Crystal Palace Football Club - Eagles

Crystal Palace History

2006-07 Season

12th in the Championship
League Cup: 1st round: Notts County h. 1-2
FA Cup: 4th round: Preston North End h. 0-2

Highlight:
3-2 win at West Bromwich Albion, 14/3/07

Low Spot:
4-2 defeat at Queens Park Rangers, 4/11/06

Good:
Leon Cort
Didn't entirely win over the Selhurst Park faithful but was basically sound at the back and his seven league goals did mean he was second leading scorer.
Jobi McAnuff
Not as consistent as he would have liked but is the most exciting and creative player at the club.

Bad:
Jamie Scowcroft
Peter Taylor obviously rates this guy but I think he's crap. Five goals was a predictable return.
Danny Granville
This fella seems to have been around for ever and floated in and out of the first team to little effect.

In Brief:
Peter Taylor was appointed manager by Simon Jordan with an ultimatum to deliver promotion but having won their first three games Palace endured a wretched spell and all realistic hopes of promotion were dashed long before christmas.
The second half of the season saw improved form but a spineless home defeat in the FA Cup to Preston meant that there was little to really dispel the frustration of the fans.
Most of Taylor's signings struggled to make any real impression and there was little in the style of play to inspire enthusiasm.
Anything other than a strong start to next season would surely see the end of Taylor's tenure.

Crystal Palace FC - Club History

Crystal Palace Football Club was formed in 1905 although a club called Crystal Palace had been in existence over 40 years previously.

The present club was established after a club formed by the owners of the Crystal Palace was rejected by the FA who did not want the then hosts of the FA Cup final running their own team.

Rather than running off to Milton Keynes and calling themselves MK Palace a separate company was set up and Crystal Palace FC was born, playing at the old cup final venue for the first ten years of their existence.

The club became original members of Division Three in 1920 and immediately won promotion to Division Two as champions.

Despite this encouraging beginning the Eagles took a long time to make any serious impression on the Football League.

In 1961 Palace won the fourth division championship before maintaining steady progress to win promotion to the first division for the first time in 1969.

Despite generous spending the club were relegated from the top flight in 1973 and again the following year into Division Three.

Under the flambouyant leadership of Malcolm Allison and then Terry Venables the Eagles rallied and returned to the first division in 1979.

With a new decade approaching Palace were hailed in some quarters as the team of the 80's, although looking back at their squad it is hard to understand why, Kenny Sansom and perhaps Vince Hilaire not withstanding.

Instead the club were relegated in 1981 and did not return to the top flight until 1989 when they were promoted via the play offs, inspired by the dynamic strike force of Ian Wright and Mark Bright.

Since that time Palace have remained predominantly in the top flight without having been able to establish themselves as a permanent member and are currently once again seeking a swift rise out of the second tier of English football.

The club have reached the semi finals of the League Cup on three occassions; 1993, 1995 and 2001.

FA Cup exploits have been few and far between.

Palace reached the 5th round in 1926 but might have wished they hadn't after losing 11-4 at Manchester City.

In 1965 they went one better and made the quarter finals before losing at home to Leeds United.

In 1976, as a third division club, Palace won away from home at Leeds, Chelsea and Sunderland to reach the semi finals only to succumb to Southampton.

Palace eventually made it to the final of the competition in 1990.

Taking advantage of an extremely favourable draw they progressed to the semi finals to meet Liverpool at Villa Park.

Massive underdogs, they had already lost at Anfield 9-0 that season, Palace produced a rip roaring performance to win 4-3 after extra time in one of the competitions' greatest matches.

A similar display in the final against Manchester United almost gave them the trophy.

An Ian Wright goal put the Eagles 3-2 in front in extra time only for Mark Hughes to grab an equaliser before United won the replay 1-0.

There was slight consolation the following year when Palace won the Zenith Data Systems Cup.

One club record that needs explaining to me is the highest transfer fee paid out on a player; £2,750,000 for Valerien Ismael from RC Strasbourg in January 1998.

Who and what was he? I'll believe any answers other than "good value for money."

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