November 6 2006

Crystal Palace

Jamesey hopped onto the 220 bus home from Shepherd's Bush to Wandsworth on Saturday evening with a heavy heart.

First, let me say that, like the great majority of HOL members, I thought netting Peter Taylor as manager was a brilliant coup for chairman Simon Jordan.

Taylor had a generally impressive CV, much experience at the highest level and was even well-endowed with red-and-blue cred as a Palace "favourite" (in my view you can't be a "legend" or a "hero" after only three seasons).

Therefore, I can't blame my irritation at seeing our current team losing week-in-week-out on Simon.

But as we saw yet again for the QPR match (Nov 4) at Loftus Road, we have become a long ball outfit.

And our willingness to let attackers run 40 or 50 yards towards our goal without tackling seems plain suicidal.

Incidentally I thought the Hoops "cat" walking hand-in-hand with the little girl Palace mascot before the game and waving to the crowd was a refreshing and excellent antidote to some of the psychotic imbeciles to be seen at away games.

A couple of rows in front of me, a grown man, clearly out of control of his brain, and three lads of about 12-14 years of age (his sons or their friends), kept up a barrage of idiocy, ranging from gross obscenity to inarticulate gibbering after QPR goals to mindless gloating and maniacal laughter after the Palace first half goals.

Well, they had plenty to gibber about in the second half, as we now know.

But before I am taken to task for criticising passionate reactions to events on the pitch, can I say that bar a few sad souls like the above, 99% of the visiting supporters I heard and saw at Loftus Road were loud and proud and concentrated on encouraging and getting behind the team, a task that became more and more difficult in the second period for obvious reasons.

The manager couldn't try to make CPFC supporters the scapegoats for another poor performance like he did in his recent match programme notes.

So from top of the league in August to bottom five in November.

How long will Peter Taylor be allowed to get it right? Only one person can answer that.

Email Jamesey with your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com

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