Joel Ward Crystal Palace Switch Crest to 1861
joel ward crystal palace changed its crest in June 2022, replacing 1905 with 1861 after revising the club’s founding year. The move put the club’s history in public view and tied its branding to a founding claim that would push Palace into a different place in English soccer’s record book.
Peter Manning and Palace at the Palace
Peter Manning’s 2018 book, Palace at the Palace: A History of the Crystal Palace and its Football Club, argued that Crystal Palace were founded in 1861. His research persuaded the club to officially rewrite its history books six years ago, and by 2020 Palace were claiming to be the oldest club in the Premier League and professional soccer.
That claim is bigger than a new date on a crest. If Palace were founded in 1861, they would be four years older than Nottingham Forest, which were established in 1865, and they would sit ahead of every other club across the four divisions and 92 clubs that make up English league soccer. They would also be older than Notts County, long recognised as the oldest professional club on the planet.
Crystal Palace Crest Change
Before the switch, Palace had formerly placed their year of establishment in 1905. The revised crest replaced that number with 1861 in June 2022, making the club’s public identity match the historical argument it had already adopted internally.
The case still draws pushback. Mark Metcalf and Clive Nicholson described the 1861 claim as “slightly absurd” and said it was “ultimately reduced to a short note in 1906 in the CPFC club handbook” and “appears never to have been mentioned again anywhere by CPFC [until] very recently”. They also added: “It is possible to forget your own history but that really is a serious memory lapse.”
Nottingham Forest and Notts County
The comparison with Nottingham Forest is the sharpest test of Palace’s new line on its past. Forest returned to the Premier League in 2022 after a 23-year absence, and their 1865 founding date still leaves them behind Palace’s 1861 claim by four years. Aston Villa add another layer to the argument: they were founded in 1874 and were one of the 12 clubs that created the English Football League in 1888.
Palace’s disputed origin story rests on a link between the professional Crystal Palace side founded in 1905 and an amateur Palace team tied to the FA’s founding clubs in 1863. Before Manning’s research, it was generally accepted that the two teams were not connected. The crest change locked the club into the newer reading of its own past, while the older one remains the source of the argument around the badge.
