Back in the Day: October 20th - Crystal Palace Make it 7 Wins in a Row

Saturday 20th October 1951

Crystal Palace 3-1 Ipswich Town

League Division Three South – Att: 21,220

Manager: Laurie Scott

Player manager Laurie Scott took charge of his first match of Crystal Palace, making his debut at the same time, and he got off to the perfect start. A goal from Ernie Price and a brace from the extremely prolific Cam Burgess gave Scott the points.

This would be about as good as it would get for Scott, however. The advancement that the Club was seeking when employing the former Arsenal man did not materialise. He would be given two full seasons in charge but a shocking start to the third season would see him lose his job. The less said about the two exits to non-league opposition in the FA Cup the better.

Tuesday 20th October 1998

Crystal Palace 3-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers

League Division One – Att: 16,417

Manager: Terry Venables

After dispatching Norwich 5-1 on the weekend, Palace made it two home wins in four days and four home wins on the bounce, a run that saw Venables’ Eagles climbing towards the right end of the table.

Despite there being five goals in the match the scoring would not start until the 40th minute when the brilliant Craig Moore found the back of the visitors net.

Then a moment of temporary madness shrouded Selhurst Park. Mike Stowell saved an Attilio Lombardo penalty! Angered by the sheer check of the man Lombardo stormed over to the corner flag and produced a cross so majestic that even Sagi Burton (below) couldn’t miss. 2-0 and cruising with 52 minutes on the clock.

Even with Palace playing excellent free-flowing football, it is never easy at Palace and Steve Sedgley would pull one back against the run of play on 63 minutes. Substitute Sasa Curcic restored the two-goal cushion with a strike 6 minutes from time, but Sedgley refused to give up. Two minutes later would find a way past Fraser Digby again to ensure a tense finish under the floodlights.

All was going so well. Surely nothing could stop us….

Saturday 20th October 2001

Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-1 Crystal Palace

League Division One – Att: 26,471

Manager: Steve Bruce

It is Wolves again and this time Steve Bruce’s Crystal Palace were making it 7 (SEVEN) league wins on the bounce. Better still, the victory saw the Eagles leapfrog Wolves and top the division.

It was a deflected Jovan Kirovski strike on the stroke of half-time that sealed the famous win and Palace fans could not believe that we had gone from almost relegation certainties the previous season, surviving only thanks to THAT Dougie Freedman goal at Stockport, to promotion favourites in just a few short months.

All was going so well. Surely nothing could stop us….

Saturday 20th October 2012

Crystal Palace 2-2 Millwall

Championship – Att: 16,124

Manager: Dougie Freedman

Crystal Palace made it eight games unbeaten but were disappointed at letting a 2-0 lead slip against local rivals Millwall. Mile Jedinak opened the scoring from range and Damien Delaney doubled the lead, scoring with his head for only the second time in his career (as far as I can work out). However, Dean Moxey handled on the line to give away a penalty and pick up a straight red card and the inevitable equaliser came through Mark Beevers in the second half after Liam Trotter had converted the spot kick.

Meanwhile, there had been a few rumblings in the press that Dougie Freedman was about to leave Crystal Palace for Bolton. On the Thursday before this match, I was sat next to Freedman at the Vice Presidents Annual Dinner and he said to me “why would I go to Bolton?” when asked about the link.

Naturally, I was confident that he was going nowhere…

All Results

What Happened Yesterday?

October 19th

Andy Johnson scored his first league goal for Crystal Palace.