Crystal Palace loving American to celebrate upcoming wedding with honeymoon to Selhurst Park

Ten years ago a 20-year-old budding football fan in Indianapolis flicked on ESPN and stumbled upon Crystal Palace returning to the Premier League for the first time in 15 years thanks to a late Kevin Phillips penalty in the play-off final.

Matt had just acquired a taste for the sport after the Indy Eleven soccer side was founded in his home city and was taken by the thrill of English football.

Fast forward 10 years and Matt, now 30, harbours a great love for The Eagles. So much so, in fact, that he will celebrate his upcoming wedding with a honeymoon trip to Selhurst Park.

Explaining how it all started, Matt told LondonWorld: "Ten years ago a professional soccer team was announced here in Indianapolis, the Indy Eleven. They were playing out of the North American Soccer League at the time, I knew nothing about soccer but knew I wanted to be part of Indy Eleven, it was a community thing I was really interested in as well as the football general.

"I remember in May of 2013 randomly turning on ESPN one afternoon and the play-off final against Watford was on. I still had no interest in Palace at the time but just watched it and it was a really cool match.

"I thought to myself, I'll follow this team over the next year. Promotion and relegation is not a thing here in America so that was new to me and wanted to see how they did.

"As they kept going I got more interested and emotionally invested, I loved the grit and passion the team had back then and just fell in love with them."

Matt managed to bump into a few other Crystal Palace fans near him in the US and last year formally set up the Crystal Palace Supporters Group of Indianapolis.

The supporters meet up regularly to watch the side play at a local bar with between five and ten fans enjoying matches from 4,000 miles away.

Matt made a trip over to Europe in 2018 with the goal of watching Palace play, although used the holiday to see the sights too.

He said: "I was just there for vacation and saw us play a terrible 0-0 draw against Newcastle. We never score goals against Newcastle and they never score against us.

"I saw a really terrible match but for an American, it was a quintessential British rainy day. It was an amazing experience, I loved it."

Matt hasn't had the chance to return to SE25 since then but has latched onto an opportune coincidence in the scheduling of his upcoming honeymoon. In May the American will tie the knot with partner Audrey and the two sat down last week to finalise details of the all-important honeymoon.

Matt said: "We knew we wanted to go to Europe but weren't sure where we were going to fly into for a while. London was the cheapest and easiest option from Chicago.

"I wasn't thinking about going to a Palace match for the longest time but when I realised we were flying to London it would coincide with the last match of the season.

"I talked to my partner about it, she's a magnificent human so is supportive of it, we booked the flight last week and I was so excited."

Matt admitted that Audrey remains "very casual" with her feelings towards the London club still, although often comes to watch the matches with the group.

He added: "I got her to wear one of the kits first, that was my crowning moment!"

Sparing a moment to give his view from afar on The Eagles' performances this season, the fan shares frustration at a lack of wins but backs Patrick Viera and a young Palace squad.

He said: "There's dramatic improvement over the last couple of years. It's frustrating we can't win a match, we're very good at drawing matches this year. It's fun to watch, it's a young team, it's fun to watch and I'm really happy with the direction and Patrick Viera. We are where I thought we would be in the table so far."