For those Palace fans old and new – think for a second of the sense of happiness that overcomes you when we score…. for that moment in time you forget everything else that has happened at our club; the administration, the relegations, the misery of bad managers. For those few seconds or minutes, you remember why you fell in love with this great club that is Crystal Palace Football Club.
This weird and wonderful relationship we all share with Palace can leave us fans in this blissful ecstasy one moment, but yet ensure we are plummeting to the depths of dysfunction the next. The Palace matches are usually characterised by a pattern of extreme emotions -either high or low, with very little to no middle ground leaving us exhausted and wondering why we put ourselves through this turmoil week after week. This may sound beyond traumatic for some to imagine, but any good relationship councillor will tell you that the best and most rewarding relationships are the ones that rollercoaster through emotion and still come out the other side as passionate as ever. This will explain why we as Crystal Palace Fans are renowned as the best and most loyal fans in the Premier League – only we can understand. This turbulent journey of desire has finally paid off and has pushed the club and team to new heights – breaking the past tradition of yo-yoing straight back down to the Championship.
With a second consecutive season in the Premier League and swaying towards a third – could this be the longest journey on cloud nine for the Palace fans since over a decade ago. It has been a rocky love affair since the day Holloway led us back to where we belong, the amazement of finishing mid table last season and then Pulis abandoning us…and then Warnock (enough said) rocked the fans nerves and confidence. However under the reign of Alan Pardew, the Eagles are now finally finding their feet and earning the respect that we deserve of the bigger clubs and football pundits. The most thrilling part is that with the potential we currently have, we surely can only grow bigger, better and stronger. Can you imagine what that feeling will be like when the likes of Bolasie, Chamakh, Zaha and Gayle finally gel at exactly the same time on the same pitch…WOW!
There are so many memorable moments we all hold as fans of this great football club. You can often find us sulking out of the terraces cursing at performances on the pitch alongside the broken-heartedness at yet another unfair loss – checking our twitter feed, hoping that the rest of the league games have gone in our favour. Then just a week later you see us skipping down Whitehorse Lane not believing that we have just witnessed, a win against Liverpool or Chelsea. Yes it would be nice for some more consistency in this relationship, but when things are good, there’s nothing greater than a win and feeling the exhilaration of victory, proving every doubter wrong in the process.
As faithful Crystal Palace fans we are all very aware of the ups and downs of a football club, but isn’t that what gives us all that additional buzz, excitement and passion that helps us get through a working week – waiting for the next date/match? We could only imagine that it would be rather boring to win every game, finish in the top 3 every season, be viewed first on MOTD, and never have to face a relegation battle or attend a Wembley play-off final. Of course we would all love to witness Palace in Europe in our lifetime – but other than that would you really want to change much else?
