A PARTIALLY-SIGHTED former Crystal Palace Fan of the Year has criticised the club for failing to adapt Selhurst Park for her since its return to top-flight football.
Mandy Maddock, 60, who also uses a wheelchair because of arthritis, was presented with the club's supporter of the year award for the 2012-13 promotion season.
But since the first game of last season, she said she has been unable to properly enjoy the atmosphere.
Mrs Maddock, who can see only light and dark, used to be able to listen to commentary on Palace Radio when it was broadcast through radios from the disabled fans section at the corner of the Holmesdale Road stand.
But now Palace Radio has moved to internet-only broadcasts, the devoted Palace fan must sit at the back of the away supporters' block of the Arthur Wait stand to tune in to Radio Mayday's coverage of the match.
Mrs Maddock, from East Croydon, said: "Having travelled up and down the country, I've got used to sitting with my own folk.
"I've been devastated by it, I sat at home crying when I missed the Newcastle game, which was the first game I've missed home and away for three years.
"Disabled people don't go because they have to, they go because they want to. It's like organising the D-Day landings for us to go there."
She said that, although many fans have been respectful, a Leicester fan urinated on her wheelchair while she sat in a seat when the Foxes visited Selhurst in September.
She has been going to Selhurst since 1991, and counts Nigel Martyn, Chris Coleman and Andrew Johnson among her favourite players, and even listens to full recordings of the radio commentary two or three more times after the match has finished.
Mrs Maddock, whose sight was damaged during her birth, claims the club has told her on numerous occasions it would bring someone in to fit an induction loop around the ground for Palace Radio.
But despite telling her the meeting would take place on Thursday, it has now been pushed back to Wednesday.
Mrs Maddock, an advocate and counsellor for disabled people, added: "I've been told it would be sorted lots of times, but I just feel it's going to be another misleading story and I'm not getting my hopes up.
"I have given them plenty of time now but when that £5.5 billion TV deal was announced, I thought 'that's it, no more excuses'."
A Palace spokesman said the club had been looking at plans to install induction loops around the ground for some time and is still keen to push ahead with them.
