As the Eagles travel abroad, Brian Mulligan meets one fan who was at their maiden flight
This week, high-flying Crystal Palace make their European debut at an unfamiliar stadium near Poland’s border with Ukraine. While the Europa Conference game with Dynamo Kyiv in Lublin will be a new experience, the Eagles have met international opposition several times before – and not just in the oft-quoted Anglo-Italian Cup tournaments of 1971 and 1973.
In 1998, Palace competed in the Intertoto Cup, whose three group winners went forward to the UEFA Cup. Palace weren’t one of them. Beaten home and away by Samsunspor of Turkey, the Eagles limped out of their first proper foray into Europe without so much as a goal scored.
Popular writer, comedian and lifelong Palace fan Kevin Day was among the 11,758 crowd at Selhurst Park that hot July day. Brian Mulligan sat down with the host of the highly successful independently produced The Price of Football podcast:
“I remember walking up Holmesdale Road, hearing singing and chanting from the away end and seeing the smoke rise over the stand thinking Samsunspor must have bought thousands. Then I got into the ground and found out there were about a hundred of them – though each one had a flare. It was out of season, either at the end of one or pre the next, so there weren’t that many of us there”.
“We were so arrogant we thought surely we’d beat a mid-table team from Turkey. I knew about Besiktas, Fenerbahce and, of course, Galatasaray but Samsunpor FC? Remember, there was nowhere to find out about them easily like there is today, unless you went to legendary bookshop Sportspages in Charing Cross Road to look them up. We booked flights for the away tie, hotels, the lot… then the match started.”
“English football at the time was quite rigid, 4-4-2, long ball, the Charlie Hughes school/FA Coaching Manual stuff. All big man up top and the keeper launching it so you lose the ball then it’s in their half where it won’t hurt so much. So the thing I mostly remember about the game is they played us off the park, passing it around playing possession football, They had a flexible formation where the centre-back brought the ball out and the right-back turned up on the left wing. We were stunned as were the home team and they were a goal up early on and cruising.”
And the second leg? “Well we didn’t bother – we just cancelled the trip.” Again Palace lost 2-0.
Kevin initially struggles to recall whether the side had anyone who might have experience of such competitions. Later he reflects: “Our team had three foreign players: Attilio Lombardo was still there, Saša Ćurčić and Icelander Hermann Hreiðarsson. Also, the likes of Clinton Morrison, Neil Shipperley and Dean Austin. Venables was manager and we’d just been relegated. We’d only just started pre-season training and it was so hot for the return leg the physio wouldn’t let us train at all. Legend has it he suggested the players only walked through the game”.
And can he recall the legendary Anglo-Italian Cup games of the early 1970s, not least the victory at Internazionale? “No, but I’ve heard so much about the details I can almost convince myself I was there. If you really want to know about football you need an expert – like a nine year old. When I was nine I could tell you everything about football – all the names of managers, grounds, Italian teams’ kits…”
“There’s a famous Croydon Advertiser headline something like ‘Palace Beat Wine Swilling Italians’, which came about because our player Alan Birchenall reckons that he went past their squad eating lunch with a glass of red. Mind you, he also says he saw then cutting the grass with a pair of scissors…”
“Actually we should have been in Europe properly after that as we finished third in the league in 1990-91 but the legacy of the UEFA ban meant only one English club was allowed and that was Liverpool. There’s obviously a ‘typical Palace’ feel about the whole Europa League fiasco, too, which meant the qualifying game against Fredrikstad FK at home was really tense and we got a scrappy 1-0. Not worth going away as I wouldn’t have got a ticket. And we got fined £10k for displaying a banner saying ‘UEFA Mafia’!”
Kevin has had a long and varied career in comedy, writes for Have I Got News For You and is justifiably proud of his work as a trustee serving with the Palace for Life Foundation. He helps to fundraise every year through Marathon March – the longest was from Tottenham to Selhurst Park via every league ground in London. He is also involved in advising workers based at police stations on weekend nights offering interventions for young people at risk.
So, on the eve of Palace’s Grand Euro Tour, what was Kevin’s response when he heard the draw? “What were the odds on away games in Lublin and Dublin? I’m bubbling!” He can’t get to either but has one trip that he won’t be cancelling: “Strasbourg! There’s 15 of us going, a mixed crowd, one of whom I’ve been going to games with for decades. We’ll board the Eurostar then reassure the rest of the carriage that we are no threat. Some will sleep, a few order croissants and coffee, others will be straight on the beer!”
Maybe good things really do come to those who sit in the Arthur Wait.
