It is the fashion for the Championship’s play-off winners to be cast as next season’s relegation certainties while the champagne is yet to dry on the victorious players’ shirts.
The favoured statistic to be rolled out in the wake of Crystal Palace becoming the 20th team in next year’s Premier League is, that of the twenty-one clubs most recently promoted via the same route only 9 have survived their first year – with a further two succumbing 12 months later.
The beaten side in this year’s final, Watford, plunged straight back after their play-off wins of 1999 and 2006. More pertinently, Palace have their own painful memories of being unable to last more than one year after coming through what is routinely billed as ‘football’s richest match’. Neither Steve Coppell’s Wembley heroes of 1997, nor the Iain Dowie led side which charged from 19th in the Championship at Christmas to keeping company with Manchester United and Arsenal the following August, could cling to their newly earned status.
To add to their sorry tale, the Eagles dropped out of the Premier League in its inaugural season – 1992/1993. After bouncing straight back as champions of the old ‘First Division’, Palace were the unlucky team in 1995 to take the 4th relegation spot which had been implemented as a one-off measure to reduce the number of teams in the top-flight.
The record books conspire further against the likely prospect of Palace reversing their unhappy trend. The man at the Selhurst Park helm, Ian Holloway, was the manager of Blackpool when the Lancashire outfit completed the remarkable feat of escaping the Championship at the right-end, by virtue of a Wembley triumph against Cardiff City.
In common with his current club’s past lack of joy, however, Holloway was unable to cajole enough from his charges to extend their stay with the elite beyond its initial year.
Nevertheless, for the Eagles and their manager, this is an extraordinary time to be arriving in the promised land. The monetary reward for being a top-flight combatant has risen exponentially, even since Holloway was last a Premier League manager two years ago. Due in large part to freshly negotiated worldwide television contracts and ramped up parachute payments, the least Palace can expect in return for their newly acquired status is £120m.
How that bounty should be apportioned is a welcome dilemma confronting the group of men who, led by Steve Parish and Martin Long under the handle of ‘CPFC 2010’ in June of that year, saved ‘their’ club from the very real prospect of liquidation. The financial peril at Selhurst Park had resulted in Palace being placed in administration just months earlier, consequently seeing 10 points wiped off their total and only remaining a Championship outfit thanks to a last day draw at Sheffield Wednesday.
That recent history might dictate a certain caution is applied to the sums committed towards player investment this summer, but having been deprived of a realistic fighting fund by Blackpool’s parsimonious chairman Karl Oyston upon his last promotion, Holloway will expect greater backing in his latest Premier League quest.
This is an opportunity that the Bristolian will have feared might not come his way again after the heroic failure he oversaw during the Seasiders’ return to the top. Holloway’s brand of football captured the imagination of observers the country over during that lone term. Ultimately, he was undone by his team’s defensive profligacy and an unsustainably thinly stretched squad.
Still, there was much to admire in the expressive and open manner of that Blackpool team. Their style brought memorable wins against Newcastle United, Liverpool (twice), and Tottenham Hotspur, as well a full contribution to a number of thrilling high-scoring encounters. Even when needing to win their final fixture at Manchester United to escape the drop, the Tangerines boldly approached their task with flair and invention. They led 2-1 with half-an-hour to play before eventually caving in and conceding another three goals.
The chief beneficiaries of those heady days at Bloomfield Road might be Crystal Palace. Holloway gained priceless experience during that year pitting his wits against some of the world’s finest tacticians. That, allied to the discernible insight attained over a largely productive near 14 year managerial career, forms a man with the requisite capabilities to achieve what would be classed as a footballing miracle – keeping the Eagles in the Premier League.
Ask supporters of Bristol Rovers, QPR, Plymouth Argyle, Leicester City, and Blackpool, about Holloway, and only those whose heart is in the East Midlands could fairly speak with anything less than a favourable bent to their words regarding the deeds of the former Rovers and R’s player during his time as boss at their respective clubs.
Only a month ago there was a legitimate danger that the denizens of Selhurst might add to the disapproving voices of Leicester. When he replaced the popular Dougie Freedman – who had sought pastures new at Bolton Wanderers – Holloway was in the unusual position of assuming control at a team sitting third in the table.
The 50 year-old made a blazing start, winning his first three games and responding to his first defeat with a draw at Hull City and then, most populously of all, by masterminding a 3-0 thumping of Palace’s bitter rivals Brighton & Hove Albion.