I met a friend for a drink last night with a startling story of following Palace in Europe. He’s a real Palace diehard and decided they would achieve a lifetime’s ambition and pick one away day in Europe, settling on Strasbourg a couple of weeks ago. He went a day early, had a great night, locals very friendly, all cursing joint club ownership (Strasbourg are a vassal state of Chelsea). His brother was coming out with his teenage son on match day and they agreed to meet at 5 in a bar in the square set aside by the police for Palace fans.
He arrived at a quarter to five and it was mayhem, brawls everywhere, police charging around. Palace on Palace.
He’s been telling me for a while about friction at Palace games. The Holmesdale Ultra scene, love it or hate it, has attracted a different group of supporters to what you might think of as “legacy Palace”, but he calls “Addlestone”. They stay away from each other at home but are forced together at away games. He told me there were occasional tensions in the last couple of years over one group wanting to fly Palestine flags and another insisting this was nothing to do with Palace.
Anyway, the two groups came together in the square, insults led to an attack (apparently on an Asian fan), and then a free-for-all. My friend warned his brother off and they hung out elsewhere until kickoff. Roll forwards a couple of hours, Palace have thrown the game away, the police have locked them in for 45 minutes to clear the area, and it all happens again. They’re finally let out to march back to town between lines of riot police. Their hotel was a bit off their route and they were going to ask the police to let them down a side road, but someone in front of them had the same idea and beats them to it. The policeman ponders for a while, then gets a can of pepper spray out and unloads on the fans. Fresh disorder breaks out, at which point our heroes scoot further up the road and slip off at a now unguarded corner further up.
My friend described the whole experience as at the same time miserably dispiriting and totally exhilarating. But he gave Shelbourne a miss. |  |
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