Back in the Day: September 14th - Peter Simpson Makes His Crystal Palace Debut

Tuesday 14th September 1918

Crystal Palace 4-2 QPR

London Combination – Att: 2,000

Manager: Edmund Goodman

Crystal Palace played their first competitive fixture at The Nest, the former home of Croydon Common. August had seen Palace play at their new home for the first time, running out 4-1 winners over Millwall in a friendly and they would score four again in the second game of the final London Combination League season - a temporary World War I League.

Keane bagged a hat-trick, and Turner finished off the scoring for the hosts.

Palace: Blackwell, McDonald, Tanner, Isley, Blain, Bates, Turner, Jameson, Beech, Lewis, Keane

Saturday 14th September 1929

Crystal Palace 3-2 Norwich City

League Division Three South – Att: 14,067

Manager: Fred Mavin

Peter Simpson made his debut for Crystal Palace and promptly set himself on the path toward the Club’s number all-time top scorer charts. He scored all three goals in a 3-2 win at Selhurst Park – 162 more would follow.

Thompson and the scarily named Slicer scored the goals for Norwich.

Alliteration Watch: A sight to behold on this day with no less than FOUR entries! Bert Butler and Harry Havelock for Palace and John Jarvie and Bill Brown for City. I like to imagine that they all went for a cigar and a whiskey after the match.

Saturday 14th September 1940

Millwall 1-0 Crystal Palace

South Regional League – Att: 600

Manager: George Irwin

Thirty minutes gone, 1-0 down but confident that we could get back into the match on the grounds that we had won our opening two games of the season 6-3 and 5-2 respectively. Cue the air raid siren. World War Two rules stated that the result would stand no matter how much time had passed in a match, so Millwall escaped the inevitable second half battering thanks to those pesky Nazi’s.

Palace: Tootill, Hudgell, F.Dawes, Gregory, Taylor, Collins, Blackman, Waite, Robson, A.Dawes Wilson

Saturday 14th September 2002

Crystal Palace 4-2 Wolves

League Division One – Att: 16,961

Manager: Trevor Francis

We’ve already had one dream debut in this article, and here we have another. After impressing in the midweek cup victory over Plymouth, Wayne Routledge kept his place in the side, claimed the match day programme cover (see below) and took less than a minute to fire past Mike Oakes to give Palace the lead on his full League debut. Ivar Ingimarsson would equalise just after half an hour but a Dougie Freedman brace, one in each half including a penalty, would put Palace in command. Then Nathan Blake scored to make it 3-2 only for Steve Thomson to score almost straight from kick-off to re-establish the two-goal lead and end the scoring.

Tuesday 14th September 2010

Crystal Palace 4-1 Portsmouth

Championship – Att: 14,219

Manager: George Burley

And to cap off the theme of dream debuts, we have James Vaughan scoring a hat-trick on his home debut for Crystal Palace, matching the feat of the great Peter Simpson (as mentioned above).

Vaughan’s first came on 14 minutes when he turned beautifully in the penalty area before lashing into the top corner. The only blight on the night was a huge mix up between Anthony Gardner and Julian Speroni that allowed Dave Kitson in for the easiest of equalisers, but the reprieve would be only temporary.

Vaughan made it 2-1 on 55 minutes, showing searing pace to get in behind and then great bravery to the ball first and lift the ball over the goalkeeper when he knew he would get smashed by Jamie Ashdown. He would complete the hat-trick, lifting the ball over Ashdown again, after latching onto a Neil Danns headed through ball.

Danns would complete the scoring from the spot on one of the few good nights of the George Burley reign.

Alliteration Watch: Some rare post-2010 alliteration with Liam Lawrence and Ricardo Rocha.

Palace Links: Former Palace man Hayden Mullins and future Palace full-back Joel Ward appeared for Pompey on the night.

Friday 14th September 2012

Charlton Athletic 0-1 Crystal Palace

Championship – Att: 21,730

Manager: Dougie Freedman

What a night this was! On the TV on a Friday night with Palace taking a full, and extremely noisy, allocation across to The Valley. After losing the first three games of the season Palace had finally got on the board with a win over Sheffield Wednesday but the International Break had stopped any potential momentum.

In the first half, it looked like Bradley Wright-Phillips had given the hosts the lead as he nodded past Julian Speroni. He wheeled away in celebration, fingers to his lips telling the Palace fans behind the goal to be quiet, only to turn and see that the assistant referee was flagging for offside.

Then early in the second half, a corner would get knocked down to Kagisho Dikgacoi who would bring the ball down on his chest and do this…

And the celebrations were memorable!

Charlton would push for a late equaliser which included their goalkeeper, Ben Hamer, having an overhead kick cleared off the line by Owen Garvan with practically the last kick of the game, but the Eagles would hold on for the win.

Alliteration Watch: Maybe post-2010 alliteration is not so rare! Damien Delaney, Johnnie Jackson AND Michael Morrison in this one!

Palace Links:Rhoys Wiggins, Ricardo Fuller and Leon Cort all featured for the Clowns. 

Saturday 14th September 2013

Manchester United 2-0 Crystal Palace

Premier League - Att: 75,102

Manager: Ian Holloway

Referee Jonathan Moss had a complete mare as he handed Manchester United the victory in a moment of madness. On the stroke of halftime, Kagisho Dikgacoi and Ashley Young get tangled up just outside the penalty area and the United winger hits the turf. Moss wrongly awards a penalty and sends KG off despite the South African not being the last man. Robin Van Persie scored the penalty and a Wayne Rooney free-kick nine minutes from time secured a 2-0 win for David Moyes' men.

Yannick Bolasie shared my outrage at the decision:

It could have all been very different if Dwight Gayle had taken his chance when through one on one just seconds before the penalty incident. 

Read the match report here.

All Results

What Happened Yesterday?

September 13th - Julian Speroni's Penalty Save Spares Palace