On This Day: Joel Ward signs for Crystal Palace (2012)
Before the days of flashy announcements and viral videos, a simple tweet, timed at 7.32pm, on 28th May, 2012.
There was, of course, the customary photo of Palace’s newest summer arrival with red and blue scarf, hoisted aloft in front of a vacant Selhurst Park, on news websites.
But otherwise, it was something of an understated arrival for a humble, but ambitious, 22-year-old player. Little did anyone know then what Joel Ward would come to contribute to Crystal Palace Football Club.
The Hampshire-born defender first joined Palace at the start of the club’s successful promotion-winning season from the Championship, 2012/13, and was an instant success, playing a huge role in the club’s promotion to the Premier League – including a dramatic goal-line clearance in the play-off final against Watford at Wembley.
He has been a core member of the team ever since, excelling through promotion, an FA Cup final and Palace's longest top-flight spell, taking on the club captaincy last summer.
Ward made his 300th Premier League appearance for the club in April (against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium), having already eclipsed Wilfried Zaha’s record of 291 Premier League appearances for Palace earlier this season.
Earlier this month, he was awarded the Chairman’s Award for Outstanding Contribution at the 23/24 End of Season Player Awards, and recently extended his contract with the club until summer 2025.
The story of his arrival, on this day 12 years ago, is told in the first episode of in Palace TV+ documentary When Eagles Dare, in which Ward recalls: “2012 came and I had gone up to sign for Leeds, and everything was ready to go.
“They were saying ‘another couple of weeks and we’ll get it all sorted’ and I said ‘if you’re saying that, I’m going to sign for Palace on the Monday.’
“The rest is history.”
Chairman Steve Parish added at last month’s awards: “We were sitting in this little hut we used to call our training ground office, and an agent came in with a player that Dougie was keen on.
“The player said: ‘What I really want to know is, are you really going to try for promotion? Are you going to keep Zaha at the club? I really want to come somewhere that’s ambitious.’
“I looked at Dougie and he looked at me, and we said: ‘Yeah, definitely! We’re definitely going for promotion!’
“From that moment, he bought into us and we bought into him. He’s played in so many different positions for us. He’s an amazing human being, always so open and friendly. He’s played an astonishing number of games for us. He’s such an incredible ambassador.”
And there were even more tributes to follow...
Not a bad piece of business, as it turned out.