Most Palace fans remember their first match and mine happens to be 50 years ago this week. To give younger fans a bit of context, this was the week the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hit the cinemas and the No.1 single was In The Year 2525, which sounded like science fiction back then, but is now frighteningly just around the corner. Well, it’s a bit closer.
Palace had won a first ever promotion to the old Division One and my father (a parsimonious Scot straight out of central casting) manged to borrow two season tickets from a holidaying workmate and we set off from deepest Essex on the journey to SE25.