120 Years Ago Today: Palace's major battle to become a professional league club

Last month, we saw how the Crystal Palace Company had successfully taken a huge gamble and built England’s first national football stadium in the grounds of what is now Crystal Palace Park. The new venue was the largest football stadium in Europe and, with the experience of the Crystal Palace Company in handling vast crowds, it became a national institution, hosting 20 very successful FA Cup Finals.

As the admission price to see the Final also included day-long entry to see all the attractions of the Palace itself, the world’s first major theme park, it attracted record crowds, and the Final became an unofficial national Bank Holiday.

But the Cup Final was only played on one day of the year, and the financially stretched Crystal Palace Company wanted to generate more revenue from football in its new stadium, so it fielded its amateur Crystal Palace football team, which had played on its cricket club’s pitch since the 1860s, taking on the leading clubs of the day, starting with Cup holders, Aston Villa, in 1895.

Sadly, amateur matches did not attract the crowds that the Crystal Palace Company wanted, and they looked enviously across South London to their neighbours, Woolwich Arsenal, who were then the only Football League side south of Birmingham, attracting average crowds of 25,000 to their games.

The public would only turn out for competitive games against the top sides, so the only solution was to turn the amateur Crystal Palace F.C. into a professional outfit.

Chelsea were a much wealthier club than Crystal Palace and had been set up by their owners, the Mears brothers, with the part intention of luring the Cup Final away from the Crystal Palace to its new 100,000 capacity ground at Stamford Bridge. They applied to join the professional Football League, and were immediately accepted.

The professional Football League recognised the transfer of players between clubs for a fee, which was something that the impecunious Crystal Palace could not afford, so the Palace applied to join the Southern League, which had been had been set up in 1894 as a Southern competitor to the Football League.

The Southern League was still semi-professional and didn’t recognise transfer fees, which suited Palace. It also only allowed Englishmen to play for its clubs (many of the players in the Football League were Scottish), a move which would be unthinkable today!

But what Crystal Palace thought would be an easy application, bringing England’s national football stadium with them, turned out to be just the opposite.

There was concern – particularly with Clapton Orient and wealthy new boys Chelsea also applying – from existing London members about increasing the number of London clubs in the Southern League with the risk that they would suffer lower attendances. In contrast the provincial (non-London) clubs wanted them to join!

A private meeting of existing London clubs was held in London, behind closed doors, on 2nd May, 1905, with a view to try and block any more London clubs from joining.

‘Mr. J. B. Skeggs (Millwall) was the chairman of a meeting of representatives of Southern League clubs in the Metropolitan District, held at the George Hotel, Strand, on Tuesday, the object being to discuss the situation and the applications for admission to be brought before the forthcoming annual general meeting.

'The proceedings were, of course, strictly private, but we understand on the best authority that it was decided that it was inadvisable that there should be an increase in the number of London clubs, and it was arranged to vote accordingly. The question of what is a London team was not, we believe, strictly defined.’

In the interim, Palace clearly believed that they would be elected as, 10 days prior to the Southern League AGM, they issued their new share prospectus, setting up the professional club with an initial capital of £5,000 split into £1 shares and announced that ‘Mr. J Miller, late of Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion, has been selected as trainer, and Mr. Edmund F. Goodman, late assistant secretary to the Aston Villa Football Club, will act as secretary;’ adding that 11 professionals had been signed from Midlands and Northern teams, and an application had been made for membership of the First Division of the Southern League.

Palace had earlier signed John (“Jack”) Robson as its new manager. Robson had been secretary and manager of Middlesbrough for 15 years. He knew the Football League and its players well and it was he who was responsible for signing the pool of Palace’s new professionals.

Battle lines had been drawn, and the new applications went to the Southern League’s AGM at the end of the season for resolution.

The AGM was held on 30th May 1905 and as expected of the bottom two clubs, Wellingborough resigned, and Luton sought re-election. Applications to join Division 1 were received from Norwich City, Crystal Palace, Clapton Orient (although they had already been accepted by the Football League), Leyton and Grays United. Chelsea had withdrawn their application, having successfully applied to join the Football League.

When the meeting reached the point where the election of new clubs to Division 1 was considered, each club was given the opportunity to address the meeting.

It was likely that there was concern on the part of other London clubs in the Southern League that the Crystal Palace Company, the owners of the Cup Final ground, with all their resources, would have a considerable unfair advantage and their football club would draw support away from the other London Clubs. When it came to Crystal Palace’s turn, they had to try and show that they were an independent entity – even though they weren’t!

