Curtis Dowie & Ian Fleming

Andrew Jackson and John Johnson?

Not my forte this game

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Bring back Attilio Allardyce

Sounds like a South American dance

Edited by Glazier#1 (10 Sep 2023 10.11pm)

Or George Burley.... God he was rubbish

I think the answers you will get to this question will depend upon the age of the respondent.

It's very hard narrowing it don't to just three but I will keep my selections to candidates from the days of yore.

I'll give a vote to Dick Graham. After many years scrabbling around in the depths of Div 3 South and then the 4th Division, Dick put together a team that finally got us promoted to Div 2 in 63/64 season. Since then we have only spent 3 seasons outside of the top two tiers of the league hierarchy. Palace then finished 7th in the next season. Unfortunately Dick, known as a tough disciplinarian, by all accounts alienated himself from the players and was shown the door mid season 65/66.

Then Bert Head took us to the next level in 68/69 with promotion to Division 1 for the first time ever. He put together a team of tough hard working pros on a fairly modest budget, with a number of recruits from north of the border. He then kept us there for 4 seasons until we finally succumbed in 72/73.

I'll now jump a few years to Steve Coppell who gave us an appearance in a cup final and a 3rd place in Division 1 ( and of course should have led us in to Europe). When he arrived we were a struggling 2nd Div side with crowds sometimes dipping as low as 4,000. Gradually he turned things around and, barring our current run, gave us some of our best years.

Edited by Pete53 (10 Sep 2023 9.16pm)