Pioneering Palace: The background to us turning professional

The first FA Cup Final had been held at the Surrey Cricket Ground, the Oval, in 1872, and apart from on two occasions, it was held at the Oval every year until 1892. This was little surprise, given that the FA Cup had been the brainchild of ex-Crystal Palace footballer, Charles Alcock, who combined his role as Secretary of the FA with that of being the Secretary of Surrey County Cricket Club.

But, like the Crystal Palace cricket pitch in the 1870s, the winter football, and in particular the FA Cup Final – with its enormous crowd – was damaging the sacred wicket. Responding to members’ concerns, by January 1893, the Sporting Life was reporting ‘the Surrey Cricket Club have decided not to play any more football in the centre of the ground at the Oval. This virtually means that the final tie for the Association Cup and the international with Scotland will have to be played elsewhere.'

There was no suitable alternative venue in London and, given the increasing dominance of the new Northern and Midlands professional clubs (the professional Football League had been created in 1888), a venue was sought in the North.

The FA eventually decided on the new enclosure at the Manchester Athletic Club’s Fallowfield Stadium for the Final between Wolves and Everton. The official attendance at Fallowfield was 45,000 but unofficially it was estimated at 60,000, far in excess of the stadium’s maximum capacity.

Overcrowding delayed the kick-off, and the match was repeatedly interrupted by crowd encroachment, which at one stage included occupying one of the goals and which was only beaten back by police reinforcements, so the FA were forced to think again for the 1894 Final.

They chose Everton’s new ground at Goodison Park, but only 37,000 turned up, many fearing they might be crushed if there was a repeat of the previous year’s chaos. It was clear to the FA that neither had been a suitable venue for the Cup Final. But where to go?

The Crystal Palace Company was always looking for new sources of revenue – and the bigger, the better. So, in 1894, possibly realising that football would not be returning to the Oval and that there were no other suitable venues for well-attended football matches in the capital, Henry Gillman, the Entertainments Manager at the Palace, put forward the novel idea of filling in the large, neglected fountains and basins in front of the main terrace and turning them into a giant football stadium and sports arena, big enough to host the FA Cup Final.

It was a highly risky gamble, but it turned out to be a decision which was to put the Crystal Palace firmly on the British football map for the next 20 years and was crucial to turning the amateur Crystal Palace Football Club, which had played there since the 1860s, into a professional outfit.

The Crystal Palace directors took to the idea with enthusiasm. From an article in the Evening Standard in May 1894, it was clear that the Palace directors did not see this as just another football ground. The two great fountains in the lower basins would be done away with to form the site of the new football stadium. The fountains formed a natural amphitheatre of grassy banks which could accommodate many thousands of standing and seated spectators.

Above all, the Crystal Palace Company had long experience of dealing with very large crowds, so they were confident they could handle a Cup Final. John Aird & Sons were given the contract to build the new stadium and they undertook to complete the construction by October 1894, well in time for the 1895 Cup Final the following spring.

Work got underway and as the new football ground neared completion, the directors of the Crystal Palace Company had no hesitation in approaching the Football Association with an offer to stage the 1895 Cup Final.

The Palace gave the FA an offer they could barely refuse: a guarantee of £1,225 to play the Final at the Palace and sixpence a head for every person over 20,000 that went through the Crystal Palace turnstiles.

Their offer was accepted at an FA Committee meeting in Derby on 9th March and it was decided that the first Final would be played at the Palace on 20th April, 1895. The footballing press eagerly looked forward to the opening of this splendid new stadium.

The day arrived and the Woolwich Gazette reported ‘everybody was in high spirits on Saturday [20th April] when the new Sports Ground at the Crystal Palace was brilliantly inaugurated by a well-fought contest for the Football Association Cup. The rival teams, West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa, proved to be well matched, and the latter had a hard-earned victory by 1 goal to nil.

'In every respect the conditions were highly favourable. A belated spring had suddenly given place to a glorious summer, and it was amid the genial surroundings of cricket rather than football that the final tie was decided. Congratulations were freely offered to the directors and management of the Crystal Palace upon the distinct success of their new policy, and when, at the close of the game, Lord Kinnaird, as President of the Football Association, gave public utterance to expressions of universal approval, the cheers that were evoked ratified the verdict.

'There was a “record” attendance, the official returns showing that 42,560 people passed through the various turnstiles…. Excellent arrangements made confusion in the seating impossible. There was no rush or worry, no waiting in long streams at the pay-boxes such as may sometimes occur in the North, no hindrance to the public in any shape or form.

'The Crystal Palace staff is accustomed to handling big crowds; but the concourse which assembled on Saturday afternoon was even to such an experienced staff a tremendous gathering, for it was not dispersed, but concentrated around the twelve acres which have been laid out for athletic and show purposes, and which will be supplemented very shortly by the cricket ground that is approaching completion on the site of the companion fountain basin.’

The Crystal Palace lived up to its reputation for handling the large and the spectacular, much to the delight of the FA. After the problems of the previous two years, the staging of the first FA Cup Final at the Palace was a complete success, and the FA gladly received nearly £1,700 for the match. England now had its first national football stadium.

The Crystal Palace now had ‘a new sports arena unrivalled for size and accommodation, not only in this country, but in the whole of Europe’, as one paper put it, but apart from the Cup Final, they had no other fixtures. The Crystal Palace Company were keen to cash in on the increasing crowds that football was generating so they decided to field their own amateur Crystal Palace football team against some of the top sides of the day.

Their first match in the new stadium was against Cup holders, Aston Villa.

The match took place at the Palace on 30th November 1895, and Crystal Palace, turning out in their traditional blue and white, put out a strong side which included eight players who regularly appeared for the top amateur side of the day, the Corinthians; of those eight, four were full England internationals: Lodge, Henfrey, Stanbrough and Topham.

Some might argue that this was not a ‘Crystal Palace team’, but what has to be remembered is that the Palace team, like the Corinthians, were amateur footballers. As amateurs, they were not contracted to any one team, and they were free to play for anyone they chose. It wasn’t uncommon for the top players to play for five or six different clubs in the same season soo, when an amateur player pulled on a team’s shirt, they were a player for that club for that match. This was a Crystal Palace team.

On the day of the match, the weather put paid to any chance of the idea of the game attracting a large crowd. It was dull and overcast and, after two days of continuous rain, the ground was treacherous and slippery for both teams. But Palace initially put up a good showing and went in, at half-time, drawing 2-2 through goals by Gettins and Guy.

The second-half was a different story. Palace actually took the lead through England international, Stanborough, but from thereon it was all Villa, their professional levels of fitness telling – and poor goalkeeping by the Palace goalkeeper, Turnbull – allowing them to score another five goals, to win 7-3.

A disappointing result, but what was even more disappointing was that, with the poor weather, only 1500 spectators turned up to watch. Well below the expectations of the Crystal Palace Company.

If they couldn’t pull in the crowds, where did Crystal Palace FC go from here? Their move to becoming a professional football club – on this day 120 years ago – is told in Part Two here.

With continued thanks to Peter Manning.