A light hearted look at tomorrow's opponents.

There was me thinking Crystal Palace, along with Port Vale was one of two clubs who took their name from places that do not actually exist! How wrong could I be, although the club took its name from famous Crystal Palace exhibition structure that burnt down in 1936 there is also a residental area called Crystal Palace which is part of the London Borough of Bromley. The club's ground Selhurst Park is actually in nearby South Norwood.

Regular Leeds away trippers in the 1980's and 1990's may have visited the ground twice in a season as Palace ground-shared their home with both Charlton Athletic and Wimbledon.

Selhurst Park was also used in the BBC 1988 Drama "The Firm" about rival football hooligan gangs, starring Gary Oldman.

Although Oldman support's Palaces' (and our) hated rivals Millwall, Palace have quite a few celeb fans of their own including Jo Brand, Graham Cole (actor The Bill), comedian's Sean Hughes and Ronnie Corbett as well as actors Neil Morrissey and two of the excellent Inbetweeners Simon Bird (Will) and James Buckley (Jay). Jim Bob from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine is also a fan according to Holmesdale.net.

Palace adopted the 1964 Dave Clark Five's Hit "Glad all Over" in the 1968's and it make a comeback in 1990 when the Eagles made the FA Cup final. Sadly they were left feeling anything but "Glad all over" and the same can be said for the majority of Leeds fans who no doubt were rooting for them to beat Manchester United, unfortunately they lost in the replay.

Whilst our own hatred of Manchester United can be quite easily traced back to 1455 (The war of the Roses), Palace enjoy a quite fierce but curious rivalry with Brighton and Hove Albion, who are 45 miles south from Selhurst. Apparently it all stems from the personal rivalry between one-time Tottenham team-mates Alan Mullery and our one-time boss Terry Venables. In 1976, Mullery took charge at the Goldstone Ground, Venables took over at Selhurst Park. Both sides were then in the Old Third Division and tensions rapidly festered including an incident where Mullary was doused in hot coffee and play was halted during one match because three smoke bombs were thrown on the pitch. Mullery later soent two years in charge at Palace.

Photo: Action Images

TimWhelan added 22:02 - Nov 23 The late eighties song 'Preposterous tales of Ken McKenzie' by 'I Ludicrous' includes the line "I once saw the Palace score four goals away from home".
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