August 11 2013

Parading the trophy

After a three-month gap, Jamesey returned to the Thingummy Arena (aka Selhurst Park) to see the Eagles lose 0-1 to Italian giants, Lazio.

It was a bright summer's day (Aug 10) and a fair crowd (figure unknown as I write) turned out to see Palace's last pre-season match before the real slog starts.

The Arthur Wait was closed so your correspondent decided to roost in Block B of the Main Stand.

The stadium had certainly been smartened up with sparkling plastic seats all around and I could just about see that my old wooden seat across the field had been replaced. Ah well, that's progress, I suppose. And the new pitch surface? Excuse the cliche but snooker table surface was the best way to describe it.

There was a fair smattering of Italians in my vicinity who vociferously supported Lazio and who presumably were all London-based. You'd have to be a raving fanatic to travel all the way from Rome just to see a pre-season warm-up in South London.

As an "antipasto" to the proceedings Mile Jedinak and the lads showed off the play-offs trophy which was greatly appreciated by all of us.

A year or two back, I used this column to gently complain that we never seem to have a home friendly to a really big club in recent times. Well CPFC2010 certainly put that right this year by managing to procure a visit from a really big name in world football.

Reluctantly I have to say that right from the kick-off the gap in technique between many home-grown players and Continental ones became apparent.

On the whole Lazio were cleverer, trickier and had far more guile than their red and blue counterparts and a fumble by Julian Speroni in the 12th minute was eagerly snaffled by German veteran ace, Miroslav Klose, who banged in the winning goal.

If you're going to lose a match to a poacher, you might as well do so to a legendary poacher of supreme skill.

As seems to be routine now, Ian Holloway sent out an almost completely changed line-up for the second half which really did little more to encourage me than the first batch.

Kevin Phillips, now in the Number 9 shirt, looked as though he'd been toasted on some tropical beach. Obviously the word "melanoma" holds no fears chez Kev.

What about our new red and blue halves strip then? As a staunch conservative and traditionalist I regret the demise of sash or stripes so a shirt of two 'arves has little appeal to me.

Anyhow whatever shirts of whatever pattern or hue we will be wearing, next Sunday (Aug 18) will be our first big test against Tottenham, a classy team tipped for a top four finish in 2014.

We, of course, are generally expected to take the drop. But then we were last season - and look what happened.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

In Depth Jamesey's Veteran View Index