A Call to Arms

Holding a photo of my Grandad at THE Final. With sunglasses on to hide the inevitable tears. Feeling a hand on my shoulder and turning to see my Dad covering his face too. We’d laid him to rest 15 months earlier to the very same song. One of our last conversations was “We’ll win something when I’m gone!”.

17th May. From morning to night. The unity, the colour, the noise. Fan-made, fan-led and a culture that was the envy of the footballing world.

Tears of Euphoria swept through.

The streets of London paved in Red, Blue and finally, Silver.

Palace is a family. A culture of those that came before and will come afterwards.

It cannot be manufactured.

@cpfcpatriot – Paul Darville

‘Other girls may try to take me away’

This hits home hard when I think about where we are now and remember me, my family and half of Wembley screaming this at the FA Cup Final.

Blake Fenwick

For me Zombie Nation was always played before games and in the build up. It’s recognisable for us in many ways. The soundtrack for Palace though should be gritty and South London. That's the identity we have lost. South London with no pride.

Adam Monk

So many to choose from but I kind of like Zombie Nation - not the one played when Simon Jordan was in charge. The version sung by the fans towards or at the end of games. It’s quirky but vibrant, energetic, joyous and so so Palace. When the entire ground was singing it just felt to me South London and proud.

@MorganMichie – Morgan Michie

When we won the FA Cup at Wembley, I was blessed and grateful to be able to share that moment with my parents. They’ve been Palace fans for a lot longer than I have, but after the heartache of 2016, it was so good to get the first-ever trophy over the line.

Peter

James are probably my favourite all-time live band. After the Cup Final, in the Pawsons around 1am, this song comes on. I’m drunk and emotional, and the lyrics ring more true than ever:

‘If I hadn’t seen such riches
I could live with being poor’

I then have the idea to put it on a flag with the FA Cup. By the time I got round to doing it, we had won the Charity Shield, so that had to go on the flag as well.

@WhyteleafeEagle – Jason

6th May 2001 – Stockport away.

At 19, recovering from tuberculosis, I couldn’t miss this crucial game. My cousin drove us in a car full of hope and fear, adorned with Hawaiian shirts and wigs. Steve Kember led the team for the final two games. The atmosphere was electric, with Palace legends Kember, Mullins, Morrison, Hopkin and Dougie on the pitch. The terrace was packed, buzzing with nervous energy, as we faced relegation. Then came THAT goal. The terrace erupted, spilling onto the pitch, celebrating a team of defiant underdogs embodying the spirit of South London. It remains one of my favourite memories of my Palace, and Clint Eastwood will always take me straight back to Stockport.

@rchinsung – Richard Chin-Sung

‘Turn the Page’ by The Streets will always mean something different to me.

Standing at Wembley with my old man, watching that tifo unfold, I had shivers down my spine. One thought running through my head: could this finally be our day?

It was. And then we did it again in Leipzig.

Two trophies later, the page has certainly been turned. But I never imagined I’d feel so disconnected from the club on the other side of it.

I thought we were starting a new chapter. Instead, it feels like someone’s written a sequel without understanding what made the original so special.

The memories will last forever. The question is whether the club I fell in love with is still in there somewhere.

@MaxCrowe19 – Max Crowe

Walking out of Leipzig as European champions was beyond anything I thought I would ever experience. Euphoria, harmony and another sense of feeling on top of the world once more.

A sea of red and blue in Saxony, in perfect unison, as we lit up the streets of Leipzig with pure elation. One of those very moments when you realise what makes this football club special and made us fall in love as kids.

The moment this song played as I walked out of the RB Arena felt like being on top of the world, and the last time the club had unity and mutual understanding between supporters.

@SelhurstExpress – Selhurst Express

2002. My first-ever Palace game, alongside my Dad, little sister and cousins. The first view of the pitch made my stomach do a backflip. A drab 0-0 draw with Portsmouth, with Paul Weller’s vocals ringing out, was the start of a love that would never die.

@George_Persona – George Mann

Takes me back to being 21 again and spending a sunny week away in a Cornwall caravan, combined with friendlies at Bournemouth, Brighton and Swansea.

