Crystal Palace’s FA Cup and European fairy-tale is the stuff of dreams: If only you’d been here to see it

We did it, Dad.

You know, there’s still one song I can’t sing at Palace. I try to join in every time, but the words don’t come out. A small lump forms in my throat and all I can do is mouth the song without substance.

The words to that song go:

When I was a young boy, my father said to me,
‘Listen here, my son: you’re CPFC.’
Here we are, you know us by our noise,
The pride of south London, the famous Palace boys.

In fact, I can sing the second half of it, usually, but the first bit? Not a chance. It stops me dead in my tracks.

It’s been nearly six years since Dad passed away, right at the very start of the COVID lockdown, just as things changed forever.

I wrote before how my love for sport, my work, my Palace experiences all had a big impact on me in the year after his passing.

I guess everyone has different experiences of grief, but I never expected one of the happiest moments of my life, a dream becoming reality, to be intertwined with such a feeling of sadness.

MORE: How Palace stunned Man City to win FA Cup final

We did it, Dad.

Our little ol’ Crystal Palace lifted the FA Cup. Our first ever major trophy after 120 years of existence. We qualified for European football. We achieved the fairy-tale. And yet, you weren’t here to see it.

You spend your whole life watching other teams lift trophies, how their fans react: the limbs, the scenes, day-dreaming what that’d be like for you, one day.

Who will be the player in tears on the floor? Who’ll be dancing with the fans? Who lifts the cup? And then it happens to your team and you can’t believe it’s happening in front of you.

You won’t believe half of this when I tell you, either, but here goes. I’ll run it back for you.

The start of the historic 2024/25 season, I missed the first four months as Katherine and I were travelling across Canada. I know you wouldn’t believe I’d go that long without Palace, but I watched every match regardless of the silly hours kickoffs in the morning. But in truth, I didn’t miss much. Our manager, Oliver Glasner, hit a rocky patch early in the season: we went eight league games without a win — our worst ever start to a Premier League campaign.

But by the time I’d returned before Christmas, things were starting to click; the signs of progress were there. Maybe the boys had waited until I returned to get things going, but you could sense Glasner was building something special — something that included an early Christmas present of a 3-1 away win at Brighton.

The turn of the new year saw the FA Cup begin. A competition we loved. We’d watch the draw together, praying for a big Premier League team years ago when we weren’t great, or the most random away team possible I’d then beg you to take me to to cross it off our list. Stockport County at home would be the start of this memorable run, a typical make-hard-work-of-it display from us to edge a 1-0 win. A 2-0 away victory at Doncaster followed, and then came the big one: Millwall at home for a place in the quarterfinals. I missed that game as I went blind for a couple of months (that’s a story for another day), but we battered them 3-1. You’d have loved it.

I passed a late fitness test for our quarterfinal visit to Fulham. Craven Cottage was always a must-visit for us back in the day. Win this one, and we’d be Wembley-bound. We played them off the park, a 3-0 victory; fans in that concourse were starting to believe this was our year. With our minds firmly set on a semifinal against Aston Villa, our league form took a bit of a battering, aside from a 2-1 win over Brighton to complete the double, of course.

A trip to Wembley always brings excitement, anticipation and a whole lot of nerves, but there needn’t have been any concerns given the way we played. A comfortable 3-0 win over Villa saw us book our return journey to face Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City on May 17.

The morning of that day was just like our last FA Cup final against Manchester United in 2016: excitement, anticipation and nerves truly on a different scale, and a moment to reflect on how those closest to you were missing out on the oldest cup final in the world, on Wembley. Nan wasn’t there with us in 2016; you weren’t here with us in 2025. You don’t know when your next opportunity to win a trophy will come, if ever. The thought enters my head: what if next time I don’t even have Mum here to go with? We simply have to get the job done this time.

My Crystal Palace. FA Cup champions. A trophy. A European tour to come. We bloody did it. Tears of joy. A feeling like no other and one of the best days of my life! ❤️💙 #cpfc pic.twitter.com/Ff1t99hfNp

— Dan Gibbs (@dan_gibbsyy) May 18, 2025

Off we go to north-west London, a sea of red and blue everywhere you look. Mum and I exchanging messages of support we’ve had from all our friends and family wishing us luck. It felt like the whole country was rooting for us to topple City. All I could reply to those messages was: “It’s our time.”

We met your good friend Colin and his partner Julie for a quick beer before kickoff. That helped as a distraction for an hour and, just for a moment, to forget about the magnitude of what was about to happen. As we said goodbye to them, we all got emotional as we agreed: “Let’s do it for Dad.”

It was our time. I can’t explain it. I just knew we were not going to lose that game. The belief Glasner had put into the team, into the fans. The talent we had in our squad. The players who could make the difference. The characters in the dressing room. Yes, it was still Manchester City, and yes, we’d need luck and all the rest of the miracles, but we were going to make history. And I can’t shake that frustration you weren’t going to be there to see it.

