Palace have been plunged into a TV blackout after Sky opted to show no more Eagles matches this season.
The decision leaves Palace as the only Premiership club without a single TV appearance to look forward to before the end of the campaign.
Despite our lowly league position, the plan will surely mystify most football fans. Take a glance at the current table and it’s clear to even the most myopic scheduler where the action is.
At the top, Abramovich’s Chelsea have all but sealed the title before Easter and even the Champions’ League spots seem done and dusted.
But in the basement, the battle to avoid the drop into the Championship seems certain to go right down to the wire. So, plenty of opportunity for Sky to get stuck into the relegation fight, eh?
It seems not. In fact, the Sky programmers seem prepared to go to any lengths to avoid showing Dowie’s men again this season. For instance, on the weekend of April 16/17, rather than visiting Selhurst for our crunch relegation six-pointer at home to Norwich, the Sky cameras will instead go to St Andrews for the mid-table mediocrity of Birmingham v Portsmouth.
On top of that, Palace games against three of the top five – Chelsea, Everton and Liverpool – will also be blanked.
Only one other Premiership club has been overlooked by Murdoch’s mob, and that’s Middlesbrough. However, they have at least one more guaranteed telly date to look forward to in the UEFA Cup.
Boro aside, every other Prem club will be on Sky at least once. Chelsea will have six of their remaining ten matches shown – though not Saturday’s clash with Palace – while our immediate rivals will all be shown at least twice more (Norwich and Southampton twice, West Brom three times).
There is, however, still some chance for armchair Eagles to see the team on TV this season. The current Sky schedule covers pretty much the whole season, but the last fortnight is still undecided. So, our match at home to Southampton or the curtain-closer away at Charlton could still be broadcast.
But the only chance of those games ending up on the box is if Palace are still in danger of relegation at that point. So, in one way, here’s hoping we don’t see the red-and-blues on TV again until we kick off next season’s Premiership campaign!