I enjoyed Ray Houghton demolishing Reading at Elm Park. 6-1 to the Palace. He was imperious.

Palace since 19 August 1972. Palace 1 (Tony Taylor) Liverpool 1 (Emlyn Hughes)

Ray Houghton, Mile Jedinak, Andy Gray, Steve Kember, Michael Hughes - take your pick!

maybe not earth. I dunno I was born in 65 - educate me please. He wasn't a winger or a striker, I thought he was an attacking midfielder, an inside forward as they were then, but please enlighten me I have broad shoulders and a willingness to learn, especially where Palace legends are concerned. Hopkin's a good call btw, but he didn't hang around and his career stalled after he curled that one.

a deep lying centre forward a la Nandor Hidegkuti the Hungarian most responsible for demolishing England 6-3, with 2-3-5 the centre half played several yards in front of the two full backs, Hidegkuti staying deep meant if our centre half stayed in midfield Hidegkti could run in behind but if Harry Johnstone (in the 3-6 game) stayed back Hidegkuti would have a one on one with him (the centre half would be the last man if the attacking side timed their moves so our full backs didn't have time to move in and cover). Hence, why centre backs are still called centre halves - they were exposed by the deep lying centre forward tactic invented by the Hungarians. Man City adopted the tactic for the 1953-54 season and their 'deep lier' was none other than Don Revie, hence the 'Revie Plan' which won City the title that season. So Budgie Byrne, a deep lying centre forward, was more of an attacker, but off the ball he held back in midfield, you couldn't equate him with a modern 'number 10' as he didn't have a striker in front of him to feed. Ron Greenwood described as 'our Di Stefano' who apart from being one of the absolute all time greats was basically a forward, though a very versatile one position-wise, so I admit it seems I was pushing it to describe Byrne as a midfielder, he was a forward in a general sense, but if you're doing an all time 11 I think you've got to stick him in the middle cos we are a bit short there and you can just about get away with it. Whatever, thank you to Midlands for the link, the main point is the younger generation of Palace fans should know that this guy is right up there with Cannon, Jackson, Sansom, Taylor, Wright and Zaha as 24 carat Palace legends, stick him in midfield as he played deep and realise that Phil Holder, Kevin Taylor and a few others mentioned on this thread were nowhere near his level. I can't judge first hand but it may well be that Budgie was not just our greatest midfielder but our greatest player.