Today, few teams at the top of English football would ever scour the ‘bargain basement’ in search of their most successful ever squad.
Instead, the Premier League giants who fill the table’s top spots and their competitors below spend millions annually on the world’s greatest players.
Signings are made amidst clamorous excitement and analysis, with talents travelling across the world and filling both front and back pages.
But that wasn’t the case in the mid-1980s. Not for Crystal Palace, anyway.
The Eagles were in a rut after half a decade of uninspiring Division Two finishes.