CRYSTAL PALACE, at long last, made public their financial performance for 2018-19 and underlined a relatively conservative approach to keeping their house in order. Palace, who are in their record-breaking seventh consecutive season in the top flight, made a pre-tax profit of £ 5.4 million on the back of best-ever revenues totalling £ 155.4 million. […]
FOOTBALL is back in Europe, with the Bundesliga kicking off in empty stadiums and players acknowledging goals with a grin, a mannekin-like pose and not a hint of schadenfreude. Rout in the Ruhr The world’s biggest crowd-puller, Borussia Dortmund (average gate 80,000-plus), opened the restart in a near empty Signal Iduna Park. The absence of […]
AN experiment? An indulgence? Folly? Or merely the search for something new and rewarding? The purchase of a Fulham season ticket, before – I might add – knowing if the club was going to be in the Premier League or the Championship, was a bid to regain something from my lost youth. In the past […]
BOLD statements about a team’s potential are often made in the months leading up to World Cups. It is a time when normally grounded and stable individuals often make ridiculous claims about football teams. Remember the over-used term “golden generation”? It’s no longer fashionable or wise to use such words to describe a football team, […]
THE DAY before the Arsenal v 1. FC Köln Europa League match, I was offered two tickets for the game by a Gunners’ season ticket holder. I also looked on Viagogo, there were a few tickets for sale, almost certainly from Arsenal fans who didn’t fancy Thursday night football. In London, there had been a […]
I heard someone whistling Blaydon Races at London Kings Cross at 8.30am and I knew that either an impromptu Lindisfarne gig was taking place or that Newcastle United were in town. Later that day, in the early evening autumnal glow, the trains out of London Bridge fairly well resonated to the sound of the Tyne. […]
At the end of day, when you’re all done in, you can always rely on a Premier Inn. Isn’t that how the ad goes? Not for Crystal Palace. Manager Ian Holloway, at his exit interview of a press conference, was “all done in”, undoubtedly fearing “Premier Out” rather than in. But instead of retreating to […]
It wasn’t that long ago that Crystal Palace were on the brink of collapse, but thankfully, the club turned things around and returned to the Premier in the summer. It’s good to see, although their stay in the Premier may be fleeting. In most people’s minds, Palace are a yo-yo club and in a crowded […]
It started in the mid-1970s, the feud between the Eagles and the Seagulls. Crystal Palace and Brighton, two underachieving clubs who felt they needed to invent a rivalry that has become quite bitter at times. The meeting of the two clubs in the semi-final of the Championship play-offs evokes a time when they were both […]