In hindsight, deepest Cornwall was geographically convenient for none of the games!!! 🤣

Oh, to be 21 again!

@jane36london

Put simply, we gotta fight for the right to party.

Tough times require greater reserves of grit, determination and passion. In the words of Labi: “Something Inside So Strong”.

No resigned acceptance or throwing the towel in, please… Stand in the rain and stand in the sun, we are South London’s number one.

AJ 4 England

Maxi Jazz holds a special place at Palace: a lifelong fan, an associate director and a fundraiser for the academy. The banner 'This is my Church', adorning tifos, T-shirts and the mural at my entrance to the ground, sums up why I can’t give Palace up or give up on it.

Faithless are a band that connect my family and my club, and whenever I hear them I’m immediately transported to the FA Cup parade and celebrations on the Selhurst pitch, with so much I hold dear.

In many ways Insomnia is even better for me and my family. It’s one of my wife’s favourite songs (a season-ticket holder for 30 years, vs my feeble 20), and one my daughter and I also love.

@CR6cpfc

2010 (or ’11?).

Palace fans staying on the terrace for half an hour after the game and singing this continuously.

Born from the fight against administration.

Ruined by the club on the PA against Chelsea in 2024.

@CPal_26

It starts with seven notes. Anyone who has been to a football match in the last twenty years knows them before they know the name of the song. A riff that sounds like a bass guitar but isn’t, written by a man from Detroit, recorded in the spring of 2002 on old eight-track tape in a little studio in Hackney.

Jack White couldn’t have known what he was handing over. He wrote a song without a chorus, and the terraces of Europe gave it one.

For most people it’s a song. For me it’s a sound I can’t separate from a particular feeling: the feeling of Crystal Palace coming back from the edge, finding its voice again, and walking out at Wembley as a club that believed in itself. When I hear those seven notes, I’m not in a record shop or at a gig. I’m on the terraces, and around me thousands of people are singing that we are the red and blue army.

@PeteFenwick – Peter Fenwick

Even living some 12,000 miles away I knew something was wrong with MY club.

A Tifo for an Empty Stand articulated perfectly what that “something” was. It resonated with me and I suspect many fans who love Crystal Palace.

I love this club. I mean I f@@king love this club. This is MY club, MY people, MY family. And it’s falling apart. Not on the pitch - bad performances, relegations, disappointments, they’re just part of it - par for the course if you like. Far more worrying is what is happening off the pitch. I don’t support the club for possible success - who does? But for that “feeling”. The feeling of belonging, the feeling of being proud, the feeling of being part of something not so mainstream.

I first went to Selhurst Park aged six in 1970 with my Dad. I can’t remember the opponents, or the journey to the ground, or entering the Old Stand. But I vividly remember seeing the pitch for the first time and looking across at the, to this six year old boy at least, voluminous Arthur Wait stand. It was like a cathedral with the claret and light blue roof facade. I was in, I was ALL in.

Over the next 30 years or so I travelled all over the country with my Dad following the team. Some highs and some lows - but that was never really the point.

In 2005 I moved to Australia and because of distance and time I thought the love affair would end. I couldn’t have been further wrong. Getting up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Putting on the shirt and scarf and hat to watch the game on TV. A win and the entire day would be joyous. A defeat meant just a bloody long day!!

I managed to get a ticket for the 2025 final. I didn’t expect to win. I just wanted to physically rejoin my family, my people and create a memory.

I was six rows from the front and right next to the HF. They had formed shortly after I left England. On the 17 May 2025 I experienced them for the first time. They did not disappoint. The noise, energy and passion blew me away. That and getting the other 30000 or so Palace fans to follow is something that will stay with me for ever. I swear that result was because of the constant support for the team that they provided.

And now towards the end of 2026 that is disappearing before my eyes. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.

A Tifo for an Empty Stand put in words what I was feeling.

I hope that the powers that be will listen and not let something so precious just fade away into bland numbness.

