Cod Almighty | Diary

Just the other side of Dulwich mate

28 May 2026

I promised myself a lie-in. After all those hot sleepless nights and early morning watering sessions your Guest diarist felt he deserved one. But the thunder just woke me and the rain is now siling hard so nature is clearing the air and I think I'd better do the same about Crystal Palace.

I watched Palace last night win the little European cup. I could only do that because TNT ground me and the missus into submission last month and we bought a subscription. She wants the tennis, I want the cycling so the footie kind of came free. I didn't bother with the commentary as I am still trying hard to listen again to every single album recorded or released in 1971. You have to take the rough with the smooth. Last night it was Thick as a Brick, an album claiming to be a parody of every prog-rock concept album there ever was. It seemed to go on for ages, as did the match. Palace were always gonna win it but the plucky Spaniards fought 'em until their last breath. And after it was over their players, staff and every single fan sobbed their hearts out. No entitlement here, no Gary Neville looking absolutely furious as his expensively assembled team got taken to the cleaners. Just pure love, will and then heartbreak. I will forever watch out for Rayo Vallecano's results, they seem like us - a proper club with fervent lifelong supporters and a big heart.

I started watching Palace quite a bit in the mid eighties; I had a proper job then and lived in Beckenham. Actually a Beckenham postcode but only 200 yards from Penge which was quite a different proposition. My boss and mentor took it on himself to educate the young joskin he had hired. How to drive in London (very assertively), how to eat fancy Italian fish, how to persuade late night cabbies to take you far south of the river. All sorts. And he was a member at the Oval and at Palace so he took me to both often. Against expectations Town won several of their games at Selhurst Park. I was ruefully accepted by the Palace crowd I sat with as some kind of northern jonah but they seemed to like flat vowels and straight northern talking and we always had a good crack.

Ten years later, I reciprocated a few times, and entertained a car load of them at Blundell Park. Always Steeles, a look at the sea then seats in the upper horsebeer stand where they watched the shipping as well as the match. Results were mixed - 1996 was an especially bad season they stuffed us 5-0 (five shots, five goals) and then, a fortnight later, came up to Cleethorpes and beat us 2-0 on our own patch. But, good company, the gentlest of rivalry, the camaraderie softens the blows a bit.

At the beginning of the noughties I was back in England after three tortuous years in California missing every single thing that was English. Working dahn sarf and watching Palace play Grimsby again. Despite our fast declining team we performed creditably, winning a couple of tight games, drawing another and then the wheels fell off on a rainy night in September 2001. We got stuffed 5-0. It was a long way home. Weirdly, the following March we had our last hurrah, unexpectedly beating them 5-2 at home. It still seemed, in that moment, that something could always happen when we took on the Palace.

Apart from THAT narrow cup defeat our paths have never crossed again. Palace are in the Europa League next season. Which is good because they should have been in it this season, stymied by arcane multi-club shareholder rules which gave Forest a chance, I suppose. Town have ploughed a long lonely furrow since then but our future seems brighter - orderly progress on and off the pitch. It seems too much to expect that I will ever get to see Town play league football against Palace again. But you never know do you? See yer.