When we left Palace last they were on the crest of a wave, after that fantastic win over Chelsea.
On Saturday, we returned from the international break, after the phenomenal excitement of the England versus San Marino game and that amazing first half against Switzerland, for a top of the table clash against Manchester City.
Clearly this top of the table clash was unexpected. Otherwise it would not have been scheduled for a humble 3pm slot on a Saturday afternoon.
Now all we wished for was to beat City by four goals.
That is Manchester City, the richest side in the country, who spent well over £100 million on de Bruyne, Sterling and Otamendi, none of whom even started the game, while we celebrated spending £12 million on Cabaye.
And a team who had swept all before them in the opening weeks of the season.
It would have been almost unprecedented for Palace to go top like this.
Almost.
One of my fondest memories of youth was ‘the day we went top‘. It was another lovely sunny September day, back in 1979 and Palace were playing Ipswich Town, one of the best teams in the country.
From a financial point of view, Ipswich were no comparison to City now, but they were a very well managed club. They had won the FA Cup in May 1978 and built on that success by buying classy Dutch stars Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen to add to a very solid core of British players, players so good many of them broke out of prison in ‘Escape to Victory‘.
In May 1981, just over eighteen months later, they were to win the UEFA Cup, so they were not a bad side at all.
But that day in September 1979, they met that Palace on a roll. This was the Venables promotion side, filled with Palace youth products, some like Jim Cannon, Dave Swindlehurst and Paul Hinshelwood from the early seventies, but five were from the FA Youth Cup winning side of 1977 – Kenny Sansom, Peter Nicholas, Billy Gilbert, Jerry Murphy and Vince Hilaire.
Venables had added two players to the promotion winning side from May – Mike Flanagan from Charlton Athletic, and the injury prone former England captain Gerry Francis. Francis was, or had been, an excellent creative midfield player, who had almost led Queens Park Rangers to the Championship in 1976.
For those first few games of the 1979/80, he brought that form to Selhurst Park. He scored the first of three first half goals that day. We led 3-0 at half-time, with Paul Hinshelwood and Dave Swindlehurst adding the other goals – Swindlehurst scoring a spectacular volley.
In recent memory I would compare it to the day Ian Holloway was appointed in November 2012 and watched what had been Dougie’s Palace side trounce Blackburn 2-0.
Back in September 1979, Palace beat Ipswich 4-1, with the win capped by an epic Jim Cannon goal. It was a win that took Palace to the top of the League, and made them the focus of all the Sunday papers that week.
We were the ‘Team of the Eighties’.
Typically for Palace, our time as the ‘Team of the Eighties‘ peaked that day in 1979. Our initial early season form began to fall off and we drifted down the table, finishing in a comfortable thirteenth place.
Nor in truth, did it feel like we were going to be 3-0 up at half-time. City woke up a bit, even if that came more off the back of some feisty challenges and the substitution of de Bruyne for the injured Aguero.
The second half saw us continue to compete well and give City their toughest game so far this season. Arguably it was a better performance from us than the win over them last season.
You probably know the final score. If you do not there is an excellent summary of the game elsewhere on the site.
Suffice to say, we are not top of the League but we are getting the press adulation we got back in September 1979.
The press seem think we will do well, at least a top ten finish, maybe a Europa League spot even though the Europa League is no 1981 era UEFA Cup.
There is part of me that would have settled for finishing thirteenth this season if we could have repeated that glorious day from 1979 and scored those four goals we needed to go top.
