[Lord Snooty]

Crystal Palace v Huddersfield Town
The Premier League
Saturday August 12th - 15:00 ko
at Selhurst Park

Huddersfield Town travel to play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in what must be the most eagerly anticipated season ever as the Terriers make their Premier League debut. And we're not just here to say hello, wave goodbye. Oh no, we're in this now and we're going to make some noise.
It's almost half a century since we last got promoted to the top level of English football. The pre amble to the 1970/71 season was similar in a way to this. There was a lot of work going on at our old Leeds Road stadium. There were new seats going in at the front of the main stand, replacing the old paddock along the touchline. And the amount of building work going on at the St John Smith's draws parallels to it.
Back then, we won our first two matches to go top of Division One for a short while, beating Blackpool and Southampton at home, then coming back down to earth with a heavy defeat at Anfield. And that season we ended up in a respectable 15th position (22 teams). Anything above that would be a superb start to our life in the big time.
Unlike last time though, we have made an absolutely massive splash in the transfer market, breaking the old record fee many times. Ian Greaves didn't make one pre season signing.


So who are all these Town newbies? Well we know all about Aaron Mooy and Kasey Palmer, but what of the others?

Laurent Depoitre was the first of our eagerly anticipated signings, breaking the club's record transfer fee paid last season for the classy German Christopher Schindler. The £3.5m would almost double what we paid for the Wembley penalty hero, but wouldn't be a record for long.
Depoitre is 28 years old, a forward and a Belgium international, having played once for his country and scoring in a 4-1 win in the Euro qualifiers against Andorra. His previous clubs included Eendracht Aalst, Oostende and Gent, from whom he signed for Portuguese giants Porto in August of last year.

Next in came goalkeeper Jonas Lössl on loan from German club Mainz 05. Born and raised in Denmark, he has German ancestry, hence the Germanic spelling of his name. At 28 years old, he has experience of football in Denmark, France and Germany, including 27 matches in the Bundesliga for Mainz last season.

Tom Ince signed on the 4th of July from Derby County for what could add up to £10m and another club record fee. He is, as we all know, the son of legendary hard man Paul Ince, the former England skipper. Young Tom started his career at one of his dad's previous clubs Liverpool, but only made on appearance in the famous red shirt, as a sub in the League Cup. Not one of their finest performances, losing on penalties at Anfield to Northampton Town.
Only 18 years old at the time, his dad rescued him from the hell that Anfield was at the time under the management of Roy Hodgson, by signing him on loan for his Notts County side on loan. Dad interfered with contract talks with Liverpool at the end of the season, meaning that young Tom left in the summer for Championship side Blackpool, who at the time were managed by our old friend Ian Holloway.
Holloway soon left though to join Crystal Palace, eventually replaced by Tom's dad in the manager's office. Tom scored 31 times in 100 appearances for Blackpool and in the January 2014 transfer window, dad tried to broker him a big money transfer to one of the big European clubs. This led to dad getting sacked before the end of the month and despite holding talks with a few big clubs,Tom ended up signing on loan for our old friend Ian Holloway at the Palace, who by now were in the Premier League. He played 8 times, scoring one goal, against West Brom.
That summer, dad tried again to get his son into one of the European giants, but failed and Tom signed for Premier League new boys Hull City. Again, the move didn't work out and so he was loaned out to Nottingham Forest and then Derby County. His loan spell at Derby was a success though and he signed on permanently for them in the summer.
His record at Derby was similar to the one at Blackpool and so this has now earned him the best opportunity of his life, signing once more for a top Premier League team, Huddersfield Town, the greatest team in football the world has ever seen.

"My dad's a what?"

Later on the 4th of July came our next signing, USA international Danny Williams. He is a dual citizen of both America and Germany, being born in Germany to a German mother and an American dad. He got his American passport in 2011 allowing him to make the first of his so far 22 international caps for the USA. He has scored twice in the American shirt, against the Dutch and the Brazilians.
He has played for SC Freiburg and 1899 Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga and signed a 4 year contract with Reading in 2013. He played his last game for Reading at Wembley, scoring one of the penalties in the shoot out. Consummate. Consummate.

The following day, the transfer record was beaten once again. This time it was Steve Mounié from Montpellier and a fee reported to be £11,400,000. Mind blowing to say it's almost ten times what we had paid for Schindler.
Another striker and another international. He plays for the country of his birth, Benin, having played 6 times, scoring once, against South Sudan in an African Nations Cup qualifier.
Now aged 22, he came through the Montpellier Academy, before progressing to their first team. He had a good loan spell at Ligue 2 side Nîmes, before breaking through at Montpellier last season in Ligue 1, scoring 15 goals in 38 apps.

