“I never realized what a magical world it was. It was just people and families and color and joy. The smell of hotdogs, people selling scarves, and souvenirs. It was like I’d gone into this magical world I didn’t even know existed,” Hy Money, a photographer and Crystal Palace fan, expressed about her first visit to Selhurst Park in 1971 (cpfc.co.uk).
Not everyone sees the magic, admittedly. If you prefer a modern stadium with a park-and-ride next door and a bit more legroom, Selhurst Park is never going to figure on your list of favorite grounds. Maybe you have sat in the away end and been able to see only two-thirds of the pitch. Maybe you don’t understand why a large Sainsbury’s supermarket is tacked onto one side of the stadium. Or maybe a bit of snobbery has set in after all these years of the tills-ringing Premier League.
Simon Inglis, the author and football historian, recommended as long ago as 1983 that Crystal Palace might be better off without the stadium that Archibald Leitch, the architect who designed it, predicted would be the biggest in London. Inglis took the view — “to be really provocative” — that the club should share the athletics stadium two miles away. Leitch’s portfolio included Stamford Bridge, Craven Cottage, Anfield, Goodison Park, Old Trafford, and many more. Selhurst Park, Inglis wrote, was “never one of Leitch’s best.”.
Archibald Leitch’s Main Stand under construction at Selhurst Park in 1924 (Osbourne/Topical Press AgencyHulton Archive/Getty Images)
And fair enough, even if Inglis mentions in his renowned book, Football Grounds of Britain, that the unorthodox look of Selhurst Park is also part and parcel of its character and appeal.
Tomorrow (August 30), it will be 100 years old. Yet Palace fans should know from experience that not everybody will want to commemorate the anniversary. Selhurst Park gets a bad name sometimes. Barring Goodison Park — which Everton are vacating at the end of this season for a new 53,000-capacity ground — it is the least recently developed stadium in the Premier League and ranked 18th in The Athletic’s survey of Premier League grounds last year.
And yet, there is plenty to like, too. Look closely enough, and maybe, this week of all weeks, attitudes can soften, and we can show some love to one of English football’s most unappreciated stadiums. Because there is more good than bad, even if it has been a close-run thing at times.
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