2010-11 Match Reports CCFC v PALACE

28.9.2010

CCFC 0 v 0 CRYSTAL PALACE

‘To begin at the beginning; it was a moonless night in the small town, starless and bible black...’ Stretching credibility it may be, but if Dylan Thomas had had the great good fortune to have been born on the right side of Wales’ second city he would no doubt have taken up the Bluebird cause and may well have been inspired by the huddled bedraggled masses as they trudged along in doomy black, bible black tarmacadamed toil towards the field of their dreams.

On a damp and miserable evening of sartorial dilemma – too mild for a heavy overcoat, but wet enough for a raincoat, brolly? mmm...tricky –  the trusty scarf was called into action for the first time this season. Facing a Palace team who had lost all 4 of their games on the road, conceding 5 in their last game and managed by George Burley whose last visit to the stadium led to his sacking as Scotland manager after a 3-0 defeat in a friendly against Wales, we had good grounds for optimism.

Heaton continued in goal with Blake replacing Gypes  at the back. Olifinjana passed a late fitness test to take his place in front of the back four with Koumas starting for the first time and given a free role in midfield. The formation roughly translated as 4-1-1-2-2 and for the first 15 minutes we played some glorious stuff knocking the ball around with gay abandon. Old Speccy, Edgar Davids slotted in at left back for Palace and was having no impact on the game and as he’s only on a pay-as-you-play contract you feared that his family may be heading for the workhouse.

However, within 20 minutes Palace had been forced into two substitutions resulting in Davids moving into midfield where he was to become much more influential. The middle of the park suddenly looked swamped as City’s progress became more crab-like as if haunted by the ghost of Sideways McPhail. Palace had a couple of useful young wingers and looked very dangerous down the right wing as the impressive 17 year old Ivory Coaster (that’s probably not be the correct term as it sounds like something upon which one might place a particularly hot beverage) Zanu, gave Naylor a torrid time. Fortunately Palace were fairly impotent in attack and failed to capitalise on Zanu’s good works. There was not much to get excited about as the game headed towards a half-time stalemate.

Ali’s selection of jaunty new wave punky London sounds kept us entertained during the interval with The Jam’s ‘Down in the Tube-Station at Midnight’ worming its way into my distracted brain throughout the second half tedium. (Thinks : ‘The wine’s gone flat and the curry’s gone cold’. That suggests that Mrs Weller is patiently waiting for young Paul to return home unaware that he’s been duffed up by right-wing thugs who ‘smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs’  and is preparing to serve sparkling wine with a curry! Call me a grumpy old pedant but surely a good ale or a Sauvignon Blanc would be more appropriate...)

  

Beside me Bob Bank Betty spied a bat high up in the rafters.

The relentless rain chased across the stadium forming pretty speckled light.

All around a sea of Homer Simpsons looked vacantly into the middle-distance and thought inappropriate distracted thoughts.

Meanwhile, in some parallel footie universe the radio commentary was telling me that Preston had fought back from 1-4 to lead Leeds 6-4...

Back on the pitch the second half was essentially incident-free apart from a couple of excellent saves by Heaton which in the absence of any other serious contenders made him City’s Man Of The Match. One or two other players do deserve a mention: on the positive side, the central defence was solid and McNaughton put in another good shift. Not so impressive were the largely anonymous Koumas (currently a shadow of his former self), Keogh (if he’s the answer, goodness knows what the question is...) and the frustrated and increasingly petulant Bothroyd who got away with a theatrical dive in the box, was later summoned by the Ref after throwing the ball away, squared up to the Ref and almost demanded to be booked. On another night with a different Ref he wouldn’t have lasted the game.

The attendance was announced at 22,000+ including Mr Vincent Tan our new owner. Oh dear. The current squad does not have sufficient quality to keep up the standards achieved when Bellers, Chops and Drinkwater were in their pomp. There was no-one on the bench that DJ could reasonably turn to to make a difference. Hopefully we can get some sort of return against Barnsley on Saturday and regroup after the International break. It’s far from a hopeless cause – we’re still 2^nd after all – but this just wasn’t good enough.