We're On the Inside

How many times in your life can you claim, hand on heart, I was there? I said this in consolation to my ten year old when we gathered at Selhurst Park stadium on Monday 1st June to show our support for what was left of CPFC. At first there was only thirty of us, nervous, self-conscious, with Hy taking photos and bemused Sainsburys shoppers looking on. We all wondered just how lost we were going to feel in twenty-four hours when our inevitable dissolution came but for now, as the numbers grew and the sliproad filled and the supermarket guys came out in their fetching brown and orange crimpoline scratching their heads and rearranging the cones, there was chanting and anxious laughter. None of us dared contemplate the anger that would surely follow. And just at the point where I turned and said this hand on heart thing to Fred, just as the anticipation wafted above our heads with the cigarette smoke and spirits were suspended in searching anticipation, there was a braying from Whitehorse Lane.

 

Someone pointed, look! And round the corner they came, city peasants, a hundred strong it seemed, brandishing red flares, exuberant and defiant, clutching the iconic banner, perfectly spelled and everything: Jordan, Agilo, PWC, Lloyds 105 Years of History Won’t Go Down Without a Fight. And the crowd went mad. Over the moon, lads, pleased as punch. Now, there was a thousand of us!

 

I was so pleased I’d brought my Fred. I have been a Palace fan all my life but he has seen more games in his short life than I have in my stumpier one (my first footy match wasn’t even Palace – Chelsea vs Sheffield with my uncle Ernie who came from Battersea, a rare local fan). The bookseller and I saw the mighty teams in the 80s and 90s, the Wright-Bright axis, the days of the man-god Salako, the adorable baby Southgate. Went to Wembley for the Zenith-Data. My sister-in-law nearly fainted on the Holmesdale terrace in the early days of her pregnancy in the 90s. Had to have a Penguin biccie from the St John’s. I know. I was there.

 

For my boy, his whole identity is tied up in red and blue. There, in the carpark, his heart was singing its head off. His mates, mainly South London born, wear the ubiquitous top four shirts and little boys can be 'orrible. The gloating he would have to live with, the loss of his coaching, no Sats at the match with his dad - the implications were unbearable. He said: "Imagine mum, what it is like not to have this." And I think he meant real pride, trained by the club, pained by the club, thrilled by the club. How can you follow a side two hundred miles away and feel this? Afterall, he knows nothing of sparkling stadia and bought glory. Red brick and meat pies are where his game – the real one - is played.

 

Goes without saying that I dreaded the next day. The fug of worry that descended upon me in a veil of rain in the traffic at Camberwell, about where we live, what we do, exams, bills, a lack of worthiness (on a 176 bus, not an aid flotilla) was nothing in the face of the destruction that would be left in the wake of liquidation. For Fred, the chasm in his landscape would be bigger than a sinkhole in Guatemala. Might as well be in bloody Guatemala.

 

Then the twitter feeds began trickling. Four thousand eagles in the city outside – spit – Lloyds HQ. The vicar of the church next door said all were welcome because he is a life-long Palace fan. Those outside, on the outside, had no idea how close to death we were. This was agony. Then it was over. So glad it is all over.

 

3rd June

 

After I wrote this, was chatting with Dan about it all and told him I only did the girl stuff, the romantic, emotional guff and that Jon was a better bet for the technical detail on the lease on the ground and who owed what, the anoracky boy stuff. Then, I saw one of Fred's coaches and he said that on that protest day, some of the fans had caused criminal damage in the ground. Made me feel a plank for being so soppy. Thanks boys for living up to the stereotype. I won't, however, tell Fred what you shitebags did.

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