Crystal Palace F.C. (1861)

History

The club was formed in 1861 at the Crystal Palace Park in South London, near Sydenham Hill, where the Crystal Palace Exhibition building had been relocated after the Great Exhibition of 1851. The park, which opened in 1856, included a cricket ground used by the Crystal Palace Cricket Club (founded 1857), and many of the football club's original players were members of that cricket club. The football club initially played on the cricket field in Crystal Palace Park.

Its first recorded game took place on 5 April 1862 against Forest Football Club, later known as Wanderers F.C. For the 1864–65 and 1865–66 seasons, the club moved to a field behind the Crooked Billet in Penge. The following season they were homeless, with only three games recorded in the sporting press. A match report from December 1867 noted that the club had appeared likely to become extinct due to losing their ground at Penge and the seeming impossibility of obtaining another, but that they would make a fresh start on part of the Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground.

The final game played at the Crystal Palace was against Reigate Priory F.C. on 9 January 1875; all remaining games that season and in 1875–76 were played away from home. The Football Annuals from 1868 to 1875 recorded the club as having between 60 and 70 members, typically wealthy upper-middle-class businessmen with leisure time for sport. Douglas Allport played for the club over fourteen seasons, serving as captain, treasurer, secretary and FA representative.

Walter Cutbill (1843–1915) and Arthur Cutbill (1847–1929) were prominent members, both former pupils at Forest School. Walter Dorling (1855–1925), stepbrother of Isabella Beeton, played between 1872 and 1875. Penge-born George Rutland Barrington Fleet (1853–1922), known as Rutland Barrington, later gained fame as a star of Gilbert and Sullivan productions. Francis Luscombe (1849–1926), who captained England at rugby, played for the club between 1869 and 1871.

Link to present-day club

The current Crystal Palace F.C. asserts it is the same club as the one founded in 1861, a claim based on a direct lineage proposed by two club historians involving ownership of the Crystal Palace Company. This assertion has faced opposition from other football historians and was dismissed by the Football Association following a review by the National Football Museum. In April 2022, the FA noted that most historians agree there is no clear, continuous link between the 1861 club and the one established in 1905, and it officially recognizes both foundation dates. The FA’s website further states that the Crystal Palace club present at the FA’s formation in 1863 has no connection to the modern Premier League side.