Crystal Palace - a tale of London suburban life...

[Simster]

As someone that was lucky enough to have been born and bred a Brighton fan because of family roots, I feel sorry for the Arsenal fan. He doesn't get that you are born a fan of a club, like you are born into a country. I wonder if he supports Brazil or Spain in the World Cup over England? Even if it is palace, his attitude just doesn't add up to me.

This. The author sounds like a total bellend if you ask me.

 

[Lush]

A lot of kids would have hated the Withdean experience. Hopefully our kids had a bit more about them, and are now reaping the rewards.

You know what, there's a lot of stuff talked about jcl's and Withdean die-hards, but those kids who sat bundled up in jumpers and waterproofs in the Family Stand at Withdean, week after week, miles from the pitch, in the freezing cold wind and rain, watching often dire football, with barely an Albion goal to cheer their little souls- well each one of them deserves a bleddy medal.

 

[Simster]

Why does everything have to end in a pathetic binfest? Yes the bloke's a complete turnip and a plastic for supporting Arsenal, and one can have no respect for him at all in that regard; on the other hand, as BHA fans we must embrace his scaything demolition of our rivals up the road.

That piece comes across as written by a plastic who is thrashing about looking for an excuse as to why he didn't support his local club, and it's not very convincing. Instead he comes across as a total tosser.

I'll chuckle as much as the next bloke at a blog written on a generic football site about why Crystal Palace are a turd football club, but not on one entitled "The Arsenal Collective" written entirely to appeal to fellow glory hunters following a club nowhere near his roots. What an absolute f***ing cock he sounds.

 

[andy1980]

So people like Norman Cook, ain't really good enough to be Brighton fans, as he was a Palace fan when he was younger (I might be wrong, I think I read it on here). He has shown beyond ANY doubt he is a Brighton fan.

 

[Simster]

So people like Norman Cook, ain't really good enough to be Brighton fans, as he was a Palace fan when he was younger (I might be wrong, I think I read it on here). He has shown beyond ANY doubt he is a Brighton fan.

The difference is that by choosing Albion, he really wasn't glory hunting. And if we happened to be four times bigger than Palace like Arsenal, I'd like to think he wouldn't write a blog on NSC detailing why he chose Albion instead of Palace for ridiculous spurious reasons.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

You know what, there's a lot of stuff talked about jcl's and Withdean die-hards, but those kids who sat bundled up in jumpers and waterproofs in the Family Stand at Withdean, week after week, miles from the pitch, in the freezing cold wind and rain, watching often dire football, with barely an Albion goal to cheer their little souls- well each one of them deserves a bleddy medal.

Indeed.

 

[andy1980]

The difference is that by choosing Albion, he really wasn't glory hunting. And if we happened to be four times bigger than Palace like Arsenal, I'd like to think he wouldn't write a blog on NSC detailing why he chose Albion instead of Palace for ridiculous spurious reasons.

I agree he seems like an idiot, with the way he has written that blog, but not every Arsenal, Man Utd etc fans are glory hunters.

 

[Simster]

I agree he seems like an idiot, with the way he has written that blog, but not every Arsenal, Man Utd etc fans are glory hunters.

Indeed not, but he obviously is.

 

[yoda559]

I neither live nor was born in brighton, but I support the Albion because my dad does; they are my inherited club. Does that make me not a true fan?

I wouldn't say that it dosen't make you a true fan. My kids only connection with Brighton just comes from me, as they have never lived in Sussex.
I just hope that they follow the Albion along with me, but if they do chose to follow a local team to where we live in Newmarket, I dont feel I could discourage it as that.
Having said that, I'm hoping to take my oldest (who is 5 next month) to his first game at the Amex (Derby on 20 March).....just waiting for the ticket office to come back online!

 

[SK1NT]

The Arsenal Collective - A Home for Memories of The Arsenal - The Memory Bank - Crystal Palace? f*** offmate

BY STEVEN ANSELL

I was prompted to write this little piece of reminiscence by a comment posted on the Guardian report of the fantastic 5-2 bumming we gave the Muppets over the weekend. This inbred half-wit was a Sp*rs fan who had the audacity to suggest that a fellow poster was in fact ineligible to support Arsenal because she lived in Penge, south-east London, and therefore, by reason of geography, should support Crystal Palace. This assumption is erroneous in the extreme, and I’m here to tell you why.

I too was brought up in Penge, south-east London, and Selhurst Park is indeed just down the road in West Norwood. And I’m sorry to say that this unfortunate accident of topography eventually became the reason for some of my earliest and most traumatic memories.

I had (and still have) a lumbering oaf of an uncle who insisted that I would enjoy being dragged to every Crystal Palace home game. I was five. I was defenceless and could offer no resistance. My mother was all for it, and the betrayal I felt then is possibly still festering away in some dark Oedipal part of my psyche. And so it began. It soon became apparent that my initial instinctive aversion was f***ing spot on.

Selhurst Park and its environs seemed to hang with a perpetual gloom, and there was an all-pervading stench of pies, dogshit and stale beer. Then you went inside the horrible place and the negativity and bile bore down on me like weight. My uncle and his idiotic cohorts would shout and moan at their own players and bemoan the fact that they would probably lose again today. I wanted go home. And this tortuous bi-weekly outing continued and I could see no way out. What was I to do? When would the misery end?

Eventually, one Saturday morning, I found the courage to refuse point-blank to budge. The moronic uncle simply could not process this information – “what, you don’t want to go and watch the Palace?” No I f***ing didn’t.

