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 Palace Echo first hit the streets of
South London (la! la! la!) for the first time on 14 January 1995, a 2-0 home
victory over Leicester.
Palace had just gone nine league games without scoring and the win over
Leicester came as great relief and a nice coda to the launch of the new
fanzine.
Its origins, however, lie with one of the most popular and well-respected
football fanzines of all time - Eagle Eye. "Eagle Eye (incorporating
Palace Echo)" was first published in the autumn of 1987 by founding editor
John Ellis.
 Many people assumed that Palace Echo was another
similar publication that had merged to form Eagle Eye, in fact, the title was a
joke about the lack of a roof on the Holmesdale (i.e. when we get a roof,
they'll be an Echo), which was a central theme for the early issues.
Eagle Eye became one of the most respected and popular of Football Fanzines,
commanding a wide readership not confined solely to Palace fans. Eagle Eye
became as synonymous with Palace as Wright and Bright during the late 80's and
early 90's, much to the chagrin of former Chairman, Ron Noades. "Uncle
Ron" was oft quoted as wondering, (without any hint of irony) where all
the money went from the sale of fanzines, accusing editors of taking from the
game without putting anything back. Even so, he still kept a full set of issues
in his office draw.
Eagle Eye's strength was its large editorial squad and high quality
contributions. Given the strength of talent on the books and the level of
sales, Eagle Eye had the resources to underwrite free balloons, away travel,
replica old-style shirts (long before the club saw the potential), annual
five-a-side competitions, games against other fanzines, charity events and the
like. The Eagle Eye team also featured in a Sky Sports documentary in the first
season of the Premiership entitled "Palace Jesters".
Their two greatest achievements were perhaps the coach trip to Italy to see
Palace take on Fiorentina and Sampdoria in the 1990 Baretti Tournament and the
production in 1993 of probably the finest book about Palace yet published.
 "We all follow the Palace"
edited by Tony Matthews and the team was a 300+ page book containing
contributions from over 200 fans containing a potted history of the club,
player interviews, great games and a host of daft items in the true EE style. -
profits from the book went to Croydon Age Concern and about £10,000 was
raised. The book effectively sold out within 6 months of its publication and
was re-printed in 1998 - you can still buy it from our online
shop!
After thirty issues and whilst still at the height of its popularity, the
majority of the editorial team voted to call it a day and go out at the top in
the autumn of 1994. The baton was passed to those who did still want to
continue. Under the banner of Eagle Eye Publications, Palace Echo was born
edited by Laurie Dahl and a small team of Eagle Eye regulars and some new
contributors.
In the minds of its readership, Palace Echo continued pretty much where
Eagle Eye left off, but stronger emphasis on design and new regular features
gave Palace Echo its own voice and style. The new team were quickly in demand
for quotes and soundbites by the media, especially following the Cantona
incident and all of its subsequent ramifications. Issue 12 saw further design
and content changes as former Eagle Eye colleagues briefly returned to the fold
to lend a hand with the new look, before they launched a new national magazine
"Classic Television" - devoted to classic British TV and Films.
In November 1998, shortly after publication of Issue 22, Laurie and Emma's
first child - Gracie - was born. Also Neil the Eagle started work on the first
Palace Echo website which came on-line in January 1999, thus there was a brief
hiatus in publication of the fanzine. When it returned however, alarming cracks
in the Goldberg empire were beginning to show.
As the situation worsened at Selhurst, Palace Echo, in both web and fanzine
format, became actively involved in the protests against Mark Goldberg's
stewardship. This culminated in the final issue of the season being produced
with a black cover to tie in with the black balloon release and protest march.
 After a summer of frantic nail-chewing to see if the
club would survive in its current form, Palace Echo also moved forward with the
publication of our first issue to sport a colour cover.
Adminst the financial uncertainty, Palace Echo went from strength to
strength. The fanzine was an integral part of the launch of the Supporters
Trust and became a standard bearer for the Trust's aims.
In January 2000, the website celebrated its first birthday and notched up
20,000 hits in its first year. Uncertainty about the club continued through
most of the close season, but finally the club was rescued by Simon Jordan. At
Palace Echo it was also a time of change. Founding editor, Laurie Dahl decided
to step down and Neil the Eagle took over the reins as editor and publisher.
The first issue "under new management" hit the streets on 9
September 2000, just as the website was approaching 50,000 hits. The website
was totally relaunched into this new format on 1 June 2001, just as the old
site was topping 90,000 hits.
The magazine has undergone several further style changes under the
editorship of Neil the Eagle. On 26 October 2002 Palace Echo celebrated our
50th issue. The team obliged on the pitch that day too, creaming our arch
rivals, Brighton 5-0.
At this point, the website was looking rather jaded,, so a stripped down
version palace-echo.com lite was launched as a temporary stop gap, whislt the
site was totally redesigned. 'Lite' lasted an embarrassingly long 21 months
before the all new site was finally launched in September 2004.
In April 2004, another milestone was passed when Palace Echo Issue 61 topped
the total number of issues produced by One More Point.
In Season 2006/07, after moving to A5 size and, at last becoming a full
colour fanzine, the editorial team of Neil Witherow and Matt Lloyd stepped down
and the regular fanzine went into hiatus, whilst the team explore other
avenues, including a book.
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