September 24 2009

Crystal Palace

Despite a losing overall record for Crystal Palace against West Brom, there is cause of optimism, writes Simon Pophale.

Due to WBA being in the top flight, the last time we met was back in the 2007/08 season. And although West Brom went up as champions, we managed a creditable away point.

West Brom were not only looking to bounce back into the Premiership, but had made an assault on the FA Cup as well as they had a semi-final to look forward to at Wembley.

We too were on the march up the table and it was one of our academy graduates, Victor Moses, who levelled matters after Kevin Phillips had given the hosts the lead in the game on March 12th.

The season before this, under Peter Taylor, we went one better as almost exactly a year to the day, we bagged a 3-2 win, with academy graduate Lewis Grabban netting the winner, literally with the last kick of the game. Kevin Phillips (again) and Neil Clement got the Baggies goals, while Clinton Morrison and Ben Watson were our scorers.

The visit to the Midlands in the 2004/05 Premiership season was notable as all the excitement came at the end of the game. First, we lost Gonzalo Sorondo on 12 minutes after a straight red card. But despite the advantage, West Brom could not make it count so it was 0-0 at half time.

One mistake from Darren Purse let in Andy Johnson to open the scoring, but all the excitement was reserved for the last ten minutes.

Kevin Campbell scored to level proceedings (after he had done the same while at Everton back in August) on 82 minutes. And at that point, I had to leg it to the tram stop to get the last train back to Snow Hill, so I heard the roars of Rob Earnshaw netting right on 90 minutes and also the muted cheers which greeted Aki Riihilaahti’s equaliser on 94 minutes.

We might have nicked a point, but it was West Brom who stayed in the division at our expense.

While those three matches saw us pick up points, the three prior to those saw us gain nothing of note. Seasons 2003/04 and 2001/02 saw us lose 2-0, while 2000/01 we lost by a single goal.

The Nineties saw the clubs meet for only five seasons, due to our rise to the top flight and subsequently staying there until 1993. The first meeting of the clubs was in the 1993/94 season and we had found our feet in Division One by the time we travelled to the Hawthorns on September 18th.

We doled out a 4-1 spanking with Chris Armstrong, who was on fire after his hat-trick against Portsmouth and brace against Birmingham, carrying on with more goals in this match.

The other four meeting in this decade saw two 0-0 draws and a 3-2 win for both teams.

The highest scoring encounter was in the 1988/89 season and although we ended up going up via the two legged playoffs, West Brom took the honours at home by 5-3.

This set the tone for the decade as despite one victory in the 1986/87 season, we had a wretched time as West Brom won all the other matches post 1985.

We did not meet in the league prior to this since our top flight “Team of the 80s” days when West Brom were in the ascendancy as well with Ron Atkinson and the “Three Degrees” of Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson and Laurie Cunningham. Sadly, both of these meetings ended in defeats.

Finally, our meetings in the 70s saw us trade blows in the First Division and while we managed two draws of our five ties at the Hawthorns, the others ended also in defeat.

So 40 years of matches have seen us register five wins, five draws and twelve defeats, but with our recent record being fairly good, we can look positive on our trip to a team who may well end up automatically promoted at the season's end.