A balmy Saturday evening on Merseyside back in mid-May and, with the shrill of the referee’s whistle drowned out by the appreciative din for one of Anfield’s own, the playmaker who had actually stolen the show was the first to reach Steven Gerrard. Jason Puncheon cradled the departing Liverpool captain’s head in his hands and muttered words into his right ear that Gerrard later admitted he could hardly hear. The veteran, emotionally spent by the finality of it all, could offer only a pat to the back of the head in return.
Puncheon’s had been an expression of reverence in that exchange for a player destined for Los Angeles, respect born not only of everything a famous figure had achieved but also for what he had come to represent to a wider audience. “For me, Steven was a local lad who had been playing for Liverpool – his club – and therefore someone I’d always idolised, so I told him: ‘Massive credit to you for what you’ve done in your career. Thanks for even being on the same pitch as me,’” he says. “To know that was possible, that a young kid can push on, come through and play for ‘his’ club … well, that was a massive driving force for me.”
His own route home has been more tortuous. For too long Puncheon was pigeonholed as a journeyman, a player forever out on loan – whether from Plymouth or Southampton – or on the move, who had never properly laid down roots. He was enrolled in Crystal Palace’s youth setup until he was 10 before leaving for Chelsea, and that dismal peak-time commute around the South Circular, and then Wimbledon. He was part of the exodus to Milton Keynes and went on to play in all four divisions in spells at seven clubs. But, from the outside looking in, it was all too nomadic, the flashes of quality all too fleeting. It took him 17 years to return to where it had all begun. Now, two and a half seasons into his senior career back at Selhurst Park, a stone’s throw from where he grew up, he is settled, thriving and cherished.
That masterclass in Gerrard’s final Anfield appearance was not an anomaly. He had dismantled Manchester City earlier in the campaign and his goals had fuelled the team’s survival the previous year under Tony Pulis. At 29 he remains just as integral to Alan Pardew’s revitalised side, an industrious creator and supplier to Palace’s flair on the flanks. The manager considers him part of a core of senior players – namechecking him recently alongside Damien Delaney and Scott Dann – who have experienced life at the lower levels and whose commitment and drive make them mainstays of an upwardly mobile side.
Yet a figure who freely admits to “getting up to no good” on the streets of south London too often as a teenager has taken that one step further of late. He sees his responsibilities extending these days to informal mentoring of Palace’s youth-team players, offering advice and encouragement to youngsters for whom football provides escapism. Even hope.
“It’s just about being able to relate to them,” he says. “I grew up in this area, so I know what it is like here, how hard it can be and the way it tests you like other places don’t. These are young kids. Look at Wilfried Zaha: if he’d had Sir Alex Ferguson to work with him up at Manchester United, he might have had a bit more time with them. I still think he can get back to that level, because he’s a bloody good player, but people won’t understand [the challenges] unless they’ve lived in these parts of south London and can see the difficulties people face every day. I’ll always insist it’s different to elsewhere. There are kids here who have had properly hard upbringings. Some of those kids’ parents have never come to watch them. They’ve never had that support, that guidance.
“The manager we have here understands them – he’s been around it, and gives them his time – and gets the area. If I can help them by speaking with them, I do. Just to keep them focused. Not all of them are going to make it in football, but these kids have to understand that, even if they don’t make it at Palace, they might somewhere else: in the Championship, in League One, in League Two. And it’s still a career. You can make a very, very good living and career just by playing in the lower leagues. It doesn’t have to be at the top of the Premier League. They need to make the most of the opportunity they’ve got because, if they’re suddenly released at 21 and football is all they know, they can feel lost.”
He speaks from experience. Homesick and misunderstood by Danny Wilson at MK Dons, where he had been in digs in a top-floor apartment in a “spare house” within the grounds of the estate of the owner, Pete Winkelman, he had been cast adrift. He turned 20 without a club, his life in danger of veering away from the game and into murkier worlds until Nabile Hakimi, a long-standing friend now turned football agent, “put his arm round me, told me to stay away from what I was doing and concentrate on football”. There were trials and friendlies at Fisher Athletic and Lewes, down at the Dripping Pan ground. Paul Fairclough was persuaded, against his better judgment, to offer him a place on a mass trial for youngsters up at Barnet. Of the 36 players who attended, Puncheon was the only one asked back.
The month-to-month contract was eventually formalised, the winger‑cum‑striker establishing himself as a cult figure at Underhill. “Paul just gave me the platform and let me play my football,” he says. “And sometimes when you are a young kid with some ability, you just need to be able to express what you can do.” Paul Sturrock paid £250,000 to sign him for Plymouth. Pardew forked out a similar amount to lure him to Southampton, then of League One and the visitors to Selhurst Park on Saturday, in 2010. Palace would not pay an awful lot more to rubber-stamp his next permanent move three years, and four loan spells, later.
“I found Plymouth hard but when I joined the gaffer at Southampton he’d drum into me: ‘Concentrate, prepare.’ Eventually it dawns on you. All that time in the lower leagues made me more determined, but arriving at St Mary’s … that’s when you realise the pressure, the expectation, the calibre of players you’re in with. I had some great times down there – OK, some up and down times – and I can’t complain at all with the way my career has gone because I’ve learned so much through it all. I wouldn’t want to change the way I got to this level. Some players get to the top too quickly, and then they drop just like that. I’ve played for good clubs, in all four divisions and with some good players.
“But, in the back of my mind, I always knew I’d go back to Palace. I’d had their kit when I was growing up round the corner, even if I followed Ian Wright when he went to Arsenal. There were times when it was close to happening, but it went through at the right time [under Ian Holloway, initially on loan, upon promotion in 2013]. I’m here now and this is where my heart is. The club’s only gone forward in the last few years.”
That progress has been startling. This team have established themselves with mid-table finishes in the past two years and collide with Southampton, such a role model of resurgence themselves, sixth in the table. Palace have never boasted a stronger squad, their group the ideal blend of experienced older heads with points to prove, and eager young legs. Critically, they have retained the work ethic which propelled them into the Premier League in the first place. “There’s a strong core, people willing to stick together and push forward as one,” adds Puncheon. “We showed that at Everton on Monday against a really good side. Yes, there’ll be sticky periods and tough times but, if necessary, that core can carry the group and make sure we get through them together.
“We have massive potential, people like Wilfried with youth on their side, and very good players coming to good ages: Yohan Cabaye, who’s been great for the team; Yannick Bolasie who can go past two or three people like ‘that’. But we have to achieve something. I don’t know whether that means getting into Europe, or reaching an FA Cup final, but we have to target something and achieve it. It would be a letdown given the ability this team has if we didn’t manage that.
“It’s one of the most talented teams I’ve played in and a lot of the people in that dressing room would say the same thing. If you’d said when I joined Palace that, in three seasons, we might be challenging for European football I’d have laughed. But when this team fires on all cylinders, it’s capable of doing anything.”
