Ian King
Ian has been
a Crystal Palace Football Club fan
as long as he can remember:
"Both my father and my mother
used to go and watch Palace
between the wars.
Then later they ran a grocery
and animal feed shop in Whitehorse Road
and the variety of things that we sold,
Palace Club used to come to us
for brooms to sweep the terraces
and for hay to feed the horses
which at that time
pulled the rollers etcetera
over the Palace pitch.
So I'd always been supporting Palace.
They'd been right down in the basement,
they'd had to apply for re-election
in the early 50s,
but they'd come back up
and 1969 was their first ever season
in the First Division.
At that time
Palace were developing
part of their ground
and they'd advertised that
if supporters would loan the club
a sum of money
they would get in return
a free season ticket
for anything between five and ten years
as a means of interest.
As a sort of leaving school present
my parents loaned the club
the required �100,
and I was given a free
new stand enclosure season ticket
for 10 years."
