Malcolm Allison, Crystal Palace, circa 1973
Photograph by Hy Money ©Hy Money
Published in When Saturday Comes 229, March 2006

“With a name like Hy Money and cheek like yours...” so Palace manager Bert Head agreed to a photopass for Hy (short for Hyacinth) in 1971. She had taken her three sons to a Palace v Liverpool game and was not just hooked but determined to get closer to the action with her camera – which until then she’d used to take family photos. The reaction from other photographers she describes as appalling. Jibes on the touchline were one thing, but her application to join the NUJ was refused, blocked by the then powerful, and very male, Professional Sports Photographers’ Association. Hy was grudgingly accepted, on appeal, but was still turned away from Wembley in the early Seventies on the whim of a steward.

Unfazed and passionate about her work, Hy pursued her interest in action photography but also absorbed herself in the matchday experience. She became Palace’s official photographer, mingling in the directors’ box, changing rooms and behind the scenes. This access informs the most intimate work recorded in her book, Hy on Palace. She was even present in the changing room when Bert Head introduced his successor Malcolm Allison to the players in 1973. “When I saw the amount of flash bulbs when Allison arrived, I knew things were going to be different,” Hy recalls.

Allison changed the club’s nickname, colours and entire perception of itself. The fedora, cigar and “The Judge” tracksuit became folklore (as did the visit of glamour model Fiona Richmond). As he punches his fists here in a moment of pure self-aggrandisement, seemingly everyone believed him when he said Palace should be a big club. Those around remain seated; to Allison’s left is chairman Ray Bloye, much maligned for selling off the Whitehorse Lane End to Sainsbury’s in 1977. From his seat in the box Allison would throw cigars down to people in the enclosure.

Hy herself stayed close to Palace until the end of the Ron Noades era and the fact that she was a woman may even sometimes have worked to her advantage. “Players would be so surprised to see a woman, they’d do a double-take and in that moment I’d get my picture,” Hy observes wryly. Some compensation, perhaps, for the treatment she endured at the start of her career.

Doug Cheeseman
Football Photography Writing

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