Eagle iRobot: a futurist’s view of Crystal Palace

Never mind the youth academy and searching the lower leagues for talent… Tony Matthews says technology is the answer to Palace's talent crisis

I bet the boffins in the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre laughed to themselves when they decided to call their studies into the robotic future the Sigma and Delta scans. They could have called them the Eric and Ernie scans or the Derek and Clive scans, but that wouldn’t have sounded futuristic enough, would it?

This British government study, recently reported by the BBC, reckons that within the next 50 years some too-clever-by-half types will have invented intelligent robots, and said robots will require the same rights as humans. So that knackers the idea that they’ll get on with the hoovering and make your dinner while you put your feet up. In fact you’d better prepare yourself for them to rise up and slaughter you in your beds, cos that’s what the silvery-sods always do in the films, whihc is not a pleasant thought although it won’t stop the technomuppets from inventing them will it?

Microsoft’s Bill Gates might want to make robots a reality, but for many of us they conjure up all kinds of unpleasant images, from Rutger Hauer’s malevolent replicant putting the fear of Noades up us in Blade Runner to Will Smith’s battles in I Robot to Woody Allen’s stuttering little service droid in Sleeper. But amid all these nightmarish science fiction visions, one of the most obvious practical applications for robots could be for Palace to build themselves an artificially intelligent footballer.

What we’re after here, is a number 8 with a tackle like Iron Man, the precision passing trajectory of a laser guided missile and the pace of a T1000 model Terminator. And we haven’t had one of those since Geoff Thomas.

Fortunately, Eagle Eye can reveal that Palace is at the forefront of developing such technology and, if the work of the Selhurst Park CyberTechBoffinLab bears fruit, we may at last see a little bit of steel added to our midfield. Professor Kitt Syborg, the enormously clever chap who is head of research and development at the CPFC laboratory, is aiming to produce a complete player, one that combines the loyalty and ability to do as it is damn well told of a Cyberman with the aerial ability and clinical finishing of a Dalek. Unfortunately, Palace chairman Simon 'I'm only human' Jordan is being a bit tight with the old purse strings and so far professor Syborg is trying to create such a being out of two packs of Bacofoil, a set of corner flags, some rubber bands, a pair of Clinton Morrison’s old silver boots and a tin of WD40.

The first question for someone producing an artificially intelligent footballer is ‘how artificially intelligent does it have to be?’ The answer, it seems, is ‘not very’ or to put it into a complex scientific formula ‘short planks to the power of 2 = professional footballer’.

Despite having one or two screws missing, Professor Syborg says Palace are on the verge of a major breakthrough and should soon be able to put a microchip into Clinton Morrison’s shoulder (which should balance him up quite nicely) but Palace are experiencing teething troubles with a model called an iKuqi because they can’t get the clunking great feet right and it keeps tripping over itself. The real development work, though, is being saved for a new Roboforward called Tommy Klangley, who looks like a cross between an ordinary household dustbin and Tweekie from Buck Rogers… and plays like one, too.

While Palace struggle to finance their robot player programme, stinky rich clubs like Chelsea and Arsenal are already well advanced in their plans for a futuristic future. The Arse have developed an indestructible robot that is capable of shape shifting and time travel ready to turn out on the right wing. By contrast, Palace’s left back, who may one day be called upon to face such a terrifying machine, is made out of an old Whitehorse Lane End urinal, a pram wheel, and the hose attachment from a 1970s Electrolux vaccuum cleaner. ‘We’re pretty certain Palace’s new left back will suck,’ said professor Syborg.

First impressions – an Eagle Eye editorial, March 1, 2007

Last month this column concluded with a few thoughts about the wider problems faced by football clubs outside the elite super-club bracket i.e. all but three of them, or four if you want to further delude Liverpool into thinking that they have somehow kept up.

The rest of the premiership and the bulk of the championship now form a rump of large to medium sized clubs for whom opportunities to develop, grow and be successful have all but disappeared. This has been staring us in the face ever since the Premiership was introduced, but suddenly internet message boards around the country seem to be buzzing with the sound of disillusionment.

To cover all of football’s ills in one article would be impossible but there are a few examples that we feel illustrate the sorry state that the sport now finds itself in. We’ll say right from the start that we believe that football should be a sport first and foremost and we are well aware that that is at odds with the prevailing attitude of just about everybody in this country, even many fans.

Football as a competitive sport at the top level is dying. We don’t want to sound like old gits harking back to the days when Ipswich or Southampton could win the cup or end up in a futile debate about whether Henry and Rooney are better than Peter Osgood and George Best, that’s not the point. The problem for many football fans is that there’s increasingly no point in attending. Our clubs can’t possibly win; players, managers and chairmen are distanced from supporters and the whole sport is in thrall to a ravenous media that feed the demands of a handful of rich men running the sport as their own personal fiefdom regardless of what the game’s governing bodies might think.

