July 31 2003

PSV

Palace welcomed in the new season with a friendly against PSV Eindhoven...

One of my oldest friends is an Englishman who has lived in Eindhoven for 40 years and I was hoping to send him a gloating email.

But it was not to be. We gifted them an instant goal although credit to the Dutchmen for taking the chance. Andy Johnson would probably have kicked it straight back into the goalie's arms. And that was how it ended.

It was marvellous to be back inside the hallowed ground of Selhurst Park again for the first time since April. The pitch looked superb and there were even enough bar staff in the Players Lounge to satisfy the throng of thirsty punters baying for beer.

As for the fare on the pitch, it looked to me, as one would reasonably expect, like a rather average and disjointed English First Division outfit playing a top-class European champion level side.

I was hopeful of better things, knowing how Palace can sometimes raise their game against top opposition. But not on this night.

Anyhow, there is plenty of comment and analysis on the game itself on the boards. Main interest of the evening for me lay elsewhere.

Sitting a row in front of me a few seats away was a smartly dressed black man, aged about 40, with thighs like tree trunks. Now don't get me wrong. I don't normally ogle male thighs but you could hardly miss these. Must be an ex-footballer, I thought.

I suddenly realised it was Tony Finnegan who played for us in the mid to late '80s at a time of great change in English football. Younger fans may not be too familiar with his name although he did feature in the headlines for the wrong reasons a few years back.

It's getting on for 20 years ago now but I don't think Ron Noades and Steve Coppell ever got full credit for shrewdly using all the young black talent in London. Race was a more sensitive issue in those days and many clubs were reluctant to field too many black players, feeling it might alienate the predominantly white fan base.

Rubbish, as we now know. Once in the early 90s, I watched Palace field a team of nine black players, Nigel Martyn and Geoff Thomas. Did it bother anyone? Of course not.

Anyhow race certainly didn't bother Noades and Coppell. And our first three regular black players in our rising years in the late 80s were Ian Wright, Andy Gray and Tony Finnigan. All had good careers at Palace although I suppose Finn was the only one who, as far as I know, never played in the top tier or got an international cap.

I went over, shook his hand and welcomed him back to Selhurst and was rewarded with a big beam and a "Cheers, mate". I know he is, or has been, a players' agent, so I resolved to go back over at half time and see if he was willing to divulge any gossip.

The end of this column will explain why in my long career as a journalist I stayed as a desk editor rather than a news editor. At half-time he was gone...

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