Our church in Banstead had the pleasure of hosting a curry night with Mr Speroni on Tuesday 27th March. Having advertised the event some months ago we were kind of sweating on when the Everton away game would be re-arranged. In the event there was no clash and everyone's favourite keeper* gave up his evening to hang out with an eclectic bunch of punters, including several Palace die-hards.

In the world of professional sport it would be hard to imagine meeting a nicer guy. He talked fondly about a decade at Palace, candidly about the tough times of losing his place to Gabor Kirali and the club going into administration, as well as describing how he became a Christian whilst at Dundee. Spoke fondly of Neil Warnock and the way he managed players, and positively about our chances of staying up.

I was struck by his relative lack of size compared to some of the giant keepers of the past two decades, but also by his modesty and generally classy demeanour. A top, top bloke who I trust will still be at Selhurst for some time to come.

*with apologies to Nigel Martyn, John Burridge & Perry Suckling, to name but a few!

palace has a few christian connections esp in the team at the moment... jules, the boss and joel ward are all christians. In the past there was the rev nigel sands who wrote all the books about the palace history. Might need a bit of divine intervention in the run in...

Could you tell us what he said about Gabor? I always got the impression he was brought as in as a number 2. Or did that Everton mistake really cost him his place?

R.I.P. DJ Hardline

CPFC2010

We are all humans and make mistakes at everything we undertake. Having said that I don't think on balance the mistakes Jules has ever made have ever been frequent or alarming. Jules is a guy who has saved our bacon very many times since he took over as number one goalie for us and ,in my opinion, still puts a bloody good shift in every week yet there are those who want to replace him including Pulis. He has had to suffer the erratic performance of our defense earlier on in the season and while I certainly believe in change when necessary and in order to up grade a team or anything else I think change for the sake of change is unrealistic and in the case of Jules absolutely uncalled for. Lets hope Jules will perform for us for some time to come in spite of all those who want to replace him.

He didn't actually mention the pyjama trousered Hungarian chappy by name...just mentioned losing his place - but it was to Gabor K, so forgive my journalistic licence! I think he played the first 6 games that season before losing out. I remember seeing him at Old Trafford in the League Cup when Dowie picked the second XI (last time I saw Neil Shipperley play!) and JS looked low on confidence then. All the more remarkable then how he bounced back and the consistency he's shown the last 8 years.

I did tell him that supporting Palace for 35 years has been the most stressful element of my life and he seemed genuinely sympathetic!

I will upload a piccy or two soon...me being unphotogenic and he being so smooth, even my missus began to wonder whether she'd married the wrong goalie.

As for him becoming a Christian, he put that largely down to one of his fellow Argentinian players at Dundee who took him along to church. (There were quite a crowd of them at Dundee at the time, as I remember.) His wife had become a Christian a little before, and he soon accepted the Good News about Jesus. One of the reasons he's stayed put for so long is that his family are very settled at their church...he plays the guitar when he's around on Sundays.

As for the curry, he tucked into the buffet! Said he has a body fat index weigh in every 2 - 3 weeks. That obviously wasn't a concern in the days of T Brolin esq...