For those who don't know, the HF are at the back of block E for the singing section. If interested get a ticket there or nearby. Should be a decent atmosphere.

Really looking forward to seeing some of the fringe players getting a run and treating it as an opportunity to get in the first team. You would expect to see some Palace goals.

Grimsby fan here.

Well, it looks like our paths are about to cross again for the first time since 2003 when you beat us 4-1 at Blundell Park. Since that game the fortunes of both clubs have gone in drastically different directions with us suffering the ignominy of relgation to non-league whilst you have reached Englands highest Division.

I have visted Selhurst Park on a few occasions in the past. 2 of the most memorable of those were the final day of the 84/85 season when we won 2-0 there. Kevin Drinkell scored both our goals that day before Norwich stole him for a pittance off us at the end of the season. It was also the day of The Bradford Fire disaster. At the time of that game, my brother was living in Thornton Heath so I was staying over for the weekend and I can clearly remember buying an early edition of a Sunday newspaper on the Saturday evening and it was being reported that no one was thought to have died. Sadly there were very, very wrong.

The other occasion was in the 95/96 season, a midweek game when you beat us 5-0 with all the goals coming in the first half. After your 5th went in one of our fans got out of his seat, walked into the aisle and with his arms outstretched began singing "We're gonna win 6-5" for which he was promptly thrown out for inciting your fans.

My last visit there though was a bit surreal as it was against Wimbledon. We drew 3 all in front of barely 1000 people.

So far we have sold 2500 tickets for the game and they are not on general sale yet so hopefully we might come close to shifting the full 4100 allocation we've been given.

Our away support has always held up well, even when we were relegated to The Conference we'd sometimes outnumber the home fans.

Here's hoping for a decent game. Maybe a bit too much to ask for a win for us but I hope we give a decent account of ourselves on the day.

Really looking forward to this one. See you all on the 5th.

Edited by Harry Haddock (20 Dec 2018 1.29pm)

Michael Jolley's our manager. Relatively inexperienced, having been Burnley's Under-21 coach plus a brief stint as a manager in Sweden. This is his first managers job in England. He came in towards the back end of last season. We were only heading in one downward spiral under Russell Slade and went 23 games without a win. Jolley came in and although it did take him a few games , we ended the season strongly with 5 wins from the last 6 games to stay up relatively comfortably in the end.

As you say though we lost 6 games on the bounce earlier this season and there were calls for his head from sections of our fans but we stuck with him and have now won our last 5 home games, it's just the away form we need to get sorted now and we'll start climbing the table.

Jolley was of course a coach in our Academy a few years ago.
When he was appointed at Grimsby with 10 games to go Grimsby were 20th and he managed to haul them up to 18th at the end of the season finishing with 3 wins in their last 3 games.

On the subject of Grimsby managers, I recall from my football quiz days that the great Bill Shankly was manager in the 50s.

Another good post.

Someone from that area told me that when Shankly was at Workington he used to read the team out over the tannoy and explain why he selected certain players and left players out ! Don't know if he did that at Grimsby.

Just thought of another famous manager who managed Grimsby - Lawrie McMenemy.

Edited by Willo (20 Dec 2018 3.22pm)

Grimsby fan here.

Well, it looks like our paths are about to cross again for the first time since 2003 when you beat us 4-1 at Blundell Park. Since that game the fortunes of both clubs have gone in drastically different directions with us suffering the ignominy of relgation to non-league whilst you have reached Englands highest Division.

I have visted Selhurst Park on a few occasions in the past. 2 of the most memorable of those were the final day of the 84/85 season when we won 2-0 there. Kevin Drinkell scored both our goals that day before Norwich stole him for a pittance off us at the end of the season. It was also the day of The Bradford Fire disaster. At the time of that game, my brother was living in Thornton Heath so I was staying over for the weekend and I can clearly remember buying an early edition of a Sunday newspaper on the Saturday evening and it was being reported that no one was thought to have died. Sadly there were very, very wrong.

The other occasion was in the 95/96 season, a midweek game when you beat us 5-0 with all the goals coming in the first half. After your 5th went in one of our fans got out of his seat, walked into the aisle and with his arms outstretched began singing "We're gonna win 6-5" for which he was promptly thrown out for inciting your fans.

My last visit there though was a bit surreal as it was against Wimbledon. We drew 3 all in front of barely 1000 people.

So far we have sold 2500 tickets for the game and they are not on general sale yet so hopefully we might come close to shifting the full 4100 allocation we've been given.

Our away support has always held up well, even when we were relegated to The Conference we'd sometimes outnumber the home fans.

Here's hoping for a decent game. Maybe a bit too much to ask for a win for us but I hope we give a decent account of ourselves on the day.

Really looking forward to this one. See you all on the 5th.

Edited by Harry Haddock (20 Dec 2018 1.29pm)