Stockport County - 1 (Moore 53.)
Crystal Palace - 2 (Mullins 69. Carlisle 78.)

Against a team that proudly stood in 6th place in the League, and that boasted an unbeaten record at home so far this season should have proved a very hard game for the side to take anything home from. Add to this our own poor away form, and it looked to those few staunch Palace away travelling fans that this was, indeed, going to be a bleak day. That it proved otherwise is a great credit to the team and to manager Steve Coppell, and maybe now we have finally turned some sort of corner in our quest for at least survival this season. A guaranteed First Division place would certainly assist in our quest to find a buyer that will take us out of this nightmare that has plagued us all season long. Up against our old favourite Carlo Nash in the Stockport goal, it seemed ironic after the match that it was Carlo who the instrumental figure in our win, and indeed he was fortunate to find himself even on the pitch following a 1st half incident. From our point of view it was provident that he remained on the pitch, though at the time it did not appear that was going to be the case.

The match was less than 10 minutes old when the incident occurred. Carlo clearly came out of his goal following a good build up by the visitors, and just as clearly he handled the ball outside of his area. A professional foul such as this is usually "rewarded" with a red card, but Carlo found a "benevolent" referee in Mr Hall, who merely awarded a yellow card, and a free kick to Palace. We were more aggrieved when Carlo threw himself full length to tip away the kick that was taken by Simon Rodger, and we were left wondering what might have been with little knowledge of what was to come later in the game.

Immediately following this action Tony Dinning had the ball in the back of our net, but to his dismay he found that the referee had awarded a foul by him on Fraser Digby, and the scoreline remained locked at 0-0. The remainder of the first half was all the "Stockport show" with only Fraser in goal keeping the scoresheet clean with great saves, especially from Dinning. Shortly before the break Ian Moore saw his shot sail across the face of the goal with no-one on hand to put the finishing touches to it.

The second half brought more of the same. Laurent D'Jaffo was unlucky to see his great shot kept out by Fraser, who then reacted brilliantly to stop the follow up rebound shot. It couldn't last, of course, and in