And later that day, in came Fulham full back Scott Malone, who had ripped us apart only a few weeks earlier, scoring their first in that 4-1 Fulham win. He made the EFL team of the season for his performances as a Cottager, but the size of the transfer fee, believed to be £5m, was a surprise to the Fulham fans on social media, believing him to be a one season wonder.
Looking at his career, you can see what they mean. He played in Leagues 1 and 2 for Southend, Burton and Bournemouth, scoring for the Cherries against us down there on Easter Monday 2012. He made it to the Championship for three seasons with Millwall and then Cardiff before signing for Fulham last summer in a swap deal that saw Jazz Richards go in the other direction.

We had to wait ages for the next signing. It was a whole two days, but in came the Copenhagen captain Mathias Jørgensen on a 3 year deal for a relatively small fee of three and a half million quid. A centre back, born in Copenhagen, another dual citizen having a Danish mother and a Gambian dad, he has 11 international caps for Denmark.
He played in last Season's Champions League for Copenhagen, scoring two goals, both against Club Brugge. And following their elimination, he played in their Europa League campaign, which ended at Ajax in the last 16.
Earlier in his career, he moved to PSV Eindhoven, before returning to Copenhagen in 2014.
His nickname is Zanka, named after the character in the film Cool Runnings. It's been years since I saw this, so don't know if this is a good or bad thing.

But which kit will we be wearing?

A brief history of Crystal Palace: The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass structure originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. After the exhibition, the whole thing was dismantled and rebuilt in Penge Common, South London. A football stadium was also built there to host the FA Cup Final and eventually in 1905 Crystal Palace FC were formed to play there. They only played there until the first world war and relocated to the current ground at Selhurst Park in 1924.
Three years earlier they had been elected into the Football League and by the ime of this relocation they had already been promoted to the 2nd division. However, their first season at Selhurst saw them relegated again. They remained in Division 3 (South) until the League was restructured in 1958 when they became original members of Division 4.
So for a club with such a crap history, how did they become the "big club" their fans consider themselves to be today? Well from that 4th division status in 58, they won promotions all the way to the First Division by the end of the 60s under the management of Dick Graham and then Bert Head, getting there the season before we did.
They were relegated the year after us and like us, they too suffered successive relegations. Unlike us though, they didn't go all the way to the 4th division. Instead, just like at the end of the 60s, by the end of the 70s they were back in division 1. They didn't stay too long, but just like the end of the previous two decades, they were back up again by the end of the 80s.
In 1990 they reached their first FA Cup Final, drawing 3-3 with Manchester United, but then losing the replay 0-1. And they were also in the top flight when the Premier League was founded in 1992. They were relegated in that first season with what is still a Premier League high number of points for a relegated club. They went down despite having clocked up 49 points.
They came straight back up again, but then unluckily came back down again, finishing 4th from bottom as the Premier League was reduced from 22 clubs to 20, thus making their 49 points from the previous relegation sure to stay in the record books for ever, or at least until they put the number back up to 22 clubs.
Palace have since then earned the reputation of being a yo-yo club and have won the Championship play offs on four occasions. Firstly, pre Premier League in 1989, beating Blackburn 4-3 on aggregate. Secondly in 1997 with a last minute winner from David Hopkin to beat Sheffield Utd 1-0. Next up was 2004 and another 1-0 win, this time with a Neil Shipperley goal beating West Ham. And finally, 2013, under the management of our old friend Ian Holloway and another 1-0 win. This time it was Kevin Phillips in injury time against a Watford team that had Jonathan Hogg in it.
They were back at Wembley again in 2016, this time for their 2nd FA Cup Final. It was the same opponents, Man U, and another defeat, 2-1. That was with Alan Pardew in charge. Last season, after a poor start, he was sacked and replaced by former Town centre back and England manager Sam Allardyce, who saved them from relegation, despite looking odds on certainties for much of the season.

Head to Head




Palace lead in the overall head to head with 12 wins to Town's 11, with 17 draws.

Well in a strange quirk of the fixture planner's mindset, they've given us as a start to our first Premier League season the exact same match as the last game of our last top flight season in 71/72. That was played on the 29th of April 1972 and finished in a 0-0 draw, bringing to an end a terrible run of 5 defeats on the bounce, and the last match of 21 league games without a win.
The line up that day had some familiar names in it, some who still come down to watch the Town, and some unfamiliar names as well: D.Lawson, Clarke, Hutt, S.Smith, Ellam, Cherry, Hoy, Fairclough, Lyon (Barry), J.Lawson, Chapman.

David Lawson was sold in the summer to Everton for what was at the time a British record for a goalkeeper. Roy Ellam and Trevor Cherry of course sold their souls to the devil by transferring to Leeds Utd. They both still can be spotted down at the John Smith's Stadium, as can Geoff Hutt. Steve Smith stayed and played for the club in all 4 divisions as we plummeted down the league ladder. He joined the coaching staff and even came out of retirement to play at Workington in an FA Cup tie when Mick Buxton's boys hit an injury crisis. And of course, he took over the managerial reins when Buxton was controversially sacked, stepping down from the role to be replaced by Malcolm McDonald. Dennis Clarke, Hutt, Bobby Hoy, Mick Fairclough, David Lyon, Jimmy Lawson, Mick Barry and Les Chapman all hung around for the next campaign, another relegation.