Morgan

So many moments, but the standout was beating Liverpool 4-3 in the FA Cup semi-final at Villa Park. Incredible turnaround by our heroes from the 9-0 drubbing we’d received at Anfield a few months earlier in the same season. I remember mates being reluctant to go because another beating was obviously in the offing, but my view was that even if there was the lightest chance of doing it, I wanted to be there to witness it. What a day. Never thought it would actually happen.

There are so many others... the recent silverware, obviously, and I was at both Wembley (I cried too) and Leipzig (a 66-hour round trip for me, from Norfolk. Unbelievable). But other occasions like ‘that’ game at Stockport, Wrighty at Wembley, Hopkin looking to curl one, years earlier at Wrexham with Rachid Harkouk, Kenny Sansom et al, relegation misery midweek at Cardiff, Leeds and Sunderland away in the FA Cup run in ’76, Lublin/Warsaw - what a privilege, crappy visits to Brighton’s old grounds, Newcastle up in the gods, Mansfield away when all the buses ferrying Palace fans from the station to the stadium stopped on a dual carriageway so everyone could get out and pee against the hedge, Aldershot with a park footpath along one side 🤣. Back in the early days when you could walk right round the terraces. My very first game v Norwich, won 6-0, 16th April 1968.

So many fantastic and hilarious memories and many others I’ve forgotten about.

Peter Sansbury (sansbup)

This takes me to a vivid moment on the eve of the FA Cup final in May 2025. Friday early evening, locking up the Studio and walking up Tanner Street, turning right up Bermondsey Street towards London Bridge. Millwall territory which made it all the sweeter. A lovely light, beautiful people already spilling out onto the pavement from the many bars and restaurants. I would be back here in less than 24 hours with my two boys, to meet my sister and nephew, my friends and their sons. We would gather at Borough Market before the meet up at Covent Garden and then on to Wembley.

I put this song on as I made the 10 minute walk to the train home. It just felt perfect and although I’d never let on to anyone, it was at that moment, that 10 minute walk, that I knew, deep down, we were going to win.

It’s a song I’ve always loved. It has meant a lot to me for many different reasons during different phases of life and I’ve played it many times with my closest mates and we’ve always shared a knowing glance. It drifted around my head for the rest of that evening and the next day. The soundtrack to a dream that was going to come true.

The cup final day was, of course, incredible but there is a purity to that 10 minute walk on the evening before, a moment of realisation shared with just myself that’s as perfect as it’s got in my Palace supporting life. Caught in that moment between 40 years of watching the dream slide just out of reach and the ‘someday’ when it’s actually ‘gonna happen’. Knowing you’re in that moment is beyond precious. The Saturday was a blur, a wonderful tear-stained, sweaty, joyous blur. That Friday night is still crystal, and this song will always take me there.

Vincent

A song that takes me back to my years of being a child and my Dad taking me to Palace, usually sat in the Lower Holmesdale or the Croydon Advertiser (now Whitehorse). I remember thinking that the song was specifically written and sung for Crystal Palace due to the ‘Eagle’ reference. I remember hearing it on ‘Space Jam’ and being confused that they were playing a Palace song. This one song always takes me back to being a child supporting the club that I loved and only caring about the atmosphere, my favourite players and the result but most importantly spending special moments with my Dad.

@ArthurWaitDM – Darren

This was the song blasting from the changing room stereo after the 3-0 Villa semi-final win. Mateta was dancing around to it.

I’m not a particularly spiritual person but when I saw Mateta dancing to that song, I had an epiphany/visualisation that we were gonna go all the way and win the FA Cup. I’ve never felt anything like that before at football.

I was so sure we’d do it, I got a custom jacket made with the song lyrics ‘…’ stitched on the front and wore it to the final.

@pasta_p0cket

The unofficial anthem for our Conference League campaign last year. It seemed to be constantly playing in a lot of late-night bars frequented by Palace fans and seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

Callum

The players’ anthem for the FA Cup. Team sauce. It’s joy and it was pure unbridled joy when played after the final whistle.

@JP90CPFC – JP

Played in the changing rooms by the players themselves after the Brighton play-off victory, with Wilf’s famous ‘going Wembley mate’ line and Ollie dancing round. It had me singing and dancing along for days and weeks with my head in the clouds and chest puffed out.

