Football Ground Guide: Fans Ground Review, Selhurst Park, Crystal Palace FC

Selhurst Park - Crystal Palace
Saturday, November 27th, 2010
Vs Doncaster Rovers, Championship League, 3pm
By Ryan Dunphy

I was excited about attending the game against Crystal Palace who were sitting in the relegation zone. And after taking a long five hour journey with two friends we had to be looking forward to the game.

We thought tickets were reasonably priced but for the view you got inside the ground then they seemed more overpriced than anything.

Our journey was a long tedious trek. And with spending over an hour stuck in the side streets on London we were glad to arrive at the stadium eventually, however we received no police escort nor was there any trouble or many home fans in the area that our bus parked.

We arrived quite early for the game and headed straight into the ground where we found the stewarding to be a little pushy, as well as the concourse layout to be quite confusing. A pub mentioned was the Eagle or something along that line which obviously housed home fans, I noticed no pubs bar that one around the stadium.

My first impressions of the ground were as I expected, poor and very old fashioned. Our stand in particular housed wooden and also plastic seats and areas of which look ready to be refurbished before they collapsed. One stand towards the left of the away stand was more modern and of better quality however was barely filled by home fans, much like the rest of the stadium which only gained an attendance of 13,000 for a stadium that holds around 26,000.

The game itself wasn't the most enjoyable game of the season with Palace coming out 1-0 victors in a game in which Donny deserved at least a point dominating the second half, missing several guilt edge chances. The atmosphere was hard to get going as the sound leaked from the stand as it wasn't very compact. Also home fans were pretty reserved and quiet themselves.

Getting away from the ground was a pain as traffic around Selhurst Park was terrible and unorganised, there was no trouble with home fans whilst leaving and traveling away from the stadium (apart from looking rather smug).

Although Donny were defeated the day out was generally very enjoyable (despite result) however I would recommend avoiding having tickets towards the back of the away end as the supporting pillars could spoil the view of the playing field.

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