Doomsday time

90 minutes to survive in the Championship. 90 minutes to survive full stop?

I wasn’t sure whether to write anything before Sunday, knowing full well that tempting fate is not really something I want to be doing, however I guess it was as much getting the nervous tension out as much as anything. Incredibly, I’m sure this piece will get even more melodramatic before it’s over, but if nothing else this will be an outpouring of honesty.

As a football fan, I think you tend to get a little carried away that the entire world cares about the game as much as you do. As a football fan, I think you also get a little carried away in your belief that all those other fans out there will be as fixated with the particular fixture that to you, seems like life and death. Come Sunday a great percentage of the English footballing world will have their eyes trained on Anfield and then the Stadium of Light where the fate of the Premiership title will be effectively decided. Others, like those in Blackpool and Swansea will have their thoughts firmly on games which will go some way to decide who will be earning the opportunity next season to face whoever walks away with the Premier League title.

However much as I’m biased, much as I have a personal (and indeed at some level a financial) stake invested in the game that is taking place at Hillsborough I think most people out there would admit that the 90 minutes that Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace are about to go through tomorrow could be the most dramatic of the season. For both clubs, Championship survival is on the line. For one team however, its very existence could be on the line.

Over the coming weeks on this blog, you will hopefully see a few different pieces from fans giving you their thoughts on how their clubs season has gone for them. When it comes to anything I might write, obviously what happens after about 3 o’clock on Sunday will set a lot if its tone, but right now I’ve got enough twists and turns, ups and downs and mixed emotions to fill a War and Peace like entry.

It’ll be hard to know where to begin, but the final destination in a season that could loosely be filed under ‘t’ for turbulent, trying and traumatic is Sheffield and a make or break, winner takes all, relegation (or survival, but I said I’d try not to tempt fate) six pointer. Sheffield Wednesday needs a win to maintain their place in the division. Crystal Palace need just a point for safety. When you put it like that, read it on paper, it seems quite simple, all they (and I suppose I should be honest at this point as if you didn’t already know and say all ‘we’) need is a point, one point, a draw and they stay up, that’s all we need. Yet if this season has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is simple and nothing should be taken for granted.

In the blink of an eye a potential playoff and promotion push can give way to a desperate fight for survival. In the beat of a heart, a financial situation that most knew was ‘tight’ was actually revealed to be disastrous. As quick as the wind can change, so can a team’s fortunes. I’m approaching this from a Crystal Palace supporter and season ticket holder’s point of view, but if you ask a few hundred thousand in South Yorkshire for their feelings I’m sure you’d get something similar. This game is massive for them to.

But then maybe this is where it comes back to the fact that, as I said, as a football fan, you always think that the position that your club finds itself in is just that little bit more noteworthy, that little bit more important, and on Sunday I’m afraid, that couldn’t be more true.

Two days before the game it’s not exactly the best kind of preparation to hear that the club is officially, just a shade under £30 million in debt, but that’s the truth of the matter, and it hurts. It hurts you as a fan that the money and seemingly unyielding support that you show to a club can be so routinely abused by people that appear to lose all common sense, business acumen not to mention honesty, decency and integrity as soon as they enter the sport. It hurts and embarrasses you as a fan to think that the club you support is prepared to run up a debt of £16,000 to a voluntary organisation like the St. John’s Ambulance in pursuit of god knows what. It hurts you as fan to think that after a last game of the season that the club that you support may no longer exist.

In the past I have written that football clubs, if nothing else, have a remarkable, cockroach like ability to survive in even the most bleak of times, when it seems that for the entire world that the game is up. However if so many sail so close to the wind time and time again, then the reality is that sooner rather than later one could drop off the edge.

Such is the speculation at the moment around Crystal Palace. It’s often hard to find real information at times like this but the facts appear to be that the club is in administration and doesn’t have the funds to operate for more than another month. A consortium of local businessmen are reportedly interested in a deal to buy the club but there is still nothing concrete on the table, with a major issue being the club’s stadium being owned by another party for near on 13 years now. It doesn’t help when the company that owned the ground also went into administration.

A fire sale of players, sacking staff, cutting all conceivable running costs, all can raise money in the short term, but don’t address the fundamental issues – the club needs a buyer and a takeover just to cover its running costs and overheads, let alone to make it competitive. If one isn’t found soon, then there won’t be a club left to takeover. Palace aren’t alone here, other clubs face the same issue, Stockport County for example also seem on the brink of the financial abyss.

Unsurprisingly, many are highlighting Sunday’s game as a crucial step in any moves towards the survival of the club. A drop in television revenues and the other costs incurred through relegation, it’s argued will be too much to take and will have a significantly negative impact on any potential takeover. You can see the point, a win on Sunday, retention of Championship status will give the whole club a lift but the real battles are still to be fought away from the pitch.

The stakes then do not appear to be higher, and as such emotions are running high. In the build up the chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, Lee Strafford has had some very strong comments; that he believes Crystal Palace should have already been relegated as soon as they entered administration. Maybe he’s right. Maybe overspending your means, chasing the dream when other teams play by the rules should result in a punishment.

Fundamentally stopping clubs ‘financially doping’ is something that I support, however given what’s coming up on Sunday, given the club I support’s precarious predicament, I’m afraid I’m going to have to kop out of any detailed discussion on that for now and try to focus on what looks set to be a dramatic, stomach churning, emotional 90 minutes. What happens after that, I can’t tell you. All I can say is we’ve reached cross your fingers and hope for the best time. Be it in the Championship or indeed League One, I just hope I’ve still got a club to support.