A short time passed, and just as nature abhors a vacuum, I was soon watching football again. My dad had a friend, a slightly intimidating gruff Scotsman, who had always called me a “Jesse” (for reasons that remain unclear). Anyway, he suggested that I go with him to watch “The Arsenal”. I didn’t really know what this meant but my heart leapt. I liked the sound of it. The Arsenal!

I would be going to Highbury for the next home game and I couldn’t wait. The day finally dawned and we went on the bus (that’s right, the bus) from Penge to Islington. To my young mind the whole thing seemed like some sort of Great Expedition, a profound and mystical journey, over the Great River, into North London, to see The Arsenal.

We were soon strolling up to the magnificent ground itself, and the sun was shining, people were smiling and laughing, it didn’t stink, red and white glistened and glimmered everywhere in the sunlight and there wasn’t a ridiculous two-tone diagonal stripe in sight; cherubim and seraphim sang from the treetops and the music of heaven rang down upon the earth. And then I finally went into a proper ground. My initial enduring memory is that the pitch was incredibly flat and green. Green! The grass was so f***ing green! Not a pot-holed, brown pile of agricultural shit – flat and green. A surface to play football on, not a quagmire for retards to charge about on, like idiots. And that was that, I was a Gooner.

A few years later in 1988 (I was then fourteen) my Scottish friend was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors said he didn’t have long left. He struggled on into the next year and by the end of that season a few family members and friends were huddled into his room in the hospice watching the telly as Micky Thomas charged through and won us the title at Anfield.

His skinny little arms shot up into the air and a beaming smile spread across his face for the first time in god knows how long, and he died a couple of days later. Cheers my friend, cheers for taking me to see The Arsenal all those years ago.

Great post.... I lived in South Norwood for a year or so and what a shit hole it is... jesus...

I agree that where you live does not always mean you should support you're local team.. I should be a Chelsea, Wimbedon or Fulham fan....

What i do have issues with is Southerners that support northern teams... I have a friend who's a manure fan.. he has been there once however has a strong london accent and it's almost embarrassing the shock on another mancs face when they hear his accent....

So many man u and lpool fans around my age group 30's due to the glory these teams had and the influence on the kids at the time...

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

You know what, there's a lot of stuff talked about jcl's and Withdean die-hards, but those kids who sat bundled up in jumpers and waterproofs in the Family Stand at Withdean, week after week, miles from the pitch, in the freezing cold wind and rain, watching often dire football, with barely an Albion goal to cheer their little souls- well each one of them deserves a bleddy medal.

Agreed.

 

[loz]

I too was brought up in Penge, south-east London, and Selhurst Park is indeed just down the road in West Norwood. And I’m sorry to say that this unfortunate accident of topography eventually became the reason for some of my earliest and most traumatic memories.

Not only did he pop off and support one of the top 5 (very easy) he doesnt even know where Palace play, as Selhust park is in South Norwood.

In fact west norwood is quite nice TBF.

 

[Seagull on the wing]

In this instance, I understand him rejecting his local team. He rejected them because he hated the experience

Makes no sense. I hate the "England experience". I much prefer the "Spain experience". However i don't support Spain over England. I'm surprised you don't get that. He "supports" Arsenal. Why? What have Arsenal to do with him? You dont choose a football team, it chooses you by birth, family and history. He might as well be choosing a tin of Heinz baked beans over Tesco baked beans in the same way that he is "choosing" Arsenal over palace.

I'd have either tins of beans rather than Palace!!

 

[house your seagull]

I read this yesterday and at first I was a bit 'LOL Palace, shithole' but then I thought, gosh, replace the references to Palace with Albion and I'd rightfully think this guy is an arsehole.

Might as well be Piers Morgan writing about why he doesn't support his local team.

Horrible article.

 

[BobbySmith]

I love the fact that we are Rivals with Palace, don't use the word hate, I have some great mates who support them, and most of them are like us, just supporting their local team and were probably taken as kid and was hooked, just like us. The blog was written by someone who simply is not a real football fan, you do not change your team,unless it is to Brighton, (you are ok Norman). Articles like this make me feel good that my mum took me as a 5 year old and in turn i took my son at 3, and proud to say we sit next to each other at The Amex now , and do not even look at premiership scores, as Brighton is our club (ok seen some serious crap in 48 years), but we sat in the family stand at Withdean for years and got soaked, frozen, bored sometimes, but did we ever think about changing clubs ?, no way. Respect to the decent Palace as well, as it appears that they are going through similar to us now with crap facilities etc, but I am sure they will not change.

 

[The Grockle]

I've got much, much more respect for someone who supports Palace over their bigger London rivals, especially given the fact pretty much all London Clubs are less than an hour away from Palace's catchment area.

Hopefully i'll be able to get my kids to fall in love with the Albion and enjoy the matchday experience with them BUT if they wanted to go and watch palace with their mates i'd be more in favour of that than them following the likes of Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal.

 

[salty seagull]

I neither live nor was born in brighton, but I support the Albion because my dad does; they are my inherited club. Does that make me not a true fan?

Yes it does.Be Gone!

 

[Barn Door Billy]

Yes it does.Be Gone!

Oh OK!

 

[Sir Nigel of Eagleshire]

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Last edited by Cheeky Monkey; Yesterday at 09:57.

What did you edit Monkey ? did you add an extra . ?