Many football fans and even some Crystal Palace fans won’t know where The Eagles nickname comes from. That’s why we’re going to look at the history of it to understand why Crystal Palace are called The Eagles.

As well as other nicknames that Crystal Palace had in the past and a mascot that used to be at home games.

The Eagles Nickname

To understand The Eagles nickname, we have to go back to the early 1970s when Palace were managed by Malcolm Allison.

It wasn’t a great start to the decade as in the season of 1972/73, Palace were relegated to the second division just months after Allison had taken charge.

It was this that led to the new nickname as Malcolm Allison wanted to rebound strongly and take Palace to new heights.

So, it was then before the 1973/74 season that the club decided to change both the nickname and the kit colour. This decision was heavily influenced by Allison.

The nickname went from being The Glaziers to The Eagles and the kit went from claret and light blue to a bolder red and blue. The badge was also updated with the new eagle as the emblem.

The reason why Crystal Palace changed to The Eagles was that, at the time, the Portuguese side Benfica were one of the top teams in Europe and their nickname was Águias which translates to Eagles.

Allison wanted to replicate their success and clearly thought that having a stronger nickname for the fans to chant could help.

This wasn’t the case though as Palace were relegated again from the Second to the Third Division in the 1973/74 season.

Why were Crystal Palace called the Glaziers?

Before Crystal Palace were known as The Eagles they had another nickname which was The Glaziers. The reason that they were called The Glaziers was because of The Crystal Palace exhibition building in south London that the club was originally named after.

The football stadium on the site at Penge Place even hosted the FA Cup final from 1895 to 1914.

Sadly, this building (pictured below) burnt down in 1936 and wasn’t rebuilt. As you can see, it was mostly made up of glass, which is where The Glaziers nickname comes from. Obviously, a glazier is someone who installs glass windows in a house.

Do Crystal Palace still have an Eagle at Home Matches?

Crystal Palace did have a real-life eagle as a mascot at Selhurst Park between 2010 and 2020. Kayla was an American bald eagle that was brought to the UK for rehabilitation by the Eagle Heights Wildlife Foundation.

Kayla flew around Selhurst Park before the start of home games and became the official mascot in 2015. Here’s a video of her enjoying the Palace atmosphere.

Sadly, Kayla passed away in 2020 due to an illness and there currently aren’t any plans of a new eagle mascot waiting in the wings.

You will still find the Crystal Palace cheerleaders, The Crystals, at home matches before kick-off and at halftime though.

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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Here you have the full list of Crystal Palace managers since the club was founded in 1905. We’re going to start with Crystal Palace’s current manager, Patrick Vieira, and work our way back through the history of the club.

Below you can see the time period that each manager spent with the Eagles, how many matches they were in charge of, and their overall results.

Obviously, everywhere you see a low number of matches these were caretaker managers filling in the interim.