The women of Crystal Palace Today celebrate promotion to the Women’s Super League for the first time in its 32-year history.
A fifth-place finish last season followed a fourth-place finish in 2021-22 as they look to become promotion challengers.
Palace rose through the amateur leagues, turned semi-professional in 2018 and consolidated themselves in the Championship. They have made steady progress over six seasons in the second division, having finished runners-up in 2018-19. Now, against Sunderland at full-time on the final day at Selhurst Park, they will place themselves among the elite after ‘climbing’ to the top.
Promotion was effectively sealed with a 2-0 victory over Lewes last weekend, which left them three points and 22 goals ahead of Charlton Athletic with one game remaining, leaving them free to celebrate their achievement .
“It would be one of the best days of my life,” said head coach Laura Kaminski. Athleticism. “It doesn’t matter if you are an assistant or a manager, the feeling is the same and it doesn’t happen often, so I have to absorb it and enjoy it with the players and the staff because they deserve it.
“We have brought in players who we know can score with variety. It’s a thing. There were scorers from several areas which is key in terms of variety in the final third and it just shows the strength in depth of the team.
“Playing exciting football shows that the number of fans we have this year is a product of our performance on the pitch, it is something we are proud of.
“I didn’t want to put any pressure on the players. My only pressure has always been to play and perform. The players adhered to this ideology this year and this is what motivated and pushed the group: to perform well.
“I just want to say how proud I am of all the players and staff.” 🫶
Watch Laura Kaminski’s full pre-match press conference below ⤵️#CPFC
– Crystal Palace FC Women (@cpfc_w) April 26, 2024
Palace’s home matches have mostly taken place at Sutton United’s VBS Community Stadium, but Selhurst Park has hosted several matches, attracting large crowds.
A record 5,500 people attended a 3-0 win over Watford in March – that figure is expected to be eclipsed on Sunday. With 55 goals, 16 more than any other team in the competition, the team demonstrated an unwavering commitment to attacking football.
“You want to watch interesting and exciting football. This is what people want to see and we need players to be able to do it. It fills me with a huge sense of pride that people want to come and watch these fantastic players.
The achievement is even greater when you consider that Kaminski was only appointed in July, from Charlton. His previous experience only extended to assistant head coaching roles. While nothing in the past can beat that, she says, it is not her first experience of reaching the elite after earning promotion with Tottenham Hotspur in 2018-19 as assistant to Karen Hills.
Two months before Kaminski’s appointment, Palace hired its first head of women’s football, Grace Williams, of whom Kaminski was full of praise. It was a season of transition that resulted in success more quickly than expected. In the FA Cup, they pushed Emma Hayes’ Chelsea close in a 1-0 defeat in the fifth round, perhaps providing a source of optimism for next season’s WSL campaign.
Despite the overhaul, relationships between staff and players have taken little time to develop and are a source of personal pride for Kaminski, who spent five years in charge of the England Under-19s, and on whom she places great importance when reflecting on the season.
“For a long time we were second or third, then I wondered if that motivation would change if they were at the top, but they seem to have the same mentality as me because we never really talked about things like that .
“All we talked about was the hunger and determination to improve week in, week out and whatever training theme I had for the week, both with and without possession, they were absolutely dedicated to carrying out the game plan.
“The coaching staff have been fantastic and added value, but the players have always bought into that. I’m a player developer. I look at a player and appreciate the attributes he can add to the team. But most of all, it’s about how I can make them better, how I can make them successful.
“That’s why I get out of bed every day – to make the team work, but also individually, I know they want to be better. They have extreme dedication to personal development. I want to play a big part in that and be a sounding board for players who want to improve and find ways to help them improve.
“There’s always a high level of intrinsic motivation to improve and for me to be a part of it at the same time.”
As the men’s team celebrate their 12th consecutive season in the Premier League and the revamped £30 million academy continues to thrive at the top of the Under-18 Premier League and Premier League 2, the success of the women’s team completes a full circle of progress. It is a club transformed over the last 14 years.
There has been an integration with the men’s team which seems completely natural. Sunday’s final day match will likely see a record crowd and take place at Selhurst Park, where they found a way to win after previous failed attempts. The academy facilities are shared, Kaminski had lunch with manager Oliver Glasner and before that his predecessor Roy Hodgson. Selhurst is a common house and the club “has a real family atmosphere”.
“It’s a whole club, a shared space,” Kaminski says. “I really feel it. When I walk through the building I have male academy players, first team players congratulating me and talking to me, the male captain coming in and having regular conversations.
“It’s a natural fit and it’s a credit to what the board, (president) Steve Parish and (athletic director) Dougie Freedman have created here because it’s a comfortable space for us.”
“The club always wanted to push to get into the Super League but knew that perhaps, if you look at other clubs in their journey, in terms of length, it was never intended to be a rocket to the top .
“But we implemented the basics on and off the field. We created a team that we thought we could invest in and we put a good infrastructure in place. It clicked and putting those things together was only going to end in success because it was thought of by experienced people who were there and had done it before and were using all that knowledge in the room to create an environment for players to thrive.
This part of south London once boasted an elite women’s team, with future England manager Hope Powell co-founding Bromley Borough, which gained promotion to the top flight in 1994 before merging with Croydon and later moving to Charlton Athletic Women after a takeover. In 2000.
It’s a different time now and women’s football has grown considerably, with Kaminski referring to the sight of youngsters with players’ names on the back of their jerseys when she travels to watch other matches as a ” turning point.”
But she doesn’t intend to dwell on that, rather she looks forward to enjoying the achievements of her players and the club in the present while aiming for success in the WSL next season. There is an appreciation of the challenge but a quiet confidence.
“The club and its culture are exceptional. I believe the environment in place is world-class. I always think you can hear identity and culture when you walk into the building, if you hear laughter, if there are mixed tables at lunch, those things are essential. For this club, this happens naturally. It’s something I’m proud to be a part of.
“You can see a team that is courageous and ambitious but humble. I believe fans can look at the group and see a group of professional women leading the way in accepting the challenge.
“It might be tough and things might be different for us, but I have a group of people who I’m sure will run faster, run harder and be up for the challenge.”
(Top photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)