Crockham Hill June 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 21
ARTICLES FOR JUNE
Supporting Palace
Graham Addiscott
There is absolutely no rational explanation as to why we decide to support
a particular football club. My experience began in 1951 when I was ten. My
father took me to watch Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. It poured with rain,
was freezing cold, and for the
majority of the first half I
thought Palace was the other
side. We lost. And, to make
matters worse, I dropped and
broke my mother's only
Thermos Flask. On the bus
home from Norwood, my
father
asked
cautiously
"would you like to go again son?" I replied, "Can't wait.= And so it began.
Now, into my 73rd year of blind, faithful support, the return I get for this
dog-like
devotion
is,
basically,
almost
constant
despair.
Our triumphs over the years have
been few and far between. It has
been a hopelessly one-sided love
affair. After a particularly dreadful
run of results, friends suggested I
switch my support to a more
successful club. Well, readers, it just
doesn't work like that. Once I said
'"Can't wait", I was in. And that's it.
People who aren't committed to a club view this as pointless stupidity.
They may be right. But hope springs eternal. So, back to the future.
On 17th May we play Manchester City in the cup final. As we Palace
supporters have faced so many lows, this is as high as we have been,
probably for ever. As mentioned earlier, we are normally in a state of
despair. We are used to it. We can handle it. But now we have HOPE - an
emotion completely foreign to Palace supporters. The agony of it! What
will happen on 17th May? Who knows? But, as my ten-year-old self said,
73 years ago, on a bus leaving Norwood: "Can't Wait".
P.S. Crystal Palace won the FA Cup Final on 17 May 2025!!
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