A Cup Final To Make You Love Football Again

[animallittle3]

A proper club with an out-dated stadium .

Passionate local fans who don't spend the entire 90 minutes taking photographs on their phones .

A football club that actually brings it's diverse community together as one .

A good number of players given an opportunity to play in the PL who were probably at one time considered not good enough .

A club who actually know who they are and what they are about .

Loved it .

Well done Crystal Palace .

[pass_and_move]

I hate how devalued this competition has become. It should be the final game of the season by itself at 3 o fekkin clock instead of being squeezed in-between the PL fixtures like some inconvenience but the truth is, it is just that in todays climate.

The early rounds still give this great historical competition some credibility and that is where the passion lies for me. Seeing it have the potential to change football at grass roots level is what makes my heart warm. What soon dilutes my passion and drains my blood is the entrance of the PL and Championship clubs.

This fantastic cup competition is light years away from the one I knew and grew up with over 35 years ago.


I'm happy for the Palace fans although I wouldn't say it makes me love the game again. Wigan and Leicester won it in recent seasons which was similar to what we witnessed yesterday. It's not altered the fact that there's no replays, silly kick off times and days. The FA have systematically destroyed this competition over the last few yearsfor the sake of their nest in which lie the golden eggs.

Al tell thi summat, if the FA decided to award the winners of the Cup a Champions league spot, then they would see a far bigger interest from the clubs from the top 2 divisions. It'll never happen though. There's such a demarcation line in the money fraternity. Let's not kid ourselves, Leicester, Wigan and now Palace pay/paid out millions of pounds per year in wages in their respective year of success. Are they run morally? Is this really a victory for the underdog? Should we fall back in love with football because a more unfashionable club has won this trophy?

These days you have the Bournemouth, Brentford, Fulham, Brighton, Palace etc, all unfashionable clubs with little history in terms of trophy success. They are now basically streets ahead of more historically established clubs because they are now firmly established PL clubs. The aspiring clubs wanting to join the party in the PL have now got very little or no chance because the money and competition is higher than ever seen before.

This is why I think that we should let the big name/big money British clubs feck off and join a European super league. Let them keep their plastic fans with their camera phones. Let them keep their 500k per week players and multi billionaire shyte house owners. The Premier league would lose credibility and indeed the vast amounts of money involved in it which in my opinion has totally destroyed football as a working mans game. Perhaps it would make British football once again down to earth, competitive and interesting. It would make the FA Cup interesting again because wi art the avalanche of money, the game could once again be given back to the working class.


Do we really need all the money clubs? I don't think so. The ever on going belief that we should be proud to have the strongest league in the world is worn thin for a few years now. The so called showcase champions league final has not a PL club involved in it for a second successive season. Who cares if we have the strongest league or not any way? Is any of it actually relatable to the likes of us? I cant even identify many of our money clubs as English anymore. They say get behind English clubs in Europe? Why ffs? Not many of the fekkers have any English players, managers, owners. They are as foreign to me as the next Champions league club.

Meanwhile in the lesser competition of the Europa league, we have two English clubs involved in the final who are failing spectacularly in their domestic league. A must watch! I think not.

[Shadrack the Red]

Yes it was nice to see the under dog triumph , but Palace are no mugs these days and no one should be surprised at them doing the business , although Var was a joke with Hendersons hand ball but they deserved their luck and I was delighted that they saw it through . I always tune into monday night football when Palace are playing at home, the atmosphere is always superb and it always seems to feed into the living room when I am watching, years and years ago I went to watch us at Brighton on a bank holiday monday, Palace did not have a game and about 60 of their fans came down to the Goldstone and stood shoulder to shoulder with us throughout the game and afterwards , there was only a couple hundred of us and it was like world war 3 all afternoon , before , during and afterwords it was carnage , not sure how I got out alive but they battled with us and helped us out , I have never forgotten that day and always had total respect to their fans ever since , so I am delighted they had a memorable day yesterday .

[Young_Nudger]

As the commentators said:
It?s not the amount of possession.
It?s not the number of passes completed.
It?s not the number of shots on goal.
The only stat that counts is 1-0.

