Yes, Crystal Palace still have cheerleaders and it doesn’t look like they’ll be going away anytime soon. The Crystals are the group of cheerleaders that perform at every home match and have even been on This Morning with Holly and Phillip recently.

Crystal Palace are the only Premier League side that still has a cheerleading outfit and a few years back there was some controversy over this which we’ll look at later in the article.

Whilst cheerleading is seen as an American thing here in the UK, The Crystals actually started performing for the club in 2010, years before the majority of the Crystal Palace owners were American businessmen. This was shortly after Steve Parish and Martin Long had taken over at the club.

Keep reading to find out more about The Crystals and even a video of them performing.

The Crystals – Crystal Palace Cheerleaders

The Crystals is the name of the Crystal Palace cheerleaders’ dance troupe. They are a group of women aged over 21 who perform at The Eagles’ home matches and have done since their first appearance back in December 2010!

Some of The Crystals are professionally trained dancers whilst others in the group do it as a hobby. A few of the girls have even been Palace season ticket holders before they joined the troupe. Now, of course, they are all Palace fans!

With COVID disrupting fans at matches in 2020, The Crystals weren’t able to perform, obviously. But, in the 2021/22 season, they have been performing in the Palace Fanzone and returned to the pitch for the 3-0 win over Arsenal at Selhurst Park.

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You can follow The Crystals on social media here:

• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thecrystalscpfc/
• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CrystalsCPFC/
• Twitter – https://twitter.com/crystals_cpfc
• TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@thecrystalscpfc

Crystal Palace Cheerleaders Controversy

Back in 2018, there were suggestions in the media that Crystal Palace should part ways with The Crystals. This came off the back of the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) and Formula One announcing that they’d be removing the walk-on women and grid women from both sports.

As Crystal Palace then and still are now, the only team in the Premier League to have cheerleaders this has remained a hot topic in the British press. This led to the club releasing a statement in support of having The Crystals perform at home matches. This is the statement from 2018:

​​”The Crystals are a semi-professional dance troupe who have been performing at Selhurst Park for more than seven years and contribute to the unique atmosphere inside the stadium, which is widely recognised as one of the best in the Premier League.

“They also raise substantial amounts of money for good causes throughout the year. We are proud of our association with them.”

The fact that Crystal Palace still have cheerleaders in 2022 shows that they continue to support them. As was reported in 2018 in the inews.co.uk article, there were videos and images of the women in bikinis. However, this isn’t the case now in 2022 so there’s clearly been some dressing room changes over the years.

As we mentioned earlier, in 2021, they even appeared on the popular ITV show This Morning to perform a routine that you can watch below.

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Back in October 2021, the new Crystal Palace training ground for the academy was opened. Former Palace academy graduate and current England manager, Gareth Southgate, did the honours of officially opening the training facilities.

This project cost the club £20m and has been possible with the investment from the new Crystal Palace owners since 2015. The plot of land which is opposite the first team training ground Copers Cope Road in Beckenham was bought in 2018. Planning permission was granted in March 2020 and it took 19 months for completion. Still to be built is the medical rehabilitation centre which will feature hydrotherapy pools.

Keep reading to see what the facilities have to offer and what Southgate and Parish had to say in the academy opening speeches.

Drone Fly-through Video

As you can see in the drone fly-through video the new facilities are full of state-of-the-art equipment. Here is a list of what is available now for the Crystal Palace academy players.

• Players’ dining room & recreation room
• Private offices
• Chairman’s office
• Open plan work area with a terrace
• Boardroom
• Classrooms
• Analysis room
• State of the art gym
• 13 changing rooms
• 4 full-size hybrid pitches, one is a show pitch
• Full-size 3G floodlit pitch
• Indoor dome with full-size 3G pitch & viewing gallery
• Medical rehabilitation centre with hydrotherapy pools

You can see this impressive new training ground in the video below.

Comments from Parish & Southgate

Here is what Palace co-owner and Chairman, Steve Parish and England manager Gareth Southgate had to say in the official press release.

Steve Parish

“The new Academy will have a transformative effect on the future of the football club and the local community, not only enabling us to attract and retain the best players in one of England’s richest footballing areas but also to help scores of young people and local schools enjoy the facilities.

“We will also be able to offer a comprehensive educational and player care programme, ensuring that even those players who don’t make it have an improved set of life choices. Outside of football, the classrooms, together with our Foundation, will be used to run evening classes, enhancing the educational and life choices of young people in south London.

