Back in the Day: October 24th - Darren Ambrose: The Free Kick King

Tuesday 24th October 1978

Steve Kember re-signed for Palace from Leicester City for £40,000 – a move widely considered as pivotal in the promotion that the Eagles would gain that season.

Saturday 24th October 1981

Crystal Palace 0-1 Derby County

League Division Two – Att: 11,292

Manager: Dario Gradi

Just another every other day reminder of how terrible things were in the early 1980’s. Dave Swindlehurst returned to haunt us in this one – scoring the only goal of the game after 7 minutes.

At least we had the best programme covers in the land.

Saturday 24th October 1998

Bradford City 1-1 Crystal Palace

League Division One – ABANDONED AT HALF TIME

Manager: Terry Venables

This match showed why water football would never take off. The two sides contested valiantly in the first half with Clinton Morrison scoring for the visitors before Isiah Rankin found the back of the Palace net. The referee decided to halt proceedings at half-time - around 45 minutes later than he should have.

Morrison finished his career with 113 goals for Crystal Palace, level with Mark Bright in 4th all-time for the Eagles. If only the weather had been better in Bradford on this day in 1998, then Clint and Brighty's ongoing argument would never have started.

Tuesday 24th October 2000

Crystal Palace 0-1 Grimsby Town

League Division One – Att: 16,685

Manager: Alan Smith

Things had not been going great, but Dougie Freedman had returned to the Club, and the last time that he played Grimsby at Selhurst Park on a Tuesday night he scored an 11 minute hat-trick as Palace romped to a 5-0 win. Spirits were lifted and we were all dreaming of a repeat performance. Unfortunately, Palace were often woeful in the 01/02 season and had lost the last 5 in the league while Grimsby threatened the play-off places for most of the season – alas a 0-1 loss followed, in somewhat comical circumstances.

Look away now, Alex Kolinko...

Saturday 24th October 2009

Crystal Palace 1-1 Nottingham Forest

Championship – Att: 15,692

Manager: Neil Warnock

Darren Ambrose scored 20 goals for Crystal Palace in the 2009/10 season, and this was up there with the very best of them.

This goal came five minutes before the break, however, David McGoldrick would equalise three minutes after the interval and that is how it would finish.

Saturday 24th October 2015

Leicester City 1-0 Crystal Palace

Premier League - Att: 21,752

Manager: Alan Pardew

Jamie Vardy scored for the 7th Premier League game in a row, on his way to breaking the Premier League record for consecutive games scored in. The Leicester striker would go on to score in 11 consecutive games - but this was still some way short of the actual top-flight record of 15, held by Stan Mortensen who achieved the feat in 1950/51. But apparently, that doesn't count as it was pre-Premier League.

The goal came in the 59th minute. Brede Hangeland gave the ball away to Riyad Mahrez and the Algerian's perfect first-time pass put Vardy in and the striker easily rounded Wayne Hennessey to score.

Future Eagle, Jeffrey Schlupp, appeared for Leicester in this one. 

Tuesday 24th October 2017

Bristol City 4-1 Crystal Palace

League Cup 4th Round  - Att: 21,901

Manager: Roy Hodgson

A shocking evening at Ashton Gate that only got worse after Pape Souare, one of only two Palace players that had the guts to come over and clap the fans, had his shirt thrown back after he had thrown it into the away end. 

Hodgson was scathing in his post-match interview: "It was a good night for the ten or eleven left back at the training ground and a bad night, for me, the manager and the coach of the team and a bad night for the fans, to whom I apologise for the team’s performance, and, of course, also a bad night for a few of these players who obviously think that they should be in the team, but they didn’t do enough tonight to prove it to me.”

City: Steele, Pisano (Paterson 65), Flint, Wright, Magnusson, O'Dowda, Pack, Brownhill, Bryan, Diedhiou (Djuric 31, Bakinson 80) Taylor

Palace: Hennessey, Fosu-Mensah, Kelly, Tomkins, van Aanholt (Lumeka 83), Puncheon, Riedewald, Lee (Ladapo 57), Loftus-Cheek, Kaikai (Souare 64), Sako

All Results

What Happened Yesterday?

October 23rd

Dougie Freedman day - the former Palace striker and manager managed to clock up three landmark occasions on October 23rd.