Chairman Steve Parish reflects on FA Cup Final victory
Chairman Steve Parish spoke to Palace TV after Crystal Palace lifted their first-ever major trophy, defeating Manchester City 1-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.
On how it feels to be FA Cup winners…
Incredible. Incredible. And I think we deserved we deserved it for how incredible this group are: the fans, the history, the times we've been denied, I think we deserved it – it was our time. It felt like our time.
You always maybe knew something would happen, but everything went our way. Dean had the most unbelievable performance. All of them were just incredible, so it feels good.
Every person that's come to the Football Club has taken us somewhere.
I remember when Dougie came here, my energy was quite low. Dougie came and he lifted me, he lifted everybody – he's got to take an enormous amount of credit for this as well – and then Oliver's come and he's taken us to another dimension where he believes we are going to win ,we are going to hold out for the last 10 minutes, we are going to win a trophy, we can go to Europe.
He's instilled that belief in what is an outstanding group, and everybody did believe. I think the fans believed, and it does make a difference when you get in those difficult moments... penalties get missed, or we give away a penalty in this game, that's when the fans don't miss a beat.
I think that all comes from the manager. I have to say he’s smashed through a glass ceiling that this team hasn't been able to do for 160-odd years, so all credit to them, all credit to the players, to the manager, Dougie, all the work that's been done.
On his heart rate during 10 additional minutes…
It was exactly 112 [bpm]! I was looking at it on my FitBit, it gave me something to do! And then at 91 minutes I was like it's 10% gone, and then 92 I was ‘it's 20% over’. It was tense but the last-ditch defending was incredible and I just felt we were going to be okay, I really did. You can't describe that feeling.
I watch a lot of games and I really did think that we'd get through to the end. We did and it was just a magical moment for the supporters, for friends, family, my partners, just a culmination of 15 years of graft and effort by a lot of people to get us here.
On the club’s journey over the last 15 years…
I was actually thinking more about my journey with the FA Cup and how important the FA Cup was in my life growing up: the one live game on television, how Crystal Palace's name is intertwined with the FA Cup – woven into it, we were in the first semi-final ever, for 20 years the Final was played on our ground. I've been thinking about that, this journey.
I've always wanted to win the FA Cup. When we lost when Ian [Wright] and Mark [Bright] were playing and Geoff Thomas and all those guys, I was heartbroken. I can go back to the semi-final [in 1976] when we lost to Southampton – I was 11 and I was bawling my eyes out.
The Cup just means so much to my generation and I think this is amazing for the Cup. Man City have won stuff, they'll win stuff again – but for us it's special, and I think what it does is every single team that starts out on that journey in the FA Cup, people maybe we’ve beat along the way, could think ‘that could’ve been us, we could have had our day at Wembley’, so I think it's an inspirational moment not just for this team, not just for South London, but I hope for football as well.
On the Crystal Palace supporters…
The fans are unbelievable. Everybody thinks they've got the best fans in the world, but we have.
We've got the least entitled, most happy, upbeat, supportive group of supporters anywhere in the world, that's my honest belief, and I think for South London this is absolutely huge.
I hope it gives everybody hope, dreams. I started life in Forest Hill just down the road from the training ground. I never imagined that I would be able to do this and be a part of it, and I think a lot of the fans never believed that this was bound for this club, so it's incredible what you can do you can put your mind to it and when you get really good people, amazing people, what you can achieve.
It's been brilliant so far – and let's keep going, Europa League next year! As Wardy just said in there [the dressing room]: this shouldn't be a ceiling, this should be a floor, that's what we should do.
On the Europa League and Community Shield…
I mean, that's incredible, right? Another game in the calendar that I never thought we would be a part of, now we are.
Europa League group games, travelling all over Europe, Palace on tour... this is stuff the fans have been dreaming about for too long, and Oliver and those boys in there and the staff have brought that to us – and congratulations to them.