Palace celebrates first-ever international of professional era
International call-ups are now par for the course for a club of Crystal Palace’s stature – but it was actually on this day (7th March), some 117 years ago, that the professional club could celebrate its first-ever international player.
Following Palace’s Premier League match against Ipswich Town this Saturday – and our mid-season friendly against HamKam next week, which was announced earlier today – a number of Eagles’ players will head off on international duty.
They’ll be building on a feat which began on this day in 1908 with Newtown-born William Charles Davies – better known as Billy Davies – whose became our first-ever international player of the club’s professional era.
A talented outside forward who began his career with short spells in Wales at Rhayader, Llandrindod and Knighton, Davis’ first taste of English football came at Shrewsbury Town in 1903, where he played for two years prior to joining Stoke.
Another two-year stint followed but, when Stoke were relegated on the final day of the 1906/07 season, a new chapter in South London beckoned.
Davies joined the Glaziers as part of a widespread recruitment drive ahead of 1907/08, a change in manager – as club secretary Edmund Goodman stepped in to take the helm – coinciding with the departure of a number of key players.
With Palace looking to build on a 19th-place finish in the Southern Football League Division One the previous season, in came the likes of George Walker, Jimmy Bauchop, John Brearley and, from the Potters, Davies.
Three defeats in the opening four games of the season saw the campaign off to a poor start, but Palace would recover to finish fourth and lose just one of their last 13 matches – Davies scoring four times along the way.
As part of that run, Davies became the club’s first-ever international of the professional era, debuting for Wales against Scotland in a British International Championship fixture.
In front of a crowd of 18,000 at Dens Park, Dundee, Davies was powerless to help his side avoid a 2-1 defeat, in what proved to be the first of four caps for his country.
Davies departed Palace for West Bromwich Albion after just a year, but returned to south London in 1910, and went on to play 162 times over five subsequent years, scoring 23 times in total for the club.
