On Sunday, our friends over at Holmesdale Radio spoke to actor, writer and producer Jim Piddock. He talked about his career, setting up the Crystal Palace Supporters’ Trust, Simon Jordan and how losing the 16th game of our 15 game unbeaten run was ALL his fault.
What was your first Palace game? “It was Charlton away in The FA Cup 1968, nil-nil in the third round. The only game I ever went to with my father, who hated crowds. It was a big sacrifice for him to take me. My second game was home to Middlesbrough, nil-nil also and then my third game I believe we won 3-1 against Portsmouth and that season we went up. In fact I went to the 3-2 game in which we beat Fulham to get promotion, fantastic day! We were 2-0 down at half time and came back to win 3-2. I took some Polaroids that day and bizarrely I saw those two Polaroids on twitter today.”
Polaroid Jim took during the 3-2 win at Fulham.
Who was your favorite player growing up? “Steve Kember, John Jackson were the two big stars really I suppose. But you know, it’s like all Palace fans, you like everybody. You always have a soft spot for the underdog player too. I’ve always loved the Rudi Hedman’s and the Wayne Andrews and those players that come in, as long as they give one hundred percent you always routing for them. Paul Hinshelwood was an absolutely rubbish forward and, Doris as he was called, was moved to right back because they didn’t know what to do with him and he became one of the best right backs in England.”
Steve Kember
When you moved to the US, how easy was it to leave Palace behind? “It was really tough! Family and Palace, it was hard. I was twenty four, I wanted to see the world a bit and I had a career I wanted to get going. So you kind of make certain sacrifices. I talked to Eddie Izzard about this on many occasions and he said he sort of had to back off supporting Palace for a while because he was getting so emotionally distressed by it and his career wasn’t going so well and it was to overwhelming so he stepped away. I didn’t do that, I had the short wave radio and followed it but it was hard but I always listened to games and I always followed the results and now it’s fantastic because the Premier League and NBC coverage, I get to see every Palace game live wherever I am in the states. You don’t have to stand in the rain and come back from Grimsby depressed as sh*t on the train. The romance is still there and when I come back I see three or four games in a row and it’s like ‘oh this is great’. But then you get to escape back to the sun!”
In 1999 you began the Supporters Trust, how did the come about? “It was about the time I was doing a show, it was ‘Too Much Sun’ for the BBC and it was the longest time I had spent in England since I left so I was there for about two months. On the BBS I got to know a couple of people, one of them was Richard who was the head of a legal department at Mitsubishi. He and I started talking saying ‘what the hell can we do?’. I got a call from a guy called John Finns saying Paul Newman at The Independent was also talking about trying to do something. We all met up and we formed the trust! It became a model for all supporters’ trusts in England. It was built on the structure of working mens clubs and it was a very clever structure to avoid tax issues and you could get donations and membership. It was a very smart thing that Richard figured out. We did end up contributing some what to the takeover of Simon Jordan. In fact we facilitated the introduction and of course Simon Jordan then stabbed us in the back and went back on all his promises to include us in stuff. But the big issues was solved. The club was saved!”
What is the future for the trust? “Well I’ve not been involved for many many years. What my feeling was is that when the club was saved then it should go into sleep mode and should be there. It should be waiting in the wings just in case it’s needed again. Of course, there was another ten years later that it was needed again. Although in that instance we were very lucky to have four wealthy fans step forward and do the job that the trust would of loved to have done ten years before. Hopefully it’ll never be needed again”
Do you know the Steves (Browett and Parish), Jeremy and Martin? “I do, Steve Browett I know pretty well and that came about because we exchanged some messages via BBS and he expressed an immense gratitude to what I had done and what the trust had done and that if I was over they’d love for me to come and have lunch with them in the board room and I thought that was incredibly generous. I took them up on their offer and I was a regular guest there. We had lost our first 4 games of the season and the first game I was there with them, we won two one against Sheffield Wednesday and they said you’ll have to come to the next game as you’re obviously a lucky charm. We then went on a fifteen game unbeaten run in the time that I was in England. It got to the point that all the owners were literally saying ‘you are going the be there, right?’. The day I left we were away to Leeds and they said if we lose the Leeds game it will prove positive that it was you this whole time. Of course, we lost to Leeds and when I got off the plane and saw the result I had messages from both the Steves saying ‘Get back on that f*cking plane!’
You can listen to the interview in full toward the end of the last Holmesdale Radio podcast.
