Preference for Palace doesn’t quite make them look a good bet
February 24th, 2010 by Emmet MaloneRegular readers of these pieces may well have gathered by now that I have a slightly ridiculous habit of forming minor attachments to football clubs for pretty much the flimsiest of reasons. And there are precious few I keep an eye on for flimsier reasons than Crystal Palace but the bottom line is that I’ll still be cheering for the Londoners very quietly tonight even if I am betting on them to lose.
There are, in fact, clubs all across Europe (not Ireland, though, where my views tend to influenced primarily by professional relationships) whose progress I follow on the basis of either having seen them play once or twice (the likes of Bordeaux Schalke 04 and Rosenborg), having visited their ground to see somebody else play (Montpellier, Kilmarnock and Basel amongst others) or because there’s a half decent anecdote associated with the club that I quite like (Sheffield Wednesday getting their name from steel workers playing their games in midweek when they traditionally got a half day from work for instance, or Bohemians of Prague having a kangaroo on their crest because they once went on a tour of Australia where they were given a couple of the animals to bring home with them after which they used to parade them around the pitch before home games).
Sometimes, odd personal experiences play a part too, like the time I attended an Ireland match during the World Student Games of 1991 at Scunthorpe’s home ground. It happened to be my birthday and when I mentioned this for some reason afterwards, the club chairman opened a safe in his office and produced a bottle of scotch (the only thing inside, if I remember correctly) and poured everyone present a drink to celebrate.
Anyway, my very minor grá for Palace originally derives from a combination of the history attached to the name and the strip with the blue and red sash which Malcolm Allison introduced back in the seventies as part of a makeover.
Lately, it’s been added to by the presence of chairman Simon Jordan – due to his highly entertaining columns in the Observer – and manager Neil Warnock – due to his association with that brilliant Youtube hit based on footage from the film Downfall adapted to portray Hitler as raging about Sheffield United’s unjustified relegation from the premier division a couple of years ago.
As it happens, the strip is gone, the club is in administration because Simon Jordan could no longer afford to fund it and rumour has it that Warnock might decamp to become next week’s manager at QPR but I’ll still be sort of rooting for the Championship outfit at Villa tonight.
It’s not out of the question that they’ll get a result either although the initial run of form that seemed to defiantly accompany the onset of the financial crisis at the club seemed to have worn off. In truth, though they’re a decent second tier side, tonight’s result will be dictated by whether Villa turn it on to anything like the same extent that they did against Burnley at the weekend.
Goals certainly seem likely again, both sides seem to score and concede them in abundance, but I’m backing a hunch that the impending trip to Wembley for Sunday’s Carling Cup final will be a positive rather than a negative factor and pairing Villa with West Brom finally putting an end to Reading’s unlikely cup run.
Bet
€40 double on Aston Villa (-1/1.5) to beat Crystal Palace and West Brom (-0.5) to beat Reading @ 3.6.
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Categories: Soccer
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