The role of the Football Association, as the game’s supposed guardian, is feeble and undemocratic. It has cowered before the big clubs for so long that the whole sport is being undermined and the national team is in danger of becoming an irrelevance.

We have reached a point where so vast are the squads belonging to the big four that they can afford to keep international players in waiting, such as Shaun Wright-Phillips, just for the occasional appearance (he was in many people’s view bought solely to prevent another club from having him). Clubs like Arsenal can field second XI teams filled with internationals for league cup games only and can fill the championship with loan players, all of whom contribute to a distortion of fair competition. They have even been known to field under strength teams in league games, regardless of how this might distort competition for European places or the relegation battle.

The result is that an increasing number of supporters couldn’t give a toss anymore. It’s not just at Palace that you hear people talking about walking away. What’s the point of a sport with no competition?

If at Palace we were now to build our finest team since the late 70s or early 90s, how long would we be able to hold it together? Many are talking about youngsters such as Victor Moses, John Bostock (who at 14 was being linked with approaches from Old Trafford and Barcelona) and James Dayton. If they do realise their potential we might get £10m for them, like Southampton did with Theo Walcott, but the chances are that Palace fans won’t get to enjoy them play for very long.

There’s a feeling among long-term supporters that they don't even particularly like football anymore. High ticket prices to watch disinterested ‘superstars’ who earn more in a month than many of us will earn in a decade has produced a miserably negative perception of the game. It’s no longer about eleven against eleven, it’s about hundreds of millions (of pounds) against teams that have virtually nothing.

While we can all see this happening, it is very difficult to do anything about it. A Leeds United supporter recently posting on one of his team’s forums asked how fans had allowed this to happen to the game. More to the point how could we stop it? How could we prevent the hijacking of the game, the high ticket prices or Sky tv’s charges? If we don’t pay there are others who will.

Is there a revolution coming? Man Utd supporters recently boycotted buying programmes and pies at Fulham in protest at the £45 they were being charged to get in. It would be easy to mock, but this happens to them wherever they go because they are the ultimate ‘category A’ game. If they stop going it will have no effect because others will take their place but at lower levels there isn’t anyone to replace those thinking of staying away from a club like Palace – if fans don’t turn up it just makes the problem worse.

Regular supporters who go to the games are more disenfranchised than ever. Witness the recent decision by the BBC to screen the Plymouth v Watford FA Cup quarter-final at 6pm on a Sunday evening. That has everything to do with what television wants and screw the people who follow Watford week in week out, because they don’t matter. All that does matter is money, money and more money.

Our only recourse, and a couple of us are having a think about how we might do this, is to appeal to the government. In most industries, such as energy, the media and many others there are regulators empowered to ensure that markets remain fair and open to competition and that consumers’ interests are protected. So why not in football? Why should four clubs and one broadcaster in particular have such a stranglehold on the national game, our game?

Football has a major cultural and social role to play that is in the national interest. The self-interest of people such as Roman Abramovich, David Dein, Peter Kenyon, Arsene Wenger, Alex Ferguson, Malcolm Glaser and those who run the FA Premier League is counter to that, it has gone too far.

Level playing fields and how to create them

Football, eh? What’s the bloody point? Four teams have all the money and all the players and the rest of us might as well pack it in. What can be done to make the game more interesting as a contest and even things up a little? Tony 'Robin Hood' Matthews has been putting his brain to the matter

1. A level playing field should only be allowed for teams who are level to start with, therefore from 2007-08 every football stadium in Britain will be fitted with a hydraulic lift underneath each end of the pitch that can be raised or lowered to ensure that Man U, the Arse, Chelsea and the Scousers have to play permanently uphill at a 45 degree angle. Obvious really.

2. Adapting the ‘draft pick’ idea from American Football, our version will see fans of every club vote for their worst player of the season. That player then transfers to the club immediately at the opposite end of the league. For example, if Joe Bloggs is Torquay’s (92nd place) worst player then he must be transferred to and played by Manchester United (1st place) for the following season (playing him is compulsory). Torquay in return get Cristiano Ronaldo. Wrexham’s worst player will go to Arsenal and they'll get Thierry Henry in return and so on throughout the league. This has the advantage of giving the best players to the worst teams and the worst players to the best teams. Man Utd's customers will enjoy having the worst player in the whole league playing for them as it will give them an idea of how it feels to be a proper football fan.

3. Prize money should be switched around so that the least money goes to the champions and the most money goes to the team in last place. Admittedly, the battle for 17th place could take on an interesting edge as the losers will get more money than the team finishing just above, but it should keep the season alive to the very end.

