November 24 2014

Yannick Bolasie, always a threat, runs at the Liverpool defence

As expected it was pretty well a full house when Liverpool came to Selhurst. Jamesey joined the throng to witness a memorable 3-1 victory.

It was a foul day for the Eagles' Premier League home game against Liverpool (Nov 23).

I was already soaked to the skin when I arrived at Clapham Junction. The relentless downpour continued and I joined what appeared to be half the population of south London herded together on platform 15.

The shivering, soggy, would-be passengers, many of whom, like me, were headed for Selhurst Park, soon discovered that engineering works (Selhurst station closed), staff shortages (can't be arsed to turn up for work) and points failures (wrong sort of cold and rain) all pointed to a difficult journey.

At this point, dear readers, your intrepid columnist, who it must be said is not nearly as young as he used to be, almost decided to give it up as a bad job. An overwhelmingly tempting image of my local alehouse, the match on Sky, a plate of spicy chilli con carne and rice, a pint of Youngs Special bitter and a warm coal fire in the grate, floated into my head.

But a form of divine spirit urged me onward and I forced my way onto a Norwood Junction-bound train and endured 20 minutes of steaming Hades. And by the end of the afternoon how glad I was that I had been there for an unforgettable experience.

After last season's heroics in our unlikely 3-3 draw against the Scousers which pretty well ended their title hopes, was it a little too much to expect the underdogs (always us) to pull something out of the bag again?

It was a pleasure to see that nearly 25,000 other football lovers hadn't been put off by the foul weather and TV coverage and many of them were making an unbelievably loud din.

Well, we only had to wait a couple of minutes for some action. Unfortunately the action emanated from the boot of the ageing stalwart, Rickie Lambert - only playing through the absence of Daniel Sturridge and Mario Balotelli - who calmly placed a sitter past Palace keeper, Julian Speroni.

At this point, I hoped that the divine spirit that urged me onward at Clapham Junction, wasn't having a laugh and had brought me under false pretences to witness a rout.

But our team was made of sterner stuff and didn't seem too disturbed by the early goal.

Liverpool dominated possession but the back four held firm, Mile Jedinak and Joe Ledley were strong in mid-field and Jason Puncheon and Yannick Bolasie looked pacey on the wings.

Dwight Gayle played the lone striker role and looks more and more like justifying the large £6m transfer fee which attracted some criticism at the time. Dwight looked a real worry for the Liverpool defenders who weren't averse to giving the little feller a very rough ride.

Once the Eagles had settled down and hadn't been rattled by the Lambert strike it didn't take long to even the scores. A venomous Bolasie strike hit the Scouser post and who was there to bang in the rebound? Twinkle-toes Dwight, of course, after 17 minutes, and that's the way it stayed at the half-time whistle.

In the second period, Palace continued to probe on the break and, without ever forgetting that they were up against a classy if disjointed team, grew in confidence.

The red-and-blue persistence paid off in the 78th minute when some super trickery from Bolasie ended with a beautiful pass to Ledley who scored with comparative ease.

The home support went crazy. Here we were with the blissful prospect of another win against the once-mighty Liverpool.

The question was whether we could hang on to a lead. The answer was not only could we hang on to it but we could increase it.

Only three minutes later, a free kick from Jedinak sailed into the Scousers' net and it was 3-1 to the Eagles. It was the sort of kick that Steven Gerrard would have delivered in his heyday. But sadly for Liverpool and the national team, 34-year-old Gerrard's prime looks well past judging by his limp performance at Selhurst on this occasion.

The final whistle blew and there it was. A famous 3-1 victory and a match that every Palace fan who was there will relish as long as they live. Not only that, our last three Premier home games against the 'Pool are drawn one, won two.

The journey home was no less awful than the inward one. The roads around the ground were all gridlocked so the replacement bus service was pointless. The pubs were all full and refusing entry. Norwood Junction station was crammed and barring any further passengers onto the platforms.

As we know, there is little to entertain a marooned traveller in South Norwood. So, with the aid of a small snifter of cheap brandy bought at a local store, I roamed the wet streets until the station had emptied enough to gain admittance.

Like everyone else I was soaked, hoarse and cold. But after an afternoon like that was I downhearted? Certainly not.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

In Depth Jamesey's Veteran View Index