June 8 2004

Steve Kember and Terry Bullivant

Simon Pophale continues his review of the 2003-4 season...

November

Games on the first of the month have not bode well for us this season so far. Away to Wigan, live on TV, we are humiliated by five goals and with a performance so inept, you would think that we were already down. The embarrassment of this defeat ran deep and led to Simon Jordan taking the final drastic action of, two days later, sacking Steve Kember.

Despite being a Palace man through and through, Steve will be the first to admit that things were not working, and with Julian Gray falling out with the management early on in the season, plus numerous injuries and a general feeling of malaise at the club, Jordan had seen enough. In Kember’s place came Kit Symons to caretake for the intermediate future.

However a week later, we only scraped a 1-1 draw at home to Preston, but followed this up with a 0-0 draw at Walsall two weeks later. Despite not having won a league came since August, performances were beginning to turn around and it was the next week that we finally saw a victory, this time 1-0 away at Stoke.

The final Saturday of the month we looked to be heading for a victory at home to Coventry with a goal from the impressive Rob Edwards, who had signed for Palace on loan at the start of the month from Aston Villa.

However Coventry’s own loanee Johnnie Jackson made the scores level at the death, so it was only one point to savour. Six points however out of the month was still, not a good return.

December

By December 10, we would see ourselves in the relegation zone for the first time and once again performances had dipped. We saw defeats against Aston Villa in the League Cup (0-3), Preston away (1-4) and Crewe at home (1-3).

I was at the Crewe game and it was clear, that hope had forsaken us. It was a nervy disjointed performance from all concerned. There was no real organisation and Crewe danced around us to take an early two-goal lead.

We never looked like getting anything out of the game even when Danny Butterfield got us back in it with 12 minutes left. The impressive Dean Ashton added a third for the visitors to seal our fate. 21st in the division. It was going to be a long cold winter.

However Kit pulled a real gem out of the bag when he named Gray in the starting line-up for the Forest home game a few days later. So much so that we won 1-0 and it was evident that Jules made an immediate difference. One week later, in front of the Sky cameras again, we turned in one of the performances of the season so far with a 3-0 drubbing of Reading at the Madejski Stadium.

Although the victory was overshadowed by the argument between Symons and Simon Jordan, as news filtered out that this was to be Kit’s last game in charge, before IAIN DOWIE was to take over the manager’s position.

However, DOWIE’s first game in charge was to be a 1-0 defeat, at home to our neighbours Millwall on Boxing Day. The team had performed well though, so when we went up to Ipswich and trounced them 3-1 in the last game of 2003, with a goal from Gray to boot, the skies did not look as black as they had done just three weeks before. Things were looking up.

January

The traditional start to the New Year is the FA Cup and despite the hordes of Palace fans that made the short trip to White Hart Lane, the best performance that day came from our goodselves in the stands bringing colour and a party atmosphere to Tottenham. However we lost 3-0.

The league, however is the priority though and DOWIE made two key signings this month. First was Mark Hudson, on loan from Fulham. DOWIE had Hudson on loan before at Oldham and is a fan of the young defender. His next move was to go back to his former club to sign John Harbin, a fitness coach to add to the backroom staff.

Despite drawing 0-0 at home to Burnley, the results started to really swing for us when Watford were put the sword at Vicarage Road. A 3-0 lead at half-time ended up being a 5-1 win for us at full-time (cue Old Chap’s prediction of us winning 5-1 at least once a season!).

We followed that up with convincing wins away at Bradford (2-1) and home to Wimbledon (3-1) to end the month with 10 points out of 12, and only one defeat since the dark days in December.

Indeed, the Wimbledon game saw IAIN DOWIE’s first permanent signing, Mikele Leigertwood from Wimbledon. Mikele had been earning good reviews for his performances this season and we got him under stiff competition from West Ham among others, who were busy re-creating the Wimbledon midfield at Upton Park.

February

The good news didn’t stop there, the momentum was gathering at a real pace now. Sheffield United were in the play-off spots but we made light work of them, trouncing them 3-0 at Bramall Lane, then we made even lighter work of Stoke City winning 6-3 with Wayne Routledge scoring one of the best goals Selhurst Park had seen for a long time. Andy Johnson got a hat trick in this game, to take his recent tally to 14 goals in 11 games.

Also, we were pulling away from the bottom of the table at some speed now. However the progress made was undone at Derby as although we take an early lead, Derby score two quick goals in the second half to condemn us to our first league defeat since Crewe. That was now 10 weeks ago.

Hudson, who had formed a formidable partnership with Tony Popovic in defence, alongside the ever-consistent Butterfield and the return of Danny Granville, restored to the side by DOWIE, were the main reasons for the upswing in form.

In goal we had Thomas Myhre on loan from Sunderland, and he certainly loved every minute of his time with us. Up front, Wayne and Jules were providing a steady stream of crosses, which AJ was clearly taking full advantage of. Shipperley was installed as captain and was leading the line, linking the play together well with the livewire Johnson.

The last game of the month was against Gillingham and with a fantastic volley from Butterfield putting us in the driving seat. Lady Luck started to look upon us favourably.

Despite winning a penalty, the Gills missed not only the first one, but on the order for it to be retaken, missed that as well! We hold on to a victory, which meant that we took nine points out of a possible 12.

Part 3 tomorrow