February 25 2008

Shefki Kuqi

Has CPFC's topsiness ever been turvier? Jamesey ruminates on a strange season and what looks like a KUQI swansong.

Since the mid-90s, Crystal Palace has oft been referred to as a yo-yo club.

Three times we ascended to the Wadsodosh-ship stayed there for a season and yo-yoed back down again.

This season we have become a CCC yo-yo club, bouncing from the bottom of the league, up to the play-off positions and now, it seems, yo-yoing rapidly down again.

From Sept 29, we went six games without a victory, then proceeded to rise to the play-offs zone with an undefeated run of 15 matches,

After our 0-2 home defeat by Wolves (Feb 23) we have notched up six games without a win.

This is yo-yoing (or, to be more exact, inconsistency) with a veritable vengeance.

!n splendid isolation once more in my Wandsworth local on Monday (Feb 18), I watched us put up a fine and spirited performance away to Bristol City, only to be robbed of a victory in the final minute of injury time.

We deserved three points and got one, unlike our Wolves performance where we deserved no points and got what we deserved.

SHEFKI KUQI made heavy weather of his lone striker role and looked clumsy and inept.

Despite his adoption of Finnish nationality he is of Kossovar Albanian origin, so perhaps he had been over-celebrating his motherland's breakaway from Serbia?

When he was subbed, rapturous applause at his departure engulfed the main stand as he headed for the dug-out.

The ecstasy of the crowd was accompanied by many hand gestures implying that Shefqi was not the ablest footballer on the planet.

The player responded in kind, with a good old-fashioned Continental "up yours" - forearm pumped up and elbow vigorously slapped with the other hand.

I thought at that moment that it was difficult to see any CPFC future for the Finnish Kossovar Albanian and that was confirmed later when the news broke of his transfer-listing.

As I have often said in this column over the years, it can be frustrating and horrible to be a Palace supporter at times, but it is rarely boring.

*After the atrocious refereeing we witnessed in the Bristol game, I am sending in a proposed new entry to Partridge's Dictionary of Slang.

Beeby: An official at a sporting event who, through ignorance or wilfulness, consistently favours his chosen side and would appear to go to any lengths, including incomprehensible decisions and even adding time, to achieve a desired result (Association football, early 21st cent).

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