And after the Villa semi-final, Lykke Li, I Follow Rivers. How this has never been made into a chant I’ll never know, but seeing the players’ joy reflecting our own with that song playing ahead of the final lives with me.

@ARPizz9 – Alex Pizzey

One song that stands out for me is Status Quo, Rockin’ All Over the World. Remember they played it after the final whistle or just after the 2004 play-off final. Was my first time seeing Palace promoted into the Prem, and thinking we’d be on MotD and in the sticker books seemed mad, truly that we would be all over the world (Palace games being on in the bar on family holidays). Not to mention memories of Hammers fans being sick on the bridge on the way back. Seems like it’s so relevant these days following us all over Europe if the party gets going again.

@Tfoster1996 – Tom Foster

I’ve shared A Tifo for an Empty Stand with my 15 year old daughter, who I have a season ticket with and who obviously doesn’t quite get all of the issues we have due to lack of reference points, but I think it’s vital that she understands the foundations.

Football has to be about more than what it has become.

@CampByName – Matt Camp

A packed pub after a game. Me, my dad, all of his mates and their families who he’d been going to Palace with his whole life. Outside the pub was a cyclist protest. One had a speaker and he was repeatedly playing Hey Jude and we sang along all night. ‘Palace!’

@SamathonM – SamCPFC

Remember this being sung on our estate (Farnborough/Orpington borders and a big Palace area) as we knew Sir Steve Coppell was close to completing that jigsaw and promotion was on the horizon. 🦅❤️💙🦅

@PaulPauljames07 – Paul

A sparsely populated Arthur, the end of Mullery, just escaping relegation to the Third Tier and the start of the Coppell Years. What am I doing here?

@Howahazil – Number 1273

I will go back to where it all started for me, in the mid-’70s on the Holmesdale terrace as a 7 year old, under Malcolm Allison, with such happy childhood memories. It has to be Power to the Palace. Still makes me emotional when I hear it on my Spotify playlist.

@hhustler7576 – Harry Hustler

This is a more recent one for me. The song was the soundtrack for my journey to Selhurst & eventually Leipzig on those European nights.

European nights… Under the lights at Selhurst Park, there’s something so romantic about it that only a football fan would understand.

The song has lyrics like ‘Hard cooking South of the river‘, ‘Feel it in my blood’ and ‘Lights burn dimmer’ and I felt so much relatable emotion to this song, as if it was encompassing that new part of our story. Whilst still a rollercoaster, I’ll never forget those nights vs Fiorentina or Shakhtar and of course that night in Leipzig.

Winning the FA Cup will always be number one for me but that European Cup final, that whole trip with my Dad, brother and friends – there are no words.

Physically I came home from Leipzig but I think I left part of my heart there.

@redandbluelew94 – Lewis Martin

Sent as a voice note. Press play to hear it in his own words, or read it below.

I thought I would send a voice note rather than a text-based message, because I think it gets across a bit more of the emotion of it.

Back in 2010, when we were very, very close to going out of business, me and my old man went up to Selhurst for the protest that was hastily organised after the board had gone on to the message boards. The very next day was the day at Lloyds. I wasn’t actually up at Lloyds – I can’t even remember why – but I was frantically refreshing the internet and watching the TV, desperately hoping we would get some sort of positive resolution.

When it happened, I walked into my dad’s office – he had an office next to my bedroom, because he’s worked for himself since I was six or seven – and very calmly, unexpectedly, told him what had happened, gave him a cuddle and was quite emotional.

The Christmas before, I’d asked for a set of Logitech speakers with something like 512 watts of power, and been indulged. They were fucking extremely powerful things, far too powerful really for my bedroom, and I only had single-pane windows at that point, so I’d never really tested the true power of them.

But just after the news had broken, Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine came on shuffle on my Spotify. I remember lying back on my bed, putting the speakers up as loud as I ever had, and just staring at the ceiling and crying, out of pure relief that it was over and it was done.

The song, at that moment, with the emotion and the timing of it, has meant everything to me ever since. As soon as I hear it, it takes me back to that summer, that feeling, and that exact moment when the resolution came through and the club was saved.

@HLTCO