Back in the Day: September 23rd

Wednesday 23rd September 1925

Crystal Palace 5-2 Bristol City

League Division Three South – Att: 8,078

Manager: Alex Maley

Bottom of the league and zero wins for Palace and averaging just a goal a game in the opening five games of the season whilst averaging over three goals conceded a game – a coupon buster if ever I saw one.

Cecil Blakemore scored a hat-trick and Percy Cherrett scored a brace with Charles Sutherland and John Paul scoring the goals for Bristol City.

Below is what appears to be the only picture of Blakemore in existence and is from his time at Swindon Town, right at the end of his career – he would score 54 times for Palace between 1922 and 1927.

Palace: Bill Harper, William Blake, Charlie Cross, Jimmy Hamilton, Dick Strang, Bob Greener, Bert Harry, Bill Hand, Percy Cherrett, Cecil Blakemore, George Clarke

City: Frank Vallis, Dick Hughes, Ernest Glenn, Bert Needam, Frank Davies, Andy Smailes, Cyril Gilhespy, John Paul, David Sherlaw, Charles Sutherland, Robert Kirk

Monday 23rd September 1935

Crystal Palace 6-1 Northampton Town

League Division Three South – Att: 5,134

Manager: Jack Tresadern

Northampton goalkeeper may sound like he was made for goalkeeping, Gormlie the Goalie, but apparently he wasn’t very good – despite going on to manager Anderlecht and Belgium later in his life. Jim Carson and Bob Bigg made up the numbers for Palace in a game where Bert Dawes (below) found the back of the net four times.

Scoring so freely wasn’t unusual for Dawes, across to spells with Palace in the 1930s he would score 92 goals in 156 appearances – 39 of them would come in this season.

Palace: Ronald Dunn, Edward ‘Tussy’ Owens, George Rumbold, Bill Turner, Jimmy Wilde, William Smith, Jim Carson, Frank Manders, Bert Dawes, Ernie Waldron, Bob Bigg

Northampton: Bill Gormlie, William Thompson, Fred Dawes, Frank McMenemy, Jim Melville, Tom Robson, Dick Brown, Jimmy Bartram, Tommy Bell, Len Potter, Colin Lyman

Wednesday 23rd September 1959

Crystal Palace 8-1 Watford

League Division Four – Att: 21,938

Manager: George Smith

George Smith’s Crystal Palace put Watford to the sword in front of a sizable 22,000 crowd at Selhurst Park, despite only one point separating the two sides at the start of play.

Johnny Byrne, Johnny Roche and Ray Colfar all scored braces with Johnny Gavin and Alfie Noakes making up the eight goals. Cliff Holton scored one of the most pointless goals of all time for Watford.

I bet you can count the times on one hand that a team has been smashed 8-1 in a season and gone on to get promoted, as Watford did in this season.

Palace: Vic Rouse, Terry Long, Alfie Noakes, Johnny McNichol, Len Choules, Roy Summersby, Johnny Gavin, Dave Sexton, Johnny Roache, Johnny Byrne, Ray Colfar

Watford: Jimmy Linton, Jack Price, Jack Harrop, George Catleugh, Vince McNeice, Sammy Chung, Micky Benning, Dennis Uphill, Clifton Holton, Barry Hartle, Freddie Bunce

Meanwhile, as Palace were busy thumping Watford, Mrs Murphy was busy giving birth in East London to future Palace star, Jerry Murphy. Happy birthday, sir.

Monday 23rd September 1991

After six years and 117 goals, Ian Wright leaves Crystal Palace and signs for Arsenal. The North London club had discovered that there was a release clause in Wrighty's contract if a club could offer him European football. With Ron Noades not putting up the money to sign a sufficient enough calibre of players to maintain the Club's meteoric rise towards the top of the old First Division, the Club's third all-time top scorer was off. 

"Too good for Palace and too good for Wright to refuse" said Ron Noades on the offer. 

He didn't get off to a bad start and it is fair to say that themove worked out well for him. Although, there have been some rocky times with the Palace faithful along the way since his move across London. On the Crystal Palace Centenary DVD (below) Ian Wright apologised to the Palace fans for kissing the Arsenal badge in front of us.

Saturday 23rd September 2006

Crystal Palace 1-0 Coventry City

Championship – Att: 16,093

Manager: Peter Taylor

Crystal Palace sneaked a 1-0 win against the Sky Blues thanks to a Clinton Morrison strike ten minutes into the second half. Clinton controlled a cross, turned and hit a volley into the top corner. Check out the capability of camera phones in 2006!

Peter Taylor after the game said:

"His first touch was excellent, and he took Coventry goalkeeper Andy Marshall by surprise.

"We created more chances than Coventry, and that goal came out of nothing.

"Clinton has trained very well, and is getting closer and closer to full match fitness. He appreciates that we need four good strikers to be successful."

Ex and Future Palace: Looking at the Coventry line up it looks like a minefield for goals against. Leon McKenzie, Stern John and Dele Adebola all featured for the visitors that day. Of course, Stern John hadn’t played for Palace yet but the returning Adebola and McKenzie playing surely should have seen the ex-striker curse strike!

Palace: Gabor Kiraly, Danny Butterfield (Ben Watson), Garry Borrowdale, Darren Ward, Leon Cort, Michael Hughes (Shefki Kuqi), Jobi McAnuff, Matt Lawrence, Clinton Morrison (Dougie Freedman), James Scowcroft, Mark Kennedy

Coventry: Andy Marshall, David McNamee, Marcus Hall, Micky Doyle (Dele Adebola), Rob Page, Elliott Ward, Chris Birchall, Stephen Hughes, Kevin Kyle (Colin Cameron), Leon McKenzie (Stern John), Jay Tabb

Other Results

What Happened Yesterday?

September 22nd

Glenn Murray scored a hat-trick to turn around a 0-2 deficit at home to Cardiff City.