The managers occupy opposite ends of both the trophy and the charm spectrum. Ours is a true gent with a superb silverware history whereas Pardew’s only trophy was in winning the head butt of the year award in 2014.
There are club similarities however, Maine Road was known as the Wembley of the North and the Crystal Palace was the home of the Cup Final before Wembley. Familiar traits; party gate crashers on Steven Gerrard’s last game for Liverpool as was City at the Swamp on the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster.
Also very much like City, Crystal Palace FC holds many of the weird records except that they’ve never won anything other than sympathy and thanks. Even the great Malcolm Allison took them down consecutively. Perhaps through a cousin of mine some of his DNA must be still hanging around Selhurst Park the way the club unexpectedly helped us to the championship by snatching a couple of points from the Scousers in that thrilling 3-3 draw.
They don’t do badly against Chelski either bless ‘em and another favourable dive into Malcolm The Great’s gene pool this Saturday will be most welcome.