Sixteen minutes in, a fine team move results in Daniel Munoz crossing the ball and our hero of the competition Eberechi Eze guiding the ball into the bottom-left corner from the edge of the box. Cue absolute pandemonium in the stands. I grab Mum to protect her from being swallowed by the rushing fans down the stairs. We can scarcely believe we’ve taken the lead so early on.

Barely 15 minutes later and City have a penalty. We know how this story goes, right? Wrong. Dean Henderson saves the spot-kick. The noise and the roar is even louder than the goal. These are the moments when you start to think: it really is our time.

With half an hour to go, we score again. I don’t have many more of these ridiculous headloss moments left in me at this point. The voice is starting to go. This one’s ruled out by VAR and you know those final 30 minutes are going to be backs-to-the-wall stuff, desperately hoping to avoid the inevitable late City equaliser.

Added time soon arrives and 10 minutes goes up on the board. The groan from the fans is predictable, but I allowed myself to be prepared for it. Of course it was the longest 10 minutes of my life, but we were almost there.

And then. Jeremy Doku’s shot goes wide on +10, and from the resulting goal kick, the referee blows his whistle. We’ve done it. I can’t believe it’s finally happened. Everywhere you look, fans are in tears, hugging each other and jumping around; others sink to their seats in disbelief. I can’t hold back my tears any longer. I turned to my right and gave Mum the biggest of hugs. I hug Clive, your lifelong Palace friend who’s been following the club for 50+ years and was with you at the other two FA Cup final defeats. There are tears in his eyes. He’s finally seen us win something.

At that point ‘Glad All Over’ is bellowed over the tannoy. I lift your scarf above my neck and sing that song we’ve sung together thousands of times over the years, louder and prouder than I’ve ever sung anything in my life. That second “take me away” in the song hit like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I wipe my tears with your scarf as I look around and just try to soak it all in.

There are generations of fans, young and old everywhere you look, with beaming smiles, puffy-eyed from tears. Youngsters waving their flags and flapping at the balloons, some too young to realise this isn’t the normal Palace day out. There are Dads and sons everywhere refusing to put each other down because they know how special this moment is. There are those in their 70s and 80s looking utterly exhausted, knowing a lifetime’s worth of following their club through the good times and the bad has all been worth it. They’ve seen Palace win a trophy.

I think back to the last match you ever attended, Palace’s 1-0 win over Watford on March 7, 2020. Joel Ward is the only player in that squad who is still here now. He finally has a decent song after all these years:

When Joel, went up, to lift the FA Cup, we were there!

I wish you, Nan, all the fans who’ve supported the club over the years could have been there for that moment. You deserved to see that dream become reality.

So many fans have brilliant stories from that evening of celebration. For me, it was a case of getting Mum home safely and then just getting back and letting it all sink in. Arriving home around 10 p.m., I cooked a pizza, opened a beer, and raised a glass to you, Dad, before rewatching the match all over again. I had so many texts from friends, family, all your friends congratulating me as if I had played in the starting XI! It was overwhelming to have so much love and support from people knowing how much that result meant, and how hard it had been without you there.

Those few weeks and months after feel like a blur now. I read, watched and consumed every single bit of coverage and reaction to that day. Seeing friends that summer for the first time after winning and them asking how it was… all I could do was smile. I didn’t stop smiling. I haven’t stopped smiling. It’s hard to put into words what it means.

Dynamo Kyiv (A) in Lublin. The first of hopefully many European trips! #19Games #PositiveEmotions #cpfc pic.twitter.com/y3lDLjGXIS

— Dan Gibbs (@dan_gibbsyy) October 3, 2025

Of course, we now had Europe to prepare for, and a Community Shield.

How many times have we watched the season opener with the likes of Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Chelsea? Here we were, raising the curtain against Liverpool, another trip to Wembley… another trophy.

A European tour awaited, the stuff we’d always talked about and dreamed of. It started in typical Palace fashion: only we could be relegated from a European league without even kicking a ball. But that, too, is a story for another day.

Of course, only Palace’s first European trip would be on the border of a war zone, landing on the runway to tanks and air defence systems either side.

All those times over the years you see fans out in the local square, singing songs, draping their flags in bars, following their team in Europe. Now it’s our turn.

It was everything I dreamed of and more. That trip to Lublin, Poland will stay with me forever. We sang songs about Palace being 19 games unbeaten, about being invincible, about winning the FA Cup, about being in Europe. If only you could have seen it.

As I head out to Strasbourg for the next European adventure I still have to accept I’m doing all of this without you, and it hurts. It was our dream and it doesn’t feel right or fair to be doing it without you. 

I always knew our time in the spotlight would come: we’d win a trophy, we’d have that European adventure… but not for one second did I imagine you wouldn’t be here for it.

But I’ll grip your scarf tightly, hold it aloft in every city I visit, and just maybe, one day, I’ll be able to sing properly once again those 17 words:

When I was a young boy, my father said to me,
‘Listen here, my son: you’re CPFC.’