it would not be a fantasy, would it?

This season even the supporters of clubs like Arsenal and Newcastle will not be relaxed and happy despite the unexpectedly outstanding seasons they are having. I can guarantee both sets of supporters go into every match thinking is this the match where the wheels come off and the dream comes to an end? Of course, for both of these clubs the wheels coming off is still likely to mean some form of European cup football next season but expectations will have been raised.

So for all the angst Palace supporters have had over the past months, in particular since the loss to Forest prior to the World Cup break, we are not alone. I am writing this on transfer deadline day and Palace are doing their last minute brinkmanship with hopefully two players coming in but it could be more or less or none. What I am confident of is that whatever the number turns out to be it will not be enough for most Palace supporters. There will always be another player to be brought in which we didn’t.

If the transfer business is not complying with the football supporter fantasy then we turn to the infrastructure question where the redevelopment of Selhurst Park, in particular the main stand has been dragging on for years. Selhurst Park is that classic football stereotypical dream ground – it’s a dump (insert ruder description) but it’s our dump and we love it. It has that old school intimidating atmosphere (and inconvenient location) which visiting clubs hate.

The redevelopment looks ideal in theory – keep the old school atmosphere but smarten up the place and most importantly expand capacity and the corporate hospitality spaces. Clearly there are risks here in terms of the money to be spent on the redevelopment against the risk of not spending on the squad to keep our Premier League status. Outside the Premier League a shiny new(ish) Selhurst Park does not look like such a great idea. So another fantasy dashed – unlimited funds on infrastructure bringing an instantaneous change. Hopefully the stadium redevelopment will happen as Steve Parish generally delivers on his promises, eventually. The new Academy is certainly testament to that.

Another part of the football supporters’ fantasy is the benevolent owner who has unlimited funds and is willing to spend every last penny on the club (subject to compliance with the applicable financial fair play and sustainability rules of course).

Steve Parish definitely ticks the benevolent owner box being a dyed in the wool Palace supporter but sadly his pennies do not go far in world of US hedge fund billionaires and oil state investment vehicles. Ironically we do have the hedge fund billionaire owners in Josh Harris and David Blitzer but when it comes to Palace they seem to have mislaid their wallets. As a result Parish has had to negotiate a careful path between what he wants to do and what he can do with relatively small personal funding and three American co-owners who seem to have wildly differing views on how to run a football club.

The aforementioned Harris and Blitzer are relentlessly focused on the financial side of things which is not surprising given their background and seem to be more interested in buying into an existing mega club than investing heavily in Palace. In contrast John Textor seems to be happy to spend as much money as possible on as many football clubs as possible, including Palace. The worry here is that he seems to be dependent on other investors for that funding and if that funding dries up where does that leave Textor and Palace?

The reality is that, like every other football club supporter, we are left in a position where whatever is done by the club it will never be enough to satisfy the universal football supporter fantasy. Parish, together with his various co-owners, has managed to get Palace promoted in the Premier League and keep it there for ten seasons. That is something that no owner of Palace has been able to do in the over one hundred years of the club’s existence.

During this time we have also redeveloped our Academy into the Category 1 standard which puts us on the same level as Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs. All of this has been done without getting the club into massive debt and the club is making significant strides in creating a model of youth recruitment and player trading which will help to ensure financial sustainability going forward.

The frustration of football supporters is universal and no one is immune from indulging from the fantasy of the perfect club. Whilst it would be to totally unrealistic to expect Palace supporters to be any different we do have to recognise that Parish is juggling a lot of different balls at any one time and so far he has not dropped many.

The progress at Palace is slower than we would all like and Premier League success remains more precarious than we (and I suspect Parish) would like but under Parish we have fulfilled more of our football fantasies than any Palace supporter would have thought possible in 2010 and that is not something that should be forgotten.