Jim Cannon Slammed Ian Wright's Crystal Palace Bully Claims

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Jim Cannon responded to Ian Wright's claims that the Scotsman bullied the legendary striker whilst they played together at Crystal Palace.

Former Crystal Palace captain Jim Cannon refuted claims that he bullied Ian Wright during their time together at Selhurst Park, back in 2023.

While playing for non-league side Greenwich Borough in 1985, at the age of 22, Ian Wright was spotted by a scout from Palace , and he subsequently signed for the South London club following a successful trial. He went on to score 118 goals in 277 appearances for the Eagles, before netting 185 times for Arsenal .

This unusual career trajectory meant Wright wasn't well-accustomed to the professional football environment when he first arrived at Palace as a fully grown adult.

Wright claims that this led to him being tormented by Cannon in his early days at Selhurst Park — an accusation that the Scotsman asserts is a 'load of c'.

Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast back in 2023, Wright was asked by Gary Neville if he'd ever shared a dressing room with a player he didn't like.

Without hesitation, the legendary striker brought Cannon's name to the table.

> “Jim Cannon – when I got into the Palace squad," he said.

> "He was just a bitter old player, man. Scottish player, centre-half. He made my first couple of years in professional football a fing nightmare, man. He was a bully in there."

> "You know when you go for the communal food and, listen man, I’m three months off the building site, and I don’t know what’s going on – I hardly knew what to ever order properly.

> “I remember when I was ordering, he would take the fing p out of everything I’d do. ‘You can’t afford that. Do you have that at home? How do you say that? Do you know how to say this?’

> “That’s the kind of thing that made me stop going down. I didn’t go down when we went away twice, and Steve Coppell [asked me] the next day, and I said I didn’t feel well on both occasions.”

Alongside the bullying of Wright in the Palace canteen, the pundit detailed an incident when Cannon 'two-foot jumped' him in the back during training, whilst also revealing that the South London club's skipper made him 'scared' and 'nervous'.

Speaking in December 2023, shortly after Wright's claims surfaced on the Stick to Football Podcast, Cannon hit back.

The Glaswegian, who played for Palace between 1973 and 1988, contested Wright's statements, arguing that this was 'the way it was' in the 80s and that the 'woke society' today wouldn't allow some of the comments that circulated through dressing rooms in his playing days.

> "The bullying thing is a load of crap," Cannon told the Red and Blue Review podcast.

> "He didn’t like what I said to him. And I probably said lots of things to lots of players. I was the skipper at the time, and that’s the way it was."

> "And 37 years ago things were said that the woke society won’t allow you to say today."

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