There are many football clubs in South London, and due to the size of the football pyramid, you can carry on looking through each tier and finding clubs which you'll probably have never heard of playing on very small grounds, audiences ranging from the tens of thousands to a couple hundred. This new series will focus on football clubs specifically, but I might branch out into other sports should this sub-series prove enjoyable. I'll begin by looking at one of the more well known clubs in South London.
Crystal Palace do not play in Crystal Palace, but in Selhurst Park, which is also not in Selhurst. Selhurst station may claim to be the closest to the ground, but it's only marginally closer than Norwood Junction is. Indeed, to get to Selhurst Park from Selhurst, you either walk or change bus, unlike Thornton Heath or Norwood Junction.
I got to Selhurst Park by bus, getting off on the side of the Arthur Wait stand (named after the former club chairman, and the largest stand too), and as soon as I did, I noticed a large mural of former player Wilfried Zaha - very elaborately created, I must say, detailed down to his veins - and one that's only been around since May this year. For over 450 appearances and nearly 100 goals, at the club his entire life barring an excursion to Manchester, I'd say this mural's very befitting of his time at the club, and he appreciated it as well - indeed, it seems the club did this alongside a group of street artists.
At this point, I opted to walk counter-clockwise around the stadium, next to the Holmesdale Road stand on the road that gives it its name. Rows of terraced houses are opposite the various entrances to the stadium, all locked up for this was a Sunday and Palace had lost to Luton the previous day, all emblazoned with CPFC. You can tell the club is proud of its location, as when you get round to the (locked) main entrance, "South London" is painted in bold red. From this point on, I'd be unable to come up close to the main stand, instead having to resort to the roads themselves - at this point, the journey became more of a "what can I see in Thornton Heath?" rather than one about the club - but not completely so.
At the junction between Holmesdale Road and Clifton Road, there's a pub which has a banner along its front proclaiming its support for Palace, and alongside a cornershop, it's the closest you'll get to any places to buy things around here. The creatively named Main Stand (the oldest stand still standing) is parallel to Clifton Road, and you can see the pathway locked off during matches peeking through closes adorned with houses. Indeed, houses are all you'll find until you reach Whitehorse Lane, a busy main road with buses aplenty running along it.
The stand adjacent is the Whitehorse Lane Stand - the smallest in the stadium, with only about 2,000 seats available - and you wouldn't be able to notice it easily because there's a large Sainsbury's and petrol station blocking the view. The Sainsbury's claims to be a Crystal Palace branch, but as I mentioned earlier, we're nowhere near Crystal Palace, and to make matters more confusing, there's a Sainsbury's there too. This is obviously no advertisement for Sainsbury's, by the way. At the end of the shop is a club store where you can buy all sorts of club merchandise, I'd assume. Then there are rows of houses, and you end up where you started.
It's worth noting that Crystal Palace haven't always played in Thornton Heath, with their former stadia including one within the boundaries of Crystal Palace Park. I believe it was situated on the same land as the current Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium, yet it no longer stands and has since been rebuilt into the athletics stadium, itself standing near a larger sports complex. They used to play FA Cup finals here, and the owners wanted a club of their own to play here - hence Crystal Palace was born in 1905. (It's worth noting, however, that there also used to be a Crystal Palace which existed from 1861 to 1876, and the current Palace want to be associated with them so much they changed their badge ever so slightly.) I've been by that stadium many times, indeed I even had a school sportsday there once, but alas I have no photos of it to share.
Neither do I have photos of their next (though temporary) ground, the Herne Hill Velodrome, where they played during the war, and which is (unsurprisingly) a place where you're more likely to find bikes than footballs. If I get photos of these stadia taken, they'll be added here (and this sentence will be removed too). Then in 1924, the club moved into Selhurst Park, meaning the stadium will celebrate its centennial anniversary this year.
Another thing worth noting is that the stadium itself is also the former home of two other South London clubs - Charlton Athletic for six years during the 1980s, as a result of their stadium (The Valley) due to issues over ownership of the stadium, and Wimbledon throughout most of the 1990s due to their ground (Plough Lane) being unsuitable following the Taylor Report's recommendations of all stadiums being all-seater. Whilst Charlton eventually moved back into the Valley by 1992, Wimbledon stayed at Selhurst Park for most of their remaining history before the club moved to Milton Keynes in 2003 and became MK Dons the next year.
And that leads onto the question of the future of Selhurst Park. The Main Stand has had plans approved for it to be renovated, indeed it might look more like a glass dome than before, and would make the stadium a 34,000 seater instead of a 26,000 seater. This would likely take a while, however, so don't expect to see it come any time soon. I think they should also give the stand a catchier name too.
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