Hidden talent... https://talksport.com/football/3173444/eberechi-eze-wins-chess-tournament-crystal-palace-fa-cup/
More evidence of a fantastic season if you ignore that there are about 37 season tickets at that price and I paid I think £580 to stand behind the goal. 31 home goals. Must have been about 10 at the Loft.
If passes to the goalkeeper are your thing then our season tickets are superb value. A massive bugbear of mine with most football teams but particularly one as crap as ours is having a free kick in midfield and using that opportunity to pass back, ending up with the goalkeeper who launches it anyway. Get the big men up and stick it in the box.
please log in to view this image Queens Park Rangers v Notts County, 06 October 1962 at White City Attendance 15,594 Result 0-1
Hard to imagine that was one of the grounds used in the 1966 World Cup. Only ever went there for the greyhounds...
I was eight, so I didn't know a lot different, but it was a bit weird in such a big stadium and being so far from the pitch.
They need to move more World Cup games to random places because of small events double booking stadia. The Asian equivalent of the Europa League final is in some tiny ground because the main arena in I think Singapore is booked for a Lady Gaga concert.
I saw the England 1966 team play an all-stars team back in the late 70s there, went to the dogs a few times too
Shows what a huge stadium it was, went to Speedway and banger racing a few times back in early 70's..... we really missed a trick in not buying it and relocating when the BBC nabbed it as part of their expansion.....
It's a sad reflection of our times that once there were 17 greyhound stadiums and 12 speedway teams in London there is now only one at Romford. I regularly went to the dogs with my dad at Stamford Bridge and later with workmates at Catford, Wimbledon and White City. For many years I followed the Wimbledon Dons speedway team but also went to Wembley, West Ham and Hackney which was the best track for racing with it's banked bends. In the late 40s and early 50s speedway was the 2nd biggest spectator sport in the country with regular 20,000+ crowds. Whenever I go to a motor sport event and smell the methanol it brings my teenage years back...
Why do you think it has collapsed in popularity? Used to be a staple of World of Sport, Grandstand and Sportsnight. My kind of brother in law used to race as a hobby in the Nineties.
In both greyhounds and speedway the problem in London was costs and the massive rise in land value. Stadiums just couldn't draw the crowds to make either sport viable anymore. Many sites were sold to developers. Wimbledon was everything that scuppered both sports in a nutshell. Speedway went first as with many of the tracks the overheads were unsustainable. The GRA took over the lease of the stadium and the Greyhound Derby moved there but they allowed the stadium to just run down into disrepair. The last time I visited there I was shocked at how awful the place was, back in the 70s it was one of the best in London but the end came when the GRA gave up on it. The new Wimbledon football stadium was built on that site along with a lot of new apartments. TV also did for both in that top televised events deterred people from actually going to them. If you watch the World Championship Speedway Grand Prix the filming and race format is a different world from the old days and some of the racing is truly spectacular, all at the push of a button...
