Monday, January 12, 2015

Crystal Palace

I've recently starting watching the English Premier League now that NBC is showing the games on Saturdays. I've always been a soccer fan, but until NBC picked it up, those games aired on Fox Soccer channels that are not carried by my cable system.

Anyway, I had never seen a game at Crystal Palace before--a team from South London. I had no idea that their tradition is to sing the song "Glad All Over" by the Dave Clark 5 every time they win. It was so cool to hear a stadium of 50,000 or so fans screaming this song at the top of their lungs. This morning I looked up the background of that tradition. From Wikipedia...
"Crystal Palace Football Club adopted the song as their anthem in the 1960s. It is played at the start of all home games, and after full time (when Palace win). The chorus is played after home goals, before the goalscorer's name is read out. It is also sung by fans as a chant. On Saturday 10 February 1968 The Dave Clark Five played "Glad All Over" live at Crystal Palace's home, Selhurst Park. A cover version, sung by the squad at the time, was released as part of their FA Cup run (where they reached the final of the competition) in 1990."