Author : | Created : 2021-11-16 11:38:00

History of the club

In 1854, the Crystal Palace Exhibition building was transferred from Hyde Park, London, and constructed in a neighbourhood adjacent to Sydenham Hill in South London. Renamed Crystal Palace, this region comprised the Crystal Palace Park that surrounded the site where different sporting facilities were constructed. In 1861, the corporation established the Crystal Palace Football Club, which was open to the public. In addition to being former members of the cricket club, the football club's management committee and the majority of its founding players were also former members of the cricket club, which shared the same pitch within Crystal Palace Park.

Owners

The Crystal Palace Company founded both amateur and pro clubs. Sydney Bourne was the first professional Crystal Palace chairman, discovered by club secretary Edmund Goodman while researching FA Cup Final ticket sales. Goodman recognised Bourne as a repeat buyer of season tickets and met with him to discuss the notion of a new club. Bourne joined the club's inaugural board of directors and was chosen chairman. He served as chairman of the board until his death in 1930.

In 1949, local builder Arthur Wait formed a group of seven businessmen to buy the club. Wait became chairman in 1958 and was replaced by Raymond Bloye in 1972. From 26 January 1981, the club was owned by property developer Ron Noades and his small team. On June 5, 1998, Noades sold the club to Mark Goldberg, becoming the second longest serving chairman behind Sydney Bourne. However, Selhurst Park was still owned by Noades, who leased it to the club. Palace were placed into administration in March 1999 after Goldberg's time as chairman failed to turn the club around. A new corporation, CPFC 2000, gained ownership of the club, despite the fans' efforts to take control through the Crystal Palace Supporters' Trust. The company went into administration in January 2010, but it wasn't until June that a group of affluent supporters known as CPFC 2010 secured a takeover.

On December 18, 2015, a new partnership with American investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer was unveiled. Steve Parish would remain chairman, with Harris and Blitzer as general partners, while Browett, Long, and Hosking would retain a significant investment.

John Textor, an American investor, became a fourth partner in August 2021, investing £87.5 million.

Stadium

Football's FA Cup Finals were held in 1905, and The Crystal Palace Company, who controlled the grounds of The Crystal Palace, wanted a professional team to play there and tap into The Palace's huge fan base. Crystal Palace Football Club was created to play at the stadium. When the First World War began, the military forces seized the Palace and grounds, and the club was compelled to relocate by the Admiralty in 1915. They established a makeshift base at the Herne Hill Velodrome. Despite the fact that other clubs had offered to let Palace use their pitch, the club decided that it was preferable to stay in their natural catchment area. They took over their old Nest stadium after Croydon Common F.C. went out of business in 1917 and began purchasing property in 1919 that would subsequently become Selhurst Park, their present stadium.

Cups won

The club's best league finish to date is third place in the former Football League First Division, now known as the Premier League, achieved in the 1990–91 season. With 49 points in a 42-game season in 1992–93, Palace holds the demoted Premier League record. They are also the only club to have been relegated from the Premier League despite finishing fourth from bottom, as it was decided at the end of the 1994–95 season that the bottom four clubs would be relegated in order to appease the league being whittled down from 22 to 20 clubs for the 1995–96 season. Palace have won the most Play-off finals (4) to gain promotion to the Premier League. They won in Selhurst Park in 1989, old Wembley in 1997, Cardiff Millennium Stadium in 2004 and new Wembley in 2013.

Current squad

1 GK Jack Butland

2 DF Joel Ward

3 DF Tyrick Mitchell

4 MF Luka Milivojević (captain)

5 DF James Tomkins

6 DF Marc Guéhi

7 MF Michael Olise

8 DF Cheikhou Kouyaté

9 FW Jordan Ayew

10 MF Eberechi Eze

11 FW Wilfried Zaha

12 MF Will Hughes

13 GK Vicente Guaita

14 FW Jean-Philippe Mateta (on loan from Mainz 05)

15 MF Jeffrey Schlupp

16 DF Joachim Andersen

17 DF Nathaniel Clyne

18 MF James McArthur (vice-captain)

19 GK Remi Matthews

20 FW Christian Benteke

22 FW Odsonne Édouard

23 MF Conor Gallagher (on loan from Chelsea)

34 DF Martin Kelly

36 DF Nathan Ferguson

40 MF Scott Banks

43 DF Reece Hannam

44 MF Jaïro Riedewald

46 FW Robert Street

49 MF Jesurun Rak-Sakyi

Biggest transfers

Christian Benteke transferred from Liverpool for £27,000,000 (~ £32,000,000) in August 2016.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka transferred to Manchester United F.C for £45,000,000 (~ £50,000,000) in June 2019.

Top Goalscorers When it comes to appearances in all competitions, Jim Cannon holds the record with 663 first-team appearances for Crystal Palace between 1973 and 1988. Additionally, the defender holds the record for most league appearances of 571. When Cannon first joined the club, he was considered a trainee, and he only made four substitute appearances throughout his time there. On March 31, 1973, at the age of 19, he made his debut in the First Division, scoring in a home victory over Chelsea. He played his final game for Cannon on May 7, 1988, a 2–0 victory over Manchester City at home in the Second Division. During the 1930–31 season, Peter Simpson scored 54 goals in Division Three (South) and was the leading scorer in a career with 165 goals from 1929–35. Wayne Hennessey, the club's goalkeeper, has the most international caps of any player in the club's history.

Palace were the first winners of the newly constituted Third Division in 1920–21, their first season in the Football League, and therefore became one of just a tiny handful of teams to have accomplished the accomplishment of winning a Football League Division at the first time of asking. Selhurst Park's Good Friday match against Millwall attracted a record-breaking crowd of almost 38,000 in the 1960–61 season, with an average league attendance of 19,092. A Division Two match versus Burnley on May 11, 1979, drew 51,482 spectators to the Crystal Palace stadium, setting an official record. The club's largest winning margin in the league came in 1959, when they defeated Barrow 9–0 at home in the Fourth Division, while their greatest defeat came in 1989, when they lost 9–0 away to Liverpool in the First Division.