Mal recalled in his memoirs that everything just fell apart in his hands with the inference that he was a helpless bystander. Well he wasn't, he was the boss and had some good players to work with. I can imagine that he rode roughshod over Bert Head's established style and upset the players much like Clough did at Leeds. He may have added some glamour but he took an established team and landed them in Division 3 and it should not have happened. I think it was Venables who did the rebuilding job.

Yes, I am an agent of Satan but my duties are largely ceremonial

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Palace 13th 2017/18.

I wouldn't say he screwed up in Div 1, we had some decent players but no backbone and that was the main problem.

However in Div 2 he tinkered with too many things - width of pitch, nicknames for players, colour change, Eagles for Glaziers, etc etc - and had a fight with the legend that was John Jackson that resulted in him being flogged to Orient - he played another 10 years' league football after he left us so there was no way he was over the hill in 1973. A nervous and error-prone but very promising Paul Hammond was played in his place and that cost us big time. He signed maybe a dozen players most of whom were past it or erratic at best, he did sign a couple of decent younger players from Man City (Jeffries & Johnson) and Peter Taylor from Southend, but too much tinkering with line-up and personnel meant there was no continuity or consistency. We didn't win a game till November but once we won a game we improved a lot and started to win home games impressively, with Taylor proving to be an inspired signing. On Easter Friday we won at Fulham and moved out of the drop zone for the first time, but then we lost to Millwall and Hull and back we went. We had to win 2 away games to stay up and we got 3 points from 4 - not enough. It was heart-breaking.

Zaha, Williams, Murray, Ambrose, Scannell.

A 5-man forward line who scored 3 goals in 10 minutes on 27th September 2011 at .......................

The older fans amongst us will recall that he was an average player who became the side kick to Joe Mercer then the manager of a good but not great Manchester city side. Big Mal was not up to it but can count on some cup victories metered by the fact that the players in these type of games need little if any motivation. He brought Peter Taylor in and gave an old horse Don Rogers an extended run after we had seen his best. Personally I think all the bulls*** hid the fact that Palace were still very much a non entity when compared to the giants of the league the fact that the Chelsea win was the first London derby win we had in the old division one was pathetic. I am being harsh I know but there were some very enjoyable games and enough to keep me coming to the games.

It was four seasons, Shirley you remember that surely. But rather than a not unwelcome trip through the back doubles of nostalgia if we could stay on memory lane itself ... did Big Mal blow it after the 2-0 win v Chelsea, 1 point from the next six ... and wtf were the club thinking about replacing Bert Head at such a crucial stage? I remember Mal arrived to a red carpet welcome, loads of publicity, we were NOT cut adrift at the time, could have waited till summer but just assumed that a bigger and better boss would do better? Which he didn't. Did he inherit decline or did he fail to give the boost a new manager often does, were his hands tied cos he didn't have the time to bring in a few grafters, did he pick the wrong players. Thoughts?

I am not sure what went wrong with Big Mal. For many of us it still seems odd that a manager who took us from the 1st Division to the 3rd , without pausing for breath (and kept us there), should be remembered as something of an icon.

I believe that if it hadn't have been for that remarkable cup run in 1975-76, his stock would now be much lower.

He certainly brought Palace much publicity but it was left to Venables to turn things around, although, to be fair, it was Allison who persuaded TV to give up playing and turn to coaching.