Henry Ford never actually uttered the immortal words always associated with him, but the sentiment surrounding ‘all history is bunk’ stuck with him. It is, of course, errant nonsense. The past informs the present – and the modern society is made richer if we learn from previous lessons. Fulham famously don’t win much, but our loveable club by the Thames has an illustrious history that dates back to 1879 – making them London’s oldest professional football club.
It needs to be said at the outset that I have no particular problem with Crystal Palace. In fact, the opposite is true. They remain a wonderfully run community club, with one of the best outreach programmes into their local boroughs in the country, and were revived by the wily management of Roy Hodgson in recent years. They have benefited both from the defensive nous of Joachim Andersen and Patrick Vieira’s first year at the helm, but their annual claim on the mantle of the world’s oldest professional football club is starting to wear a little thin.
Palace unveiled a new club crest on their website this morning, claiming the world’s oldest football club mantle because the Crystal Palace Company, who held a controlling stake in the professional club established in 1905, were linked to the team set up in 1861 for their cricketers. The amateur club was dissolved in 1876 and reformed as a new entity, which invalidates Palace’s claims in the eyes of most experts. When they tried to put forward this argument last summer, the renowned historians of nineteenth century football Mark Metcalf and Clive Nicholson compiled a 84-page submission to the FA and the EFL completely debunking the idea.
The salient details are as follows:
• The Crystal Palace supporters’ magazine from October 1947 is categorical: “to prevent misunderstanding, it should be pointed out that the Crystal Palace Club in existence before 1905 was a purely amateur concern and had no connection with the present club.”
• Three matches in the mid-1890s under the banner of Crystal Palace all contained eight or nine players from Corinthian FC.
• It was Crystal Palace FC in name only – and only a football spectacle to entertain the crowds at the Crystal Palace.
• Reports in 1895 and 1905 said any club set up would be a new one with no mention about any connection to the 1861-1875 Crystal Palace FC.
• Press reports of a new Crystal Palace FC in the mid-1890s always reported it would be a new club.
• Claims by Crystal Palace FC that the failure at this time was due to the proposed club being barred from playing on the cricket pitch at The Crystal Palace are “shown to be wrong”.
• All articles in the year leading up to and including September 1905 specifically mention this is a new club.
• The earlier claim comes up just once in a club handbook in 1906 and was then hidden for more than a century.
• Crystal Palace FC’s claims are “largely hypotheses of unproven facts such as the claim that as other professional clubs were set up out of cricket clubs then so must CPFC in 1905.”
We do live in a world of ‘alternative facts’ these days where the internet allows anyone to make excitable claims. History should be cherished – and be above cheeky clickbait. Palace have plenty to be proud of and they should stick to celebrating both their provable history and their current successes.
If any Eagles fans want to visit London’s oldest professional club, they will be most welcome at Craven Cottage on May 20, 2023 when Vieira’s men take on Fulham.
The early history of football clubs is wonderfully murky because they were, in their earliest days, purely recreational usually offshoots of schools, churches, cricket clubs or workplaces. “Clubs” came and went, moved grounds and played under different names. Often there’d be no surviving written record of their activities.
Becoming affiliated to the FA and entering the FA Cup is usually the first certain record of a football club intended to be a permanent entity although often that didn’t happen.
I thought it was well established that the modern Crystal Palace had no connection to early teams using that name but equally I’d be dubious about dating FFC to their earliest days as a Church team. There clearly is some continuity but in our earliest days the players were essentially playing park games for exercise as were most clubs in their beginnings apart from those formed as professional entities – the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea.
Fulham?
I don’t really care if it’s 1861 or 1905, but Fulham? 1879 Not 879!
Notts county? Fair enough, Cambridge? It’s a fair cop. Fulham? Oh god, I’ve taken the bait
No suggestion by CPFC that they were professional from 1861. Which seems to be the premise of this piece. They are saying that they were formed in 1861 and if you read the piece on the Palace site it is made clear the they were pro from 1905. So not really getting here how this is alternative acts. It appears to me that there is a ether salty misinterpretation of the facts from the writers side.
At club kiosk, hot dog please £ x !! How much ! Well sir since 1879 etc.
Season tkt £ X, how much !! Well sir we were formed in1879. ?
And so on.
In real terms it doesn’t bloody matter, if others are going to make fictitious claims, let them get on with it, any numpty that doesn’t read/study history will probably believe it, until someone with half a brain explains the actuality of said dates.
Remember according to the sad people, we didn’t land on the moon, 9/11 was an insurance job, the holocaust deniers,
Please don’t waste your time explaining the truth to idiots who would not know it, if it knocked them down.
You, tired of dealing with keyboard warriors with no brains.
Fulham are dog shit
Oh and you do realise that your title destroys your argument of truth don’t you? As to reinvent history means that history must have been invented in the first place, therefore not true.