Crystal Palace F.C. - History

History

For more details on this topic, see History of Crystal Palace F.C..

Crystal Palace Football Club was formed on 10 September 1905 by the builders of the The Crystal Palace under the guidance of Aston Villa assistant secretary Edmund Goodman and initially played its home games at the cup final ground at The Crystal Palace. The club joined the Southern League Second Division in 1905–06 and in its inaugural season was promoted to the First Division, crowned as champions. Crystal Palace also joined the United Counties League, finishing runner-up to Watford. Horace Colclough became the club's first England representative when he played against Wales in Cardiff on 16 March 1914.

The outbreak of World War I led to the Admiralty requisitioning the Crystal Palace and the club was forced to move to the home of West Norwood F.C., Herne Hill. Three years later the club moved again to The Nest due to the folding of Croydon Common F.C.. The club joined the Football League Third Division in the 1920–21 season, finishing as champions and gaining promotion to the Second Division. Palace moved to the purpose-built stadium Selhurst Park in 1924, the ground the club plays at today.

The opening fixture at Selhurst Park was against Sheffield Wednesday and, in front of a crowd of 25 000, Palace lost 0–1. Palace finished 21st that season and was relegated to the Third Division South where the club stayed until 1957–58 when it finished in the bottom half of the table and joined the newly formed Fourth Division. This was alongside the other 11 bottom half clubs of Third Division South and 12 bottom half clubs of Third Division North. In 1960–61 Palace were promoted out of the lowest tier of English League Football and this proved a turning point in the club's history as promotions followed in 1963–64 and 1968–69, taking it back to Division 2 and then Division 1.

Despite surviving in the top flight from 1969 until 1972, the club once again experienced great disappointments when it was relegated in consecutive seasons, and played in the third tier for the 1974–75 season. This proved short-lived as Palace were promoted in 1976–77 and 1978–79 back up to Division 1. The 1980s began with relegation from Division 1 in the first season under new owner Ron Noades and this is where the club stayed until it achieved promotion via the play-offs in 1988–89. The club also reached the 1990 FA Cup Final, drawing 3–3 with Manchester United. It lost the replay 1–0. The club built on the success of the previous season in 1990–91 by achieving its highest league finish of 3rd and returning to Wembley to win the Zenith Data Systems Cup, beating Everton 4–1 in the final, its only cup win to date. The following season started promisingly with Palace lying in third place with two games in hand on the clubs above it. However, following a programme on Channel Four called "Great Britain United", the then Chairman Ron Noades made disparaging comments about the work ethic of the club's black players, although he denied this and insisted that his comments had been taken out of context. The fall-out soon saw Ian Wright, the club's talismanic striker, leaving to join Arsenal and the season fizzled out into an anti-climax with Palace finishing 10th. However this allowed the club to become a founding member of the first season of the FA Premier League in 1992–93.

The damage from the previous season had been done there were few replacements coming into the squad and Palace went from being a mid-table team to one battling against relegation. Despite an opening day six-goal thriller against Blackburn Rovers which ended in a 3–3 draw, the players who had served the club so well wanted to move on, among them 1989–90 club player of the year Mark Bright. The club battled through the season and, despite having a purple patch in December, looked to have done enough as a 3–1 victory over Ipswich Town left Palace comfortably on 49 points. The only club that could catch them was Oldham Athletic, which had three games remaining and was 8 points adrift. Oldham then beat Liverpool and Aston Villa to set up a final day showdown with Southampton while Palace went to Highbury Stadium to face Arsenal. Former player Ian Wright scored the opening goal in a 3–0 win while Oldham beat Southampton to condemn The Eagles to relegation. The club immediately returned to the FA Premier League in the following season after the resignation of manager Steve Coppell. Alan Smith, Coppell's assistant at the club, took over but he was unable to keep the club up and it was relegated once again (Smith immediately departed the club at this time). Coppell returned as technical director in the summer of 1995, and through a combination of the first-team coaching of Ray Lewington and latterly Dave Bassett's managership Palace reached the play-offs. Although ultimately unsuccessful against Leicester City in the final, Coppell (now first-team manager following Bassett's departure to Nottingham Forest in early 1997) was successful in taking the club back to the FA Premier League at the second time of asking when the club defeated Sheffield United in the same end-of-season showdown at Wembley.

However, in true yo-yo club fashion the club was relegated back to the First Division for the 1998–99 season. This began worrying times for the club as it was plunged into administration when owner Mark Goldberg was unable to sustain his financial backing of the club.

The next owner was entrepreneur Simon Jordan, who had made his money as an owner of Pocket Phone Shop. The club spent much of its time in the Championship over the next 10 years with a brief spell in the Premier League during 2004/05, but the club went straight back down on the last day of the season after drawing at local rivals Charlton Athletic. Jordan was unable to put the club on a sound financial footing after 2008, and the club was subject to transfer embargoes. Palace was placed in administration once again in January 2010, owing "approximately £30m". The Football League's regulations saw the Eagles deducted ten points, and they were forced to sell key players including Victor Moses and José Fonte. Survival in The Championship was only secured on the final day of the season after a memorable 2–2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday, who were themselves relegated as a result.

During the close season CPFC 2010, a consortium consisting of several wealthy fans successfully negotiated the purchase of the club stadium. Led by Steve Parish, the vocal representative for a consortium that included Jeremy Hosking, CPFC 2010 eventually secured a deal for the football club itself, with Parish becoming chairman. Crucially, CPFC 2010 also secured the freehold of the ground, the consortium paying tribute to a fans' campaign which helped pressure Lloyds bank into selling the ground back to the club. The consortium swiftly installed George Burley as the Eagles' new manager. However a poor start to the season led to the club hovering around the bottom of the table by December. On 1 January 2011, after a 3–0 defeat to Millwall, Burley was sacked and his assistant Dougie Freedman named caretaker manager. Freedman was appointed manager on a full-time basis on 11 January 2011, with former Charlton boss Lennie Lawrence as his assistant. Soon after, on 10 February, it was announced that former Palace legend Tony Popovic was returning to the club as first team coach. This represented a major re-shuffle to help to push Palace away from the drop. Palace edged up the table and by securing a 1–1 draw at Hull City on 30 April, the club was safe from relegation with one game of the season left. In November 2012 Ian Holloway became the club's manager.