So here we are, the final moments of a seasn never to be forgotten – and a statue.

 

 

• Palace v Arsenal: who cares what happens – it is just a fun afternoon out.
• The last hooray: Palace on Sunday, and its all ours

By Tony Attwood

And thus we get to Crystal Palace away at 4pm, and it is on the tele as well.   

Our record against the Palace is excellent.  We have played them 60 times and won 37 of those games, which is just under 62%.  There have been 17 draws, and they have won six – which is 10%.  The series started with a 7-0 win to Arsenal in the FA Cup in 1934, and the most recent match was a League Cup game on 23 December last year.

As already noted, Palace have not won any of their last six games, drawing three.  But Palace have won two of their last ten games, and Arsenal have won eight, which seems to give the balance of probabilities to us.   But we have knocked in quite a few on occasions, including seven in a cup game in 1934, and five in three different league matches in 1969 (1-5 away), 2005 (5-1 at home), January 2024 (5-0 at home) and finally December 2024 with another 1-5 away win.

 

It makes one wish they could accommodate more away supporters, but I suppose they don’t want the embarrassment.

Their home form is not up to the scale of our away form, as you might expect.   We have won over twice as many away games as they have at home, scored half as many goals away from home as they have and have a goal difference that is 16 goals better.   So things are looking quite positive.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
15	Crystal Palace home	18	4	9	5	18	21	-3	21
1	Arsenal away	18	10	5	3	28	15	13	35

 

Palace are just finishing their 13th consecutive season in the top division, which sounds ok, but should perhaps be compared to Arsenal, who are now just finishing their 100th consecutive season in the top division.  And as you might note if you have been reading the Arsenal History Society blog, we are currently celebrating that record (no other club comes even close), by tracing our way through all 100 seasons.  The index to the guide –  is published here  –  and as I have been pointing out, because the club itself doesn’t seem to care too much, we have just won the league in our 100th consecutive season in the top division.

The last time we won the league was in 2004, and the final match then was important since that was the unbeaten season, and so we needed to win or draw that match to get the unique record.   We won 2-1, although as I recall we went 0-1 down.

This, of course, is not an unbeaten campaign – we have lost five times, although after that March / April dip in which everyone told us that the club had come off the rails and most certainly would not win anything this season, we had six games in league and cup of which Arsenal won five.   Arsenal scored eight and conceded one.  Not our best run as an attacking force, but still the defence did their job.   It would of course be nice to win today (the game is on Sky in case you ain’t got a ticket) but it won’t make any difference to the reality.  We have won the league.

And I guess it is at moments like this more than any other, that I take a moment to reflect on my tiny contribution to the club, because (as I have mentioned before, but forgive my mentioning again as I am rather proud) I was the person who suggested that once the new stadium was built Arsenal should put up statues of some of the key people in Arsenal’s past.   The Chairman thought it was a brilliant idea and asked for more details, so I said, “start with Chapman and have him looking up at the stadium as if to say “I did that”.  And that’s what they did.

So maybe today is one of those days we can spend a moment reflecting on the fact of where this club came from, and all the wonderful times it has given us.