- We don’t have to lose to Arsenal every week next season
- We get to play Charlton
- We run no risk of upsetting Derby County’s record of the lowest points tally and earliest relegation from the Premiership since its inception
- I don’t have to try and find a pub to watch the final in when I’m on away at the seaside for the bank holiday weekend
- The first one again
Archive for the ‘Football’ Category
Silver linings
May 14, 2008Bristol City, part two
May 13, 2008I realise I was confused when I wrote about conceding goals “at home” before the last game, because as far as I know there’s no away goals rule in the play-offs, which means a 1-0 win tonight would be enough to take us into extra time and penalties. I was caught out by this the last time we were promoted, when it ended up 3-3 over two legs between Palace and Sunderland but they had scored more away goals and I thought it was all over. I think I was even about to leave the pub when I realised that the players weren’t leaving the pitch.
But I’d still rather win 2-0, please. I can’t bear penalties, even during regular play, and a shoot-out is enough to send me outside, cowering with the smokers.
Oh well. At least Man Utd won the Premiership. I don’t love them, but I love them more than I love Chelsea (or Arsenal).
1-2
May 12, 2008Well, I got the scoreline right, just the wrong way around. But we’ve got time to bring it back to a win tomorrow night – and, as my brother pointed out, if we don’t make it we’ll be able to stay in the Championship and win games, rather than having to play in the Premiership and lose 9-0 to Liverpool every week.
(We were rubbish, though.)
Bristol City
May 9, 2008I’ve got a good feeling about tomorrow’s game. They’ve had a better season than we have, but we’re in flying form. Still, it’s tough to play at home first because you know that if you let a goal in you’ve given yourselves twice as much work to do.
Fingers crossed. I think we’ll win 2-1.
5-0
May 6, 2008Boris’s victory, maddening and saddening though it is, failed to mar an otherwise wildly successful weekend. I’ve never been to a Palace game where we won by anything like as huge a margin. Burnley had nothing to play for, but the other side’s indifference hasn’t stopped us failing to set the game on fire in the past, and the team played really smart and well-put-together football. Particularly pleasing was the fact that every goal was scored by someone different. Full match write-up here.
Even more pleasing was our 5th-place finish, which sees us meet Bristol City in the playoffs. We managed to get tickets for the home leg, which takes place this Saturday. Two games in a week! I am a genuine bona-fide fairweather fan. Good.
It was weird, though: I can’t remember having been to a game where we’ve led by more than one goal in the final minutes. Even when we’re winning I’m used to spending that last quarter of an hour in a state of arm-chewing tension, but you can’t even make a pretence of that when you’re five goals ahead. I felt strangely cheated.
In other news, Ronnie won the snooker and tfl.gov.uk won the People’s Choice for Government website award in the webbys. And it was a three-day weekend. I know I should be more upset about Ken – and I am, really I am – but I can’t seem to shift this good mood. It’s probably not worth fighting it, is it?
Man U v Chelsea, Palace v Burnley
May 1, 2008Last night’s game was lots of fun, despite it not ending with the result I was hoping for. The upside of Chelsea winning is that I can support Man U in the final: if Liverpool had got through I’d have been supporting them and heading for almost certain heartbreak. It’s also kind of cool that the two teams who are (realistically) fighting for the Premiership will now also meet in the Champions’ League final. I haven’t been so interested in the English Premiership in years. Well, since 15 May 2005.
Anyway, none of that is nearly as exciting as the culmination of the Championship campaign this weekend. Palace are still in sixth, and can be overtaken by any or all of Wolves, Ipswich Town or Sheffield Utd if we fail to beat Burnley at home on Sunday. Startlingly, tickets for this game have nearly sold out (according to the club’s website, at least), so me and my fellow fairweather matchgoers may have to take the unlikely step of booking in advance.
I’m also going to have to take a radio for listening to the other results, and a piece of paper and a pencil for working out what they all mean. Wish me luck.
Selhurst Park
April 22, 2008Good news: apparently Simon Jordan has secured the lease on Selhurst Park for another 25 years.
Bad news: he still wants to move the club elsewhere, according to this article from the BBC:
“I’d like to see Palace move away from Selhurst Park, I’d like to stay in the Borough and I’d like us to move to a stadium which is more befitting of the ambitions we have for the club.”
In which “Borough”, I wonder? I guess he means Croydon, since that’s where they are now. I’d like to see them move back to Crystal Palace proper, although there’s not an obvious spot, unless they pull down the athletics stadium and start again.
I’d also like to see fewer random capitalisations, beginning with that “B”.
Reasons to be cheerful: numbers 5 and 6
April 17, 2008I’ve a treat lined up after work today: I’m going to see my genius hairdresser (I’m still not linking to her). I wasn’t sure how long it was since I’d last been, but I see I last posted about her on February 22, almost exactly eight weeks ago. Having short hair is very labour-intensive – when it was long I would have a haircut about once a year, and I’d usually do it myself.
The odd thing is that as soon as I make an appointment to have it cut because it looks raggedy and awful, it starts to look fine, and I have second thoughts. Logically, I think this means I should make a hairdresser’s appointment every day, but never go, thus guaranteeing a lifetime of good hair days.
And the second rtbc is that as I was travelling back from lunch in the lift, two men had a conversation about Palace’s promotion prospects, and they agreed that they were good. I’m not sure I agree, but it was good to hear nonetheless, and all the more welcome for being unexpected. People, generally, are not nice about CPFC.
I can’t explain it
April 15, 2008I don’t know how it happened: it crept up on me while I was looking in the other direction. Believe me, I don’t feel good about it. But there’s no denying it so I may as well come straight out and say it: I want Man Utd to win the Premier league title.
An oasis of hope in this sea of bewilderment is offered by the fact that I still want Liverpool to win the Champions’ League – roundly beating Chelsea on the way, as is becoming traditional.
Eaaaagles!
April 8, 2008Stoke 1 – 2 Palace
We weren’t at home after all, so I watched it at the Half Moon, which I have long thought was a scrubby dive of a place, but which is actually fine for watching football in, and does really good pizzas, and has a Monday night “2 pizzas and a bottle of wine for £20″ deal. I shall return.
Anyway, it was a really good game, with some actual playmaking by both sides. There was a 20-minute period early in the second half where they hammered us relentlessly and it looked like they were going to score, but the luck didn’t run their way and they didn’t manage it until the 85th minute, by which time it was too late for them to claw anything else back. I don’t know who Sky’s Man of the Match was, but mine was our keeper Julián Speroni, who rescued us on various occasions when nobody else managed to get to the ball. I’ve just googled him to check how to spell his name, and it turns out he’s Argentinian. I always thought he was Yugoslavian, even though none of his name sounds Yugoslavian, and I’m not even sure there’s still a country called Yugoslavia. Then I wondered if I was confusing him with Gábor Király, but he’s Hungarian, so now I have no idea what I was thinking.
But we’re back in the playoff spots, and it looks like we’ll have another nail-biting end to the season, one way or another. Hurray!
