Thursday, 6 March 2014

Crystal Palace



Crystal Palace Football Club /ˈkrɪstəl ˈpælɨs/ are an English professional football club based in South Norwood, London. They are currently playing in the Barclays Premier League. During the 2012–13 Football League season, Palace finished fifth and gained promotion to the Premier League through the play-offs. Their colours are black, grey, blue, purple, and yellow, although they had adopted a claret and pale blue strip of Aston Villa in their early years. The club was founded at The Crystal Palace in 1905 to introduce a team to the local population, who regularly supported the FA Cup Final in sizeable numbers, which was played at the sports stadium, in Crystal Palace Park. Failing to gain election to The Football League, Palace instead joined the Southern Football League Second Division, playing home games at The Crystal Palace, inspiration for the club's initial nickname, "The Glaziers". Palace won the Division and promotion in their first season, and played in the Southern League First Division for the next fifteen years.

Crystal Palace initially played their games in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, but the First World War saw them forced to move out, and they enjoyed a number of seasons at both the Herne Hill Velodrome and The Nest. Since 1925, Palace have played their home games at Selhurst Park. They have a fierce rivalry with M23 neighbours Brighton & Hove Albion, with whom they have contested the M23 derby 98 times. They also enjoy rivalries with fellow South London teams Millwall and Charlton Athletic. The club's kit is currently made by Avec, a subsidiary of Nike, and the shirt sponsor is GAC Logistics. The club captain is Paddy McCarthy and the current player of the year is Mile Jedinak. Edmund Goodman is the club's longest serving manager, and Jim Cannon has made the most appearances for the club. Peter Simpson is the club's top scorer for both one season and overall, netting 54 and 165 respectively. The highest transfer fee received has been for Wilfried Zaha from Manchester United in January 2013 and the highest paid has been to Peterborough United for Dwight Gayle in July 2013.


Selhurst Park:


Selhurst Park, currently sponsored by 12BET, is an association football stadium located in the London suburb of South Norwood in the Borough of Croydon. It is the current home ground of Crystal Palace Football Club playing in the Premier League.
Archibald Leitch, the renowned stadium architect, was employed to draw up plans, and the club constructed and completed the ground in time for the 1924–25 season. It remained relatively unchanged, with only the introduction of floodlights and maintenance and updating until 1969 when the Arthur Wait stand was constructed. The Main Stand became all-seater in 1979 and more work followed in the 1980s when the Whitehorse Lane End was redeveloped to allow for a Sainsbury's supermarket, club offices and a club shop. The Arthur Wait stand became all seater in 1990, and in 1994 the Holmesdale Terrace was redeveloped, replaced with a two tier Stand. Selhurst's attendance record was set in 1979, with an official total of 51,482. After all the redevelopments to the ground and safety requirements due to the Taylor Report, the ground's current capacity is 26,309. Proposals were put forward to move the club back to the Crystal Palace National Stadium in 2010, but after the club gained promotion to the Premier League in 2013 there has been a renewed focus on redeveloping their current home into a 40,000 seater stadium.



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