11/5/91

Div 1

Palace 3 Man Utd 0

Final day of the season. 25,301 saw Palace clinch 3rd place against a United side that had other things on their mind: a Cup Winners Cup date against Barcelona the following week. Still a polished victory though with Wright getting his 25th of the season and Salako netting twice, his second a 25 yard classic.

Before the game, to commemorate Virgin's last day as Palace's sponsor, a Virgin Atlantic hot air balloon was set to take off from the middle of the pitch. The only problem is it refused to lift off and was dragged off instead.

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'Better stop dreaming of the quiet life 'cos it's the one we'll never know'

In action. Not sure if this led to one of our goals, but Bright and Salako are in the centre of things as Denis Irwin and keeper Gary Walsh try and keep us out.

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'Better stop dreaming of the quiet life 'cos it's the one we'll never know'

The goose that laid the golden eggs takes a bow. This sadly was Wrighty's final end of season at Palace. Despite an incredible campaign, it was Geoff Thomas that landed the Palace Player of the Year award. That summer, Thomas, Wright, Salako and Martyn all represented England on tour of Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

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'Better stop dreaming of the quiet life 'cos it's the one we'll never know'

I was chatting to a long standing gooner at a party on Saturday who thought Wrighty and Kenny Sansom were two of Arsenal's greatest ever players, and therefore had a soft spot for Palace.

I hated it when Wrighty left...... sick to my stomach.

2/11/91

Div 1

Liverpool 1 Palace 2

After probably one of the more depressing months as a Palace fan, this win at Anfield was certainly the silver lining. Within a space of a week we had lost two of our England internationals: Wright and Salako. One to Arsenal for £2.5m, and the other to a horrific knee injury that kept Johnny out long term and was never the same player again. That would've been enough to knock a club like Man City and their billionaire resources backwards, nevermind Palace.

Anyway, goals from recent £1.8m signing Gabbiadini, and Thomas saw us come from behind for a famous victory. Souness was their manager at the time and was beginning to feel the heat from the Anfield crowd. I certainly remember their support being highly critical of their manager after that game and to their credit, complimentary towards us.

Not the best two pictures in the world, but the view from the away end as the players in the Brazil kit, take to the pitch to red, blue & yellow balloons courtesy of our new sponsors: Tulip.

After this game, Andy Gray became the 5th Palace player in a year to get an England call-up.

Out of interest, at this stage of the season we were only 6 points behind eventual title winners Leeds. Just makes you wonder, had we not lost Wrighty and not had that terrible luck with Salako, how close we would've got to doing the unbelievable.

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'Better stop dreaming of the quiet life 'cos it's the one we'll never know'

1/5/93

Div 1

Palace 3 Ipswich 1

Fast forward 18 months, and a team with realistic ambitions of the title were now fighting for their lives in the top flight. The pictures you're about to see are of the infamous lap of honour, where we celebrated 'survival' but were unbelievably relegated 1 week later. Bar administration, probably my lowest point as a Palace fan.

Goals from Young, McGoldrick and Armstrong put us 8 points clear of third to bottom Oldham. They had to win all their last 3 games, including an away match at title chasing Aston Villa to stand any chance whatsoever of catching us. We had 49 points come the last game of the season, and no team had ever gone down with that many points. Guess what happened?

We attack in the first half towards the Holmesdale and the scoreboard reveals our early opener from Eric Young.

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'Better stop dreaming of the quiet life 'cos it's the one we'll never know'