September 28 2015

Wembley Way in May 2013, another happy day for the Eagles

After a 1-0 victory at Watford, Jamesey reflects on a good time to be a Palace supporter.

The pain of two narrow league defeats against Man City and Tottenham has been well and truly eased by recent results.

It would be unrealistic to expect to beat one of Europe's top football clubs, Manchester City (Sept 12), but the Blues only managed to win with an injury time goal after a fumble by Alex McCarthy.

The 1-0 defeat at White Hart Lane (Sept 20) was equally disappointing and a few of our more faint-hearted fans were daring to wonder whether the Pardew bandwagon had hit a serious obstacles.

However a sweet league cup victory (Sept 23) against our old "friends", Charlton Athletic, brought smiles back to Selhurst Park. It was no laughing matter for the Clowns who were booted out of the competition with a comprehensive 4-1 defeat.

Next on the league agenda was a visit to Watford (Sept 27) where the Hornets were in fine fettle at Vicarage Road and hadn't conceded a home goal prior to the palace game.

Those of us who were at the play-offs final against Watford two and a half years ago will savour that day with great delight. In glorious weather, we saw our team walk out onto the new Wembley turf as contenders and leave as members of the Premier league.

A foul on Wilfried Zaha was converted from the penalty spot by Kevin Phillips and that was how it stayed - a narrow 1-0 win.

Returning to the present campaign, yet again a foul on Wilf saw the majestic Yohan Cabaye sweep the ball into the Hornets' net and, bingo, history had repeated itself. Another 1-0 victory

Naturally Watford contested the referee's decision but replays clearly showed that although the ball was outside the box, the foul was inside and that is a cut-and-dried penalty.

This marked the Eagles' 11th win in 14 away games since Alan Pardew took the helm and if we could only improve on last season's unspectacular home form, we could be looking at a top-half table finish. Well, we can only dream.

I always used to enjoy a trip to Watford. It was always a somewhat awkward journey from where I live involving bus/train/tube/train/and a longish walk.

Nowadays my enthusiasm for travelling has waned and I watched the game in my local hostelry. Palace and Watford supporters are thin on the ground here so I was the sole viewer while all the other drinkers were watching Irish World Cup progress on two other screens.

Later it was more than the Youngs Special ale that had brought a warm glow to my innards. We were 6th in the Premier League table and that was a very nice feeling indeed.

The red Moon over London the weekend wasn't the only rarity to emerge.

Gary Neville, the staunch Man Utd ex-player now turned pundit (and a very good one too in my opinion) mentioned CrystalPalace not once, not twice, but three times in his weekend national newspaper column.

Tackling the subject of the the decline of northern football clubs in the top echelon, particularly, in the north-east, Mr Neville warmly complimented our supporters at Selhurst, saying that he goes to Selhurst now and hears far more passion than at Sunderland.

He goes on to say that "interest might have switched to Brighton or Bournemouth, or, around London, Watford, Fulham, QPR and Crystal Palace.

"f you had said to me 20 years ago that Alan Pardew would leave Newcastle to go to Crystal Palace I wouldn’t have believed you. I know there were other reasons. But Watford and Crystal Palace would now stand a good chance of taking a player off Newcastle or Sunderland, where some players feel they are doing the club a favour by being there, he concludes.

Thanks for those kind words, Mr Neville. That glow inside me has just got even warmer.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

In Depth Jamesey's Veteran View Index