Crystal Palace appear to have employed a high-powered barrister as their delegate, as the Norfolk News correspondent reported being invited to the chambers of the Palace delegate, E.E. Wild, after the AGM. (E.E. Wild would later become Sir Ernest Edward Wild K.C. and elected M.P. for West Ham, Upton). Palace were clearly taking the challenge seriously!

The Eastern Daily Press reported: ‘The Crystal Palace F.C. delegate wished to emphasise that beyond the relation of tenant and landlord the club had no connection with the Crystal Palace, and then dwelt on the advantages of the situation of the Crystal Palace Club’s headquarters.’

Legally, the distinction between the Crystal Palace Company and the new Crystal Palace Football and Athletic Co. Ltd. was correct – they were two separate companies – and the Crystal Palace delegate was at pains to emphasise the clear distinction between the two, even though the project was clearly being driven by the Crystal Palace Company.

In practice there was no distinction between the two. The entire Crystal Palace Football Club project had been driven by the Crystal Palace Company as part of its business plans from the outset – firstly, by its late General Manager, Henry Gillman; and then by his successor, Jesse Cozens, along with the help of Edmund Goodman and the Crystal Palace’s Director of Sport, Dr. W.G. Grace.

It was Goodman who was the prime mover behind setting up the club and putting in place an acceptable business plan and governance structure, recruiting the first directors to their new business venture.

The club’s first Chairman, Sydney Bourne, later recounted, ‘eventually, hearing of me as a keen follower of the game, Mr. Goodman approached me with a view to forming a team to play at the Crystal Palace under conditions acceptable to the F.A.

'Up to this time, I may say, my only connection with professional football had been as a spectator; but I liked the project, and to cut the story short Mr Goodman and five local enthusiasts – Messrs. Daniel, Cufflin, Walters, Black, and myself… formulated a scheme which met with the approval of the F.A. and the Crystal Palace executive, and the formation of the club was decided upon.’

The Crystal Palace Company became the majority shareholder in the professional Crystal Palace Football Club at the outset and held its shares for at least the next 45 years. It clearly saw the football club as part of the Company’s business, and not just as a tenant.

In the event, only three of the applicant clubs received any votes from the 35 delegates present at the 1905 Southern League AGM, and the London clubs appeared to have stuck to their threat of not voting for another London club.

Each club had two votes and it appeared that the other London clubs voted for Luton and Norwich – the votes cast were: Luton, 31; Norwich City, 21; and Crystal Palace, 18 – with Palace’s votes coming from the provincial clubs.

The two clubs with the most votes would take their place in Division 1, while Palace would have to be content with a place in Division 2, among the minor clubs and the reserve sides of the Division 1 teams... at least for their first season.

This was not what the Crystal Palace Company would have wanted, as the club stood no chance of attracting the hoped-for attendances of thousands – but there was no going back, and on the 30th May, 1905, 120 years ago today, they secured a foothold in the Southern League to start their professional playing life.

They would have to be content to play their first season in the Second Division of the Southern League in their new professional club colours of cardinal red and blue, very similar to today’s colours.

In their first season, 1905-06, Palace lost their opening match to Southampton Reserves but then went on without further loss for the rest of the season and were promoted to Division 1.

They would spend a total of 15 years in the Southern League before joining the expanded Football League in the 1920-21 season and it would be a total of 64 years before they finally caught up with the new wealthy club that was registered with them on the same day in 1905, Chelsea, when Palace were finally promoted to the old First Division in 1969.

It’s been a very long haul to reach where we are today. 164 years on from starting life as an amateur team which was a minor part of a cricket club in 1861, to becoming a professional club in 1905... to becoming FA Cup winners for the first time in 2025!

There’s no doubt that the club’s founding ‘parent’, the Crystal Palace Company, would have been justly proud of the present-day success of its professional football club, and the amateur Crystal Palace players who helped inaugurate the FA Cup in 1871 would be rightly proud that today’s professional players have finally got our name on that trophy.

So, give a thought today, the 30th May, when we celebrate 120 years of becoming a professional league club, to our roots at the old Crystal Palace and the efforts of our long departed ‘parent’, the Crystal Palace Company, to bring us into existence.

Without them, we would not be here today to celebrate the end of this most wonderful season in our history.

With continued thanks to Peter Manning.