February 19 2002

Selhurst Park

Now that we are both in the same division again, Saturday was that odd occasion of the football year when many of us leave our familiar Selhurst season ticket seats and sit in the Arthur Wait stand for our "away" game with Wimbledon...

Reading a preview of the game in Time Out magazine, I was surprised to see Crystal Palace referred to as the Dons' fellow-tenants.

And although we patronisingly refer to them as "the Squatters" the Time Out writer was technically quite right. We are both the tenants of one Ronald Noades who owns the freehold of Selhurst Park.

Personally I always used to have a lot of time for the Wombles. As one of the smaller and unfashionable London clubs it was inspiring to see an even smaller and even less fashionable outfit storm the old First Division and not only stay there but give some of the bigger boys a lot of grief along the way - especially Liverpool in the FA Cup Final.

I would even go as far as to say that our successful promotion to the top tier in 1989 was partlyfuelled by the notion that "if they can do it so can Palace".

Given the above sentiments, I was in for a shock when I sauntered into the then-Members Stand a decade or so ago for our first ever Wimbledon/Palace away game.

Instead of a sort of small club fraternity, I walked into a barrage of seething hatred, with shouts of "scum" every time a Palace player touched the ball.

Was it our fault that they were our tenants as was true at the time? Plough Lane was a tip and they were getting bigger gates despite all the whingeing.

After that experience I didn't feel quite so kindly towards the Dons but later started to forgive and forget. However during our dreadful Premiership season of 1997/8, I went with a Dons-supporting mate to a game against Leicester on a day Palace were away to Coventry or somewhere like that.

When the half-time scores came up, we were on the end of one of the many stuffings of that awful time, 3-0 down or something like that.

The entire ground erupted into an attack of such mirth and malicious glee, you'd have thought they'd just won the European Cup. No change there then.

As an older and supposedly more responsible Palace supporter, I don't really go along with hatred of other clubs at all, although I have to make an exception in the case of Millwall and everything it stands for over the decades.

But I have to say the only smile the subject of Wimbledon will bring to my face is the sight of La Kournikova's knickers this coming July.

Email Jamesey with any of your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com