Back to more modern times now and the most recent meeting was in January 2013 when Palace were on their way up to the Premier League. They couldn't win at our place though. Their manager at the time was our old friend Ian Holloway and this 1-0 Town win with a goal from James Vaughan will be best remembered by the country bumpkin lunatic running amok back stage threatening everybody, Ann Hough included, after Alan Lee had gotten away with a nasty elbow challenge on one of the Palace players. I say nasty challenge, he never touched the southern softy.
Also that season, we drew down at Selhurst Park in a televised Friday night game, when a Keith Southern thunderbolt equalised a lucky Wilfred Zaha opener.

That was an isolated season in our meetings. We had a few in the Peter Jackson and Steve Bruce eras in the late 90s and the start of this century. Marcus Stewart, who our old friend Ian Holloway told would be wasting his talent if he signed for Huddersfield Town, particularly enjoyed playing against Palace, scoring 8 times against them, including a hat trick in a 4-0 win and then a couple in the famous 7-1 victory, when Clyde Wijnhard got a hat trick.
Have a quick reminisce and let's hope we can do something similar on Saturday.





So what's new at Selhurst Park?  Managed nowadays by Frank de Boer, the famous Dutch international defender. He replaced ex Town player Sam Allardyce in the Palace hot seat in June and this match will be his Premier League managerial debut after previously been in charge of Ajax and Inter Milan.
As a player, he turned out for Ajax, Barcelona, Galatasaray and had a season in Scotland with Rangers. At international level, he played 112 times for the Netherlands, scoring 13 goals.


Notable players in their squad:- Wilfried Zaha, is probably the best known of their squad. As mentioned earlier, he scored on our last visit to Selhurst Park. And it was because of this that he was transferred immediately to Premier League giants Manchester Utd for a huge fee, believed to be £15m. He was sent straight back to Palace though as he wasn't really good enough.
When he went back to Old Trafford, David Moyes had taken over and didn't fancy him, despite starting him in the Community Shield match against cup holders Wigan Athletic, he was loaned out to Cardiff City in January. He played 12 Premier League games for them, without scoring and at the end of the season was sent back to Palace, initially on loan, but then made permanent in the January window.
He is a tricky winger with a reputation for diving.

You calling me a diver?

There are others in their squad who quite well known. Christian Benteke is one that you may be aware of. He's the Belgian international who's supposedly better than Laurent Depoitre. Well we'll see about that!
He moved to Premier League giants Aston Villa in 2012 and was part of their squad humiliated in the League Cup by Bradford City. That was in the semi finals and he was outshone by James Hanson and Nahki Wells in both legs.
He had three seasons at Villa Park before moving to Liverpool for a staggering £32.5m, which worked out to be almost a million per appearance as he did sod all at Anfield and despite being hopeless, Palace still forked out £27m to bring him to Selhurst Park last summer.
It seemed like money well spent as his goals helped keep them up and repaid some of that enormous fee by scoring twice at Anfield as Palace won there 2-1 to keep up their reputation as Liverpool's bogey team.

Others of note:- Goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, who gets the preference in the Welsh goal ahead of Town legend Danny Ward.

Defenders, new signing Jairo Riedewald a Dutch international from Ajax,  Patrick van Aanholt, Joel Ward, James Tomkins, Scott Dann and two ex Town loanees, Damien Delaney and Martin Kelly.
Delaney is so old now, when he was on loan at Town (from Leicester) his team mates included Andy Booth and Delroy Facey. Kelly came to us from Liverpool in 2009 and scored once in a 3-2 win at Walsall.

In midfield, they have copied our policy and taken a loanee from Chelsea. Ruben Loftus-Cheek though does have more Premier League experience, having played 22 times for the Blues. They also have French international Yohan Cabaye, Scottish international James McArthur, Jordon Mutch (who was on loan at Reading last season), ex Wolves star Bakary Sako, England international Andros Townsend and club captain Jason Puncheon who started his career with Wimbledon and was there when the club upped sticks and went to Milton Keynes.

Up top alongside the boy Benteke is Connor Wickham.


Pre Season matches:

Accrington Stanley 0–1 Town (Ince)
Bury 1–3 Town (Mounié, Ince, Kachunga, pen)
SV Sandhausen 3–2 Town (Ince, Mounié)
Town 1–0 Girona (Palmer)
Barnsley 0–1 Town (Mounié)
Town 1–2 Udinese (Ince)
Stuttgart 3-3 Town (Van la Parra, Quaner, Scannell)
Torino 2-2 Town (Kachunga, Mounié)

Maidstone United 1 - 3 Palace (Mutch 2, Agyepong)
Palace 0-2 Liverpool
Palace 2-0 West Brom (Milivojevic, Sako)
Metz 1-1 Palace (Zaha)
Palace 1-1 Schalke 04 (Benteke)

Line up for their last match: