Crystal Palace complete their incredible journey

As the CVA was approved on Friday, virtually exiting the club from administration, and as George Burley was appointed manager a new dawn shone fully on Crystal Palace football club. However, the night which eventually led to this new day arising was somewhat of a dark, tumultuous nightmare that spanned the best part of twenty five years.

In 1981 Ron Noades bought Crystal Palace from Ray Bloye. Noades is an astute businessman who was successful in bringing trophies to Selhurst Park, but he ultimately failed in his quest to be popular with the fans. The appointment of Steve Coppell as manager in 1984 and the purchase of Palace’s “player of the century” in Ian Wright was, according to Noades at least, the hallmark of his tenure as chairman as Palace reached the 1990 FA Cup Final and also enjoyed a sustained spell in the top division whilst Noades was in charge. However, in 1986, Ron Noades separated the club from its ground by selling Selhurst Park to another one of his companies, Altonwood-and this is where all the problems began.

Noades was chairman up until 1997 when he sold up to Palace fan Mark Goldberg who, like so many, promised to bring the good times back to Selhurst Park. However, instead of dynamically retrieving the glory days of his childhood Goldberg turned out to be more like a kid let loose in a chocolate factory as he contrived to blow his £40 million fortune in a little less than three years. Goldberg spent £22 million on simply buying the club without its only real asset, Selhurst Park, which Noades had separated from the club eleven years previously. Goldberg soon made Terry Venables manager and gave him plenty of money to spend whilst somehow forgetting to balance the books. Venables brought in players from Australia to Israel, without any revenue coming in from the stadium, and before you knew it the rules of naked economics took over and Palace were in dire financial straits. Inevitably enough, in late 1998, the club was put into administration and in 2000 Goldberg was declared bankrupt.

The season following the club being put into administration was one of strength and guile intertwined with an incredible display of leadership from the best manager in the clubs history. Ask any Palace fan what their most memorable seasons are and they will say that the 1999-2000 campaign is amongst them as Steve Coppell came back and kept them up in the old first division with a virtual youth team. Things got so bad during that season that the club couldn’t even afford to put the players up in a hotel the night before an away game- forcing the team to travel up in the morning leading up to it. However, Coppell was somehow able to get a group of boys to play like men, with Palace eventually staying up after second half goals from Clinton Morrison and Ashley Cole (who was on loan from Arsenal at the time) gave them a 2-1 home win against Blackburn in the penultimate game of the season.

As Palace’s first division status was confirmed lifelong fan and self made multi millionaire Simon Jordan moved in to buy the club once again, as fatefully as it turns out, without Selhurst Park. Jordan’s first decision was to remove the inspirational Steve Coppell and to bring in another former Palace boss, Alan Smith. Smith had success at Palace before and was the first in a long line of managers to take charge under Jordan who was given money to spend. However, he was not the last to blow it on over rated players earning over inflated wages. The likes of Neil Ruddock, Ade Akinbiyi, Shefki Kuqi and Dele Adebola (amongst others) were all bought with Jordan’s money during his ten years as chairman and all contributed to  Palace’s downfall by being paid very high salaries for perpetually low performances. However, if failing to consistently sign free scoring strikers was a big error then failing to buy Selhurst Park through a complex business deal was a calamitous one.

On October 6^th 2006 with the club steadily losing money through its unsustainable business model and with the future looking shaky all of a sudden there was a light at the end of the tunnel. With Palace enjoying a far from successful season under Peter Taylor Jordan delivered the best news possible by announcing that he had finally bought the stadium off Ron Noades. Jordan’s master plan was to agree a deal where property developer Paul Kemsley would purchase the stadium off Noades, for Jordan to then buy the Selhurst Park off Kemsley twelve months later. However, Jordan had his money invested in the Spanish property market at the time which duly crashed amidst the credit crunch, leaving him with no money to buy Selhurst Park. What made this so painful for Jordan is that because he defaulted on the payment the monthly rent on the stadium virtually quadrupled from £320k to £1.2 million. The club was now losing more money faster than it was before and administration was a virtual certainty. Jordan openly wanted to sell but nobody would buy. However, Palace’s recently unveiled new owners did offer him a deal where they would take the club off his hands for nothing in return for equity should Palace reach the Premiership again- how Jordan must now wish he took them up on their offer.

With a gaping hole appearing in the clubs finances Jordan was left with no option but to do a deal with a hedge fund called Agilo. Jordan borrowed £5 million and when he didn’t pay it back Agilo, who were on course to being paid according to the Palace chairman, put the club into administration on January 30^th 2010. Jordan did some great things for Palace and his heart was fully in the job, but they were now back where they started.

What followed was quite possibly the most complex takeover deal in the history of English football.

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