4. Champions League teams have to enter the league cup at the first round, while those at the bottom of the league get byes to the third round. If you’re good enough you can play in every round. Arsenal should be made to play FA Cup replays even if they win the first game, just to hack off misery guts Wenger.

5. Referees will be instructed that all appeals for penalties against Man Utd, the Arse, Chelsea and the Scousers will be given regardless of whether it really was one or not. Was-it-over-the-line? type decisions will always be given in favour of the lowest placed team and not to the rich bastards.

6. Fines will be instituted for any Man Utd, Arse, Chelsea or Scouser player wearing a headband, gloves, coloured boots or sporting a stupid haircut (i.e all of them). A panel of people with very good taste (mostly comprising members of the Eagle Eye team) will decide on appropriate points deductions (expect these to be extremely harsh).

7. The ‘gloryhunter’ problem will be solved by forcing the likes of Man U to pay half of all future revenue to the gloryhunter’s proper home town team. Therefore if Man U charge, say, £30 to get in but the tourist is from Devon, then 50% will go to Exeter City or Plymouth Argyle, which should have been his intended destination in the first place. A donation will also be made to medical research to help develop artifical backbones for gloryhunters.

By far the greatest team?

Some statistics appear to prove that Palace are useless, but we say they're the greatest team ever. So who's right? It must be us, surely! Tony Matthews sets the record straight on CPFC’s place in the world

For no apparent reason, The Times has produced a statistical chart of the 'greatest ever' team, which has Palace lolloping along in a princely 62nd, some way behind the Seaweed (you see it has taken on a surreal quality already).

The chart seems to be based on the number of points per game won in the top flight (old first division and new fangled Premiership) which strikes me as a bloody silly way of working out the mark of a great team. Since when has winning games been the primary object of football?

There's clearly a cultural imbalance here, because The Times is labouring under the misapprehension that Liverpool, Man United and Arsenal are the three best teams ever, whereas anybody with even half a brain would say ‘no they’re bleeding well not’. (NB: don't look for Chelsea in the top ten, they haven't been a cheque book team for nearly long enough).

If people want to think a football team is good just because it wins all the time then fine, who are we to disturb them? I guess they're the same kind of people who vote for Dire Straits or Coldplay in ‘all time greatest’ music polls instead of, say, Muddy Waters.

I would argue that the most important criteria for a truly great club is not how many cups they've bought but whether the fans know what to expect next. What we're looking for here is a club that can build hope then cruelly shatter illusions and reduce you to tears of joy or embarrassment (usually within the space of 90 minutes). In that category only one name springs to mind… Palace.

Stats can tell you anything you like, but I don't see how four teams who are directly responsible for the sterility, pointlessness even, of modern football can be in any way considered 'great'? What’s so great about clubs who have buggered up the whole sport just cos they can’t take losing? Man U, the Arse, Chelsea and Liverpool are the ultimate spoilt kids who take their ball home if you don’t let them win.

There used to be an adage that you couldn't buy success, but now it's the only way to achieve anything, but don't insult us by calling it an achievement. Chelsea may be 'champions', but let's be quite clear that it is the hollowest of 'triumphs'. What are Chelsea champions of exactly? Champions of nothing.

Palace, meanwhile, are champions of driving their supporters up the pole, of building something promising only for it all to fall down again. We're the kings of making people sigh inwardly to conceal the pain, the clown princes of proper football.

So, there you go, who best represents the greatest club ever? A club that had a fantastic day 17 years ago, and whose fans still appreciate it as the pinnacle of footballing excitement and talk about it as if it was only yesterday? Or some club which has paid a handful of mercenaries to deliver them eight or nine trophies in the last five years but now nobody can remember what they were?

Compare how miserable Arsenal were about winning the FA Cup a couple of years back, just because they came second in the league. God, their attitude stank, Bobby Robson, who presented the beautiful old trophy that day, should have chucked it down the steps at the scowling, Gallic gits. Who wants to support one of the 'best clubs' with an attitude like that?

I'd rather wait the rest of my life for one last shot at winning the FA Cup and have it be a dream come true than win the bloody thing every year but not appreciate it in the slightest. Our days out in the play-offs may not have been the height of foootballing excellence, but they were very personal to us (I’m sure the fans of many other clubs will feel the same) and we’ll cherish them forever.

So, don't give me this 'great club' crap. Here’s the proper ‘official’ best team ever table (according to how interesting a club is)

1st place: Palace – mad as March hares and we love them
2nd... Er, nobody really
...
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Equal joint permanently last: Man U, Chelsea, the Arse and Liverpool – a total waste of time, the lot of 'em.