Tomorrow's Championship play-off final could give the latest top flight boost to South London's snakes-and-ladders clubTomorrow I'll be at Wembley to watch the Championship play-off final between Watford and Crystal Palace, the south Lon...
Tomorrow's Championship play-off final could give the latest top flight boost to South London's snakes-and-ladders clubTomorrow I'll be at Wembley to watch the Championship play-off final between Watford and Crystal Palace, the south London club whose fortunes over recent decades amount to one of London football's more vivid and varied stories. Having married into a Palace family, I've taken a heightened historical interest in all those surges, slumps, unequal top flight struggles and spectacular giant killings. Though never securely among the capital's elite, Palace have, nonetheless, at times possessed a transient glamour and some very gifted players. The Big Match clip below, from March 1973, captures some of those contrasts. Threatened with relegation from the old Division One, the club had just brought in Malcolm Allison, a talented coach and full-on publicity magnet. Allison failed to keep Palace up, yet this win over Chelsea, who were well above them in the league, showed what the team was capable of. Enjoy in particular the debut impact of future Palace hero Jim Cannon - initially on the Blues' Peter Osgood - and the chalk-and-cheese directors' box shot featuring both the flamboyant, Dartford-born Allison and Sir Alf Ramsey, Dagenham's most famous cold fish.Allison kept his job the following season despite Palace going down and even survived a consecutive drop to the old Third Division, from where the club launched a glorious FA Cup which, at that time, seemed to eclipse all other concerns. Tomorrow at Wembley the club has the chance to once more trampoline into the big time. The Guardian's assessment of the 2012/13 Palace is here.LondonCrystal PalaceDave Hillguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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