What is it about Palace and Liverpool matches?

jeudi 17 août 2017

It has an amazing history considering the relative size and successes of both clubs. You could even write a very engaging book on the encounters such is the Twighlight Zone nature of many of them. Was having this conversation with an eminent BBSer the other day; there's something special about this meeting that conjures up the notable, bizzare and unusual.

For a start, there is no other 'big' club that we have somehow had so much success against in recent years. We haven't beaten Man U in the league since '91, yet Liverpool we've come to expect it every top flight season.

Opposing this of course is when Liverpool do beat us, it invariably is a humiliating drubbing: 9-0, 6-1, 5-0...many 3-0's. Something of the like I'm expecting Saturday, not just because of the Huddersfield experience but because we've pushed our luck and won 3 on the spin at Anfield so fate decrees it's their turn to punish us with an embarrassing tonking.

But what is it about Palace and Liverpool games that conjure up such a memorable outcome?

Of course 89/90 goes down in football folklore, never mind our respective clubs historys. To be utterly trounced 9-0 to a side then in the same season face that same club in the FA Cup semi and beat them 4-3 would be far fetched in a Roy of the Rovers story. Sandwiched in between was a 2-0 league defeat at Selhurst where Ian Wright first breaks his leg and began one of the FA Cup's most amazing stories.

Remember when we beat them at Anfield in 91/92 season when Liverpool's powers were beginning to dwindle, and a journalist wrote that when Liverpool's headstone is carved, the name 'Crystal Palace' will be etched on it in big letters.

Other notable games have been the 3-3 Crystanbul of course; the 5-0 away League Cup defeat when it all became about Clinton Morrison's comments from the first leg saying he could've scored some of Michael Owen's failed attempts.

There was the 1-6 home drubbing in '94. Not many can 'boast' conceding 6 at home in their very first game of a season. Ray Wilkins Palace career lasting less than half an hour that day.

Even in 1977, as a 3rd Division side up against the European champions adorned with giants of the game like Keegan, Clemence, Jimmy Case, Emlyn Hughes...we took them to 2 exhilarating FA Cup matches - the second ending in by all accounts (just before my time) an unbelievable 2-3 defeat notable for an amazing Paul Hinchelwood effort.

Even the game in 79/80 is seen as a bit of a landmark and the moment the 'Team of the 80's' dream died. We hit the summit of English football for the only time in our club's history that year and the media hailed the encounter at Anfield as 'The team of the 70's v The team of the 80's'. The result was a 3-0 hammering - totally ripped to pieces and the beginning of the end of a wonderous era under Terry Venables and the kids.

We must be the only club to have beaten them at Anfield 3 years on the spin surely? 'They must be sick of us'. So what is it about Palace and Liverpool?


0 commentaires:

Enregistrer un commentaire