I didn?t like watching Barcelona and don?t like watching Man City - I just hate the tippy tappy style of football.
It bores me to death.

The transition by Palace is a joy to watch.
Very similar to that of Liverpools.

And dare I say it - this is the style that the Barnsley directors have said they want to see Barnsley play ie - high press - a couple of touches of the ball followed by a strike at goal.
Quick vertical football.

But it?s been lost over this last 2 seasons
We didn?t see that with Clarke - and Collins actually tried to totally change the system - to play in a way more reminiscent of Man Cities slow tippy tappy sideways crabby style than it did that of Palace.
Resulting in mind numbingly boring football.

A deep intake of breath to see what style Hourihane adopts.
Let?s hope we are the team next season in the 3rd Division which most resembles Crystal Palace.

[Shadrack the Red]

As the commentators said:
It?s not the amount of possession.
It?s not the number of passes completed.
It?s not the number of shots on goal.
The only stat that counts is 1-0.

I didn?t like watching Barcelona and don?t like watching Man City - I just hate the tippy tappy style of football.
It bores me to death.

The transition by Palace is a joy to watch.
Very similar to that of Liverpools.

And dare I say it - this is the style that the Barnsley directors have said they want to see Barnsley play ie - high press - a couple of touches of the ball followed by a strike at goal.
Quick vertical football.

But it?s been lost over this last 2 seasons
We didn?t see that with Clarke - and Collins actually tried to totally change the system - to play in a way more reminiscent of Man Cities slow tippy tappy sideways crabby style than it did that of Palace.
Resulting in mind numbingly boring football.

A deep intake of breath to see what style Hourihane adopts.
Let?s hope we are the team next season in the 3rd Division which most resembles Crystal Palace.

I am not sure how you have managed to turn a thread about Palace winning the cup into an opportunity to have a pop at Collins and Clarke but I must say something about your comment on Barcelona, you say they play tippy tappy football , you have got to be having a laugh , the two semi final matches against Milan were arguably the best two games I have watched in the last 50 years, they both played fast attacking football of the highest quality with only one thought in mind and that was to play quick incisive football with constant attacking , there was no backwards or sideways play in the game at all , absolutely superb , Barcelona do not play tippy tappy football at all .

[Young_Nudger]

Shads - didn?t is not the same as don?t.
Clearly I?m talking about the Pep teams.

Why have I mentioned Barnsley in the conversation ???
Because a large part of discussion on here over the last two years has surrounded the issue of how the directors want the team to play.
Well we saw a fine example of that in the FA Cup Final.

[Shadrack the Red]

Shads - didn?t is not the same as don?t.
Clearly I?m talking about the Pep teams.

Why have I mentioned Barnsley in the conversation ???
Because a large part of discussion on here over the last two years has surrounded the issue of how the directors want the team to play.
Well we saw a fine example of that in the FA Cup Final.

You still managed to have a pop at our last 2 HC"s !!

[POGGYWELL]

Palace played really well to their strengths man for man and up for it.
Great to see the under dogs win the Wembley party helped by that bit of luck with Henderson getting away with a certain red card.
A good spectacle spoilt to a certain extent by the crazy KO time.
Dare I say it, Conor needs to adopt that Palace way.

[pass_and_move]

Here we go again 🙄

[Young_Nudger]

You still managed to have a pop at our last 2 HC"s !!

Did you see Barnsley playing anything like Crystal Palace in the last two seasons ???
Because I didn?t.
We did under Duff to an extent.
And we definitely did under Ismael.

But all this might be immaterial now.
Hourihane seems to have walked through the door - and because he has a recognised name in football - the club is allowing him to throw everything including the baby out with the bath water.
Recruitment changed back to managers bringing in their mates and old journeymen - and change of formation to a 433 which will obviously alter the playing style.

All in all back to short termism - which has been tried and tested time and time again and proved not to work.
It?s just desperation on the part of the directors.

Patrick came to understand short termism in football - and that?s why he changed it.