The Eagles say they can trace their roots all the way back to 1861

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Crystal Palace have announced that they are changing their club crest to reflect the "indisputable fact" that their origins can be traced back to 1861.

The current Eagles badge contains the date 1905 - the year in which the professional club Crystal Palace FC were founded - but the new crest will reflect where the club now believe they can trace their official heritage back (1861). This will be the only change to the club badge which will appear for the first time on Palace’s new kit for the forthcoming season.

Palace’s assertion that they can link their heritage back to 1861 stems from research carried out by author Peter Manning over the last five years, who discovered a link to a cricket and football club formed in 1861 and the 1905 side through their ownership by the Crystal Palace Company.

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The Crystal Palace Company owned and operated the giant cast-iron and glass Crystal Palace on a 200-acre site in Sydenham before setting up a cricket club there in 1857 from which the football club was born. Seven of its members were involved in the foundation of the Football Association in 1863, as documented in the first FA Minutes book, before the team stopped playing matches for several years in the late 19th Century. When a professional Crystal Palace Club was set up in 1905, it acknowledged its connection to the Crystal Palace Company’s amateur team that had come before it.

"As a lifelong supporter of Crystal Palace, I was proud to learn that our history can be traced back to the Victorian cricketers of 1861 and the indisputable fact that the club played a central role in the very first FA meetings, which shaped the game we all love," said Palace’s co-owner and chairman Steve Parish. "It is fitting that we are recognising our unique history which began in 1861 in our famous crest."

Historian Manning added: "The Crystal Palace football team that played under that name at the Crystal Palace started off as an amateur team in blue and white and eventually became the professional team, owned by the Crystal Palace Company, playing in red and blue in 1905. The Crystal Palace Company disappeared from history and the Crystal Palace burnt down in 1936, but the football club continued and still exists in the form of today’s Premier League team, bearing the image of its birthplace in the club badge."