April 2 2010

Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace head north on Easter Saturday to play Middlesbrough for the first time in five years in the league, writes Simon Pophale.

Since Boro moved into the Riverside Stadium, it would be fair to say that fixtures against them would be few and far between. Boro’s recent 11 year stay in the top flight came to an end and both clubs seem to have been going in opposite directions, or just passing each other by at the end of the season.

Our first meeting with Middlesbrough came in the 1924/25 season due to the Smoggies' relegation from the top flight the season before. A 0-0 draw would have been considered a decent result, given that this was a former top flight side but wins were a requirement and sadly we went down by a single point at the end of that season.

With our relegation, we remained in Division Three and then became founder members of Division Four. We started to climb out of the basement at the beginning of the 1960s and Boro had spent the majority of the intervening 40 years in the top two divisions, so it was only our return to the Second Division, in 1964/65 that took us back to Ayresome Park.

Another 0-0 draw followed and a season later, we managed our first goals but still only came away with one point, following a 2-2 draw. Middlesbrough then fell into the Third Division for a season and their return to the Second Division saw us travel there in December that season and saw a 3-0 humbling.

Worse was to follow as in our promotion season of 1968/69 we went up to Ayresome Park in August and Boro handed out a 4-0 win. This still stands as their best result against us to date and at the end of the season, we finished behind Brian Clough’s Derby County side in second and Boro just missed out on promotion by finishing in fourth.

Despite finishing in the top half of the Second Division table, Boro could not break into the promotion spots and we met again after we were relegated from Division One in 1973/74.

This was the season where Boro would finally go up as they won the Championship and we went down (with, drawing a parallel to this season, Sheffield Wednesday finishing one place above us!) and a 2-0 defeat on Teeside in December contributed to our downfall.

With Boro staying in the top flight for the next eight years, we only met them again when the ”Team of the Eighties” returned to Division One. A 1-1 draw in our first season back showed that we could cope with the rigours of life in the top flight, but a season later it was all beginning to unravel as we lost 2-0 at Ayresome Park, despite crushing Boro 5-2 at home.

Middlesbrough joined us in Division Two in 1982/83 and both clubs during the 1980s were struggling with finances. We had our problems immediately following our relegation and the subsequent asset-strip by El Tel, now at QPR, while Boro’s problems came to a head in the middle of the decade, nearly going out of business until Steve Gibson assisted in saving the club from closure.

Our results over this period were positive despite the problems. Steve Coppell was rebuilding the club and despite both Boro and Palace finding themselves in the lower half of the table, we managed three wins, a draw and only one defeat (in 1982/83 by two goals to nil).

In 1986 Boro’s problems came to a head and relegation to Division Three and the near extinction of the club saw another break for a season, but Boro came back stronger with two successive promotions and overtook us in 1987/88 with a 2-1 win on their way to the top flight.

Our paths did not cross again until the creation of the Premier League and Boro’s season ended much like ours, but in our unbeaten month in December 1992 we nicked a post Christmas win by a single goal in our fight for survival.

The following season, we clinched the Championship as we bounced back into the Premiership at the first attempt with a 3-2 win, which would be our last trip to Ayresome Park.

Last Time Out

It was our fourth match of our Premier League season in 2004/05 and despite leading through an Andy Johnson penalty, an own goal from Tony Popovic and a free-kick from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink consigned us to a defeat and only one point from twelve.

Given that this was our only trip in the League to the Riverside, a change in fortunes is needed now more than ever before!