“Gareth was a pivotal part of creating the current academy system and his success is testament to the type of person and player this club strives to produce. He is an immensely proud part of our history, and we also hope we can produce some home-grown talent to help England win a major tournament.

“It is fitting that he should open our new facilities to mark this monumental step forward for our football club.”

Gareth Southgate

“Crystal Palace have always had a philosophy of producing home-grown players and have a hotbed of talent to choose from in south London. As a young player, they instilled in me a toughness, adaptability and resilience that was important throughout my career.

“I was delighted to be asked to open the club’s fantastic new Academy facilities, which are a world apart from the conditions I remember as a young player here, and an investment for the future.

“I am impressed by the club’s vision to develop well-rounded, educated individuals with good life skills who can be role models in the community, as well as technically gifted young players who can excel on the pitch”.

It’s also worth watching the opening speeches from both Parish and Southgate at the official academy opening ceremony. Southgate discusses his 10 years at Palace and Parish details how this is going to benefit the club and the local community. Below is the video so you can watch it for yourself.

When Eagles Dare is the Crystal Palace documentary that went live on Amazon Prime in 2021. The documentary is five episodes long each being 50 minutes each. The documentary covers a lot of Palace’s recent history starting with the financial troubles in 2010 which led to Steve Parish, Martin Long, Stephen Browett, and Jeremy Hosking becoming the majority owners of Crystal Palace F.C.

The main focus of the documentary is on the Premier League promotion battle in the 2012/13 season and all the drama that went on behind the scenes. This underdog story makes for a great sports documentary not just for Palace fans, but all football fans too.

Palace fans will remember this period well and as it has been out a while there are already reviews of it. As we only launched wesupportthepalace.com in January 2022, we’re a bit late with our When Eagles Dare review. But, here it is now!

Our Review of When Eagles Dare

We’ll start by saying that it’s refreshing to see more documentaries about clubs outside of the top 4 or big 6 nowadays. Sunderland ‘Til I Die is another great series and we’re not Sunderland fans so when I first saw the trailer for When Eagles Dare it gave me goosebumps. Here it is to give you a teaser.

It isn’t one of Amazon Prime’s All or Nothing documentary series like with Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur as it features never seen before interviews from the 2012/13 season. It also has interviews of current and former players as well as staff from the club. For us, this is what makes it great as we’d never seen these old and new clips of Steve Parish, Dougie Freedman, Ian Holloway, other staff, and some players.

It’s also insightful to understand what was going on in the minds of the players when key incidents occurred like Dougie leaving his managerial role to join Championship rivals Bolton Wanderers. The documentary shows how football isn’t always about having the best players, sometimes all you need is a strong team togetherness, that resembles a family environment.

A great example of this is how players like Damien Delaney turned his career around at Palace after debating retirement before this opportunity. Also, his relationship with Peter Rammage was something special for everyone to see.

The documentary focuses on a few key areas over the five episodes. These are the battle of saving the club from the brink and then how Parish managed to run it and turn around its fortune without a lot of capital.

Then, the Dougie freedman departure is another big focus, but it’s great to see his view on the events then, and obviously, he’s now back at the club as the Sporting Director trying to make up for his decision to leave back in the middle of the 2012/13 season. You can tell from the recent interviews in Wehn Eagles Dare that he’s a man with regret and his focus now is helping Palace become as prosperous as possible in this new role.

Then, the man, the myth, the legend that is Ian Holloway enters the fray to deliver some great one-liners and speeches. He’s a manager that all football fans warm to and his part in this story just makes it that bit better, it’s as if it was written.

For the final two episodes, the focus then turns to the Championship play-off games. Palace and Brighton have been rivals since the 1970s so meeting them in the Playoff semi-finals was written in the stars. Only one of the two teams could progress to the final which would make the win even sweeter for the winning team. It’s great to hear Zaha’s view on this as well as Glenn Murray’s who played for both sides in his career.

Palace met Watford in the final and all Eagles fans know how that went. Now, you get to hear from the potent striker Kevin Phillips to see how he became a club legend. But, it wasn’t only him, Jedinak and Speroni are two players that were and still are synonymous with the club, especially in this period. 

When Eagles Dare Review Summary

When Eagles Dare is a football documentary for Palace fans first and foremost, but it’s also a series for those that love an underdog story. The fact that Crystal Palace were filming throughout the 2012/13 season has made this possible, but Amazon purchasing the rights helped to increase the audience.

All football fans of Championship sides, League One and League Two will be dreaming of a similar story for their team. That’s why it’s not just for Palace fans it’s there to give hope and also share the experience that happened during these years at the club.