December 21 2011

Arthur Wait: A stand in his name

It was a gray and rainy Monday night and a dull and scrappy game but a great result for CPFC. Jamesey reports.

All things being considered, an official gate of 12,000-plus wasn't at all bad for the visit of Birmingham City (Dec19). The festive season, the economic gloom and the fact that the game was on TV were all factors that made a meagre crowd look inevitable so even a five-figure crowd was quite surprising.

Anyhow for this supporter it was an interesting night because I decided to sit in Block X of the Arfur (the Arthur Wait Stand if you are unaware of Eagles vernacular).

I bought my first season ticket in the Arfur in the 1970s and spent many happy years there until increasing unpleasantness and violence amongst the unsegregated crowd prompted me to move to the then Palace-only Members' Stand (now the Main Stand) in the mid-1980s.

I have been growing restless in my Main Stand perch this season. Deaths, the defections of old friends and a few minor irritations on the human front have led me to think about moving my backside to pastures new.

It was surprisingly easy to ask the box office to swap my Main Stand season ticket seat for a berth in the Arthur and so, after 25 years, I returned to one of my original stamping grounds.

Well, there was certainly plenty of room and the perspective was a mirror image of Block H of the Main Stand. The nice, old-fashioned wooden seats still remained and one could even enjoy the stereo effect singing of the Arfur mob (behind right) and the HF (below left) without necessarily feeling one should join in.

I hesitate to say this in case some official jobsworth spots it and spoils the fun, but if you are a smoker there is an area at the top of the steps to Gate 4 where you can puff at a half-time fag without leaving the ground. Officialdom appears to turn a blind eye.

I didn't test any food and drink because the expense of a beer and the inedibility of the fare on offer inside Selhurst Park are both unacceptable to this punter. But after the semi-luxury of the Players' Lounge, the surroundings are, to say the least, spartan. But who cares? It's a football ground not a five-star boutique hotel.

As stated above, the game itself was uninspiring and there was little to cheer until Kagisho Dikgacoi's header went in a few minutes from time. That, blessedly, gave us a second 1-0 win on the trot and poked us up the league table to 8th, just a whisker from the play-off zone.

That in itself makes a very refreshing change from our gradual descent in recent times. Is it too early to get enthused and are we yet a credible contender for the Pilesamoulah League?

Let's see where we stand at the end of January before being carried away in a tide of over-optimistic expectation?

Finally, I think from January onwards and while I am still capable of remembering the way to Selhurst Park, I'd better start practising: "We're the Arfur, we're the Arfur, we're the Arfur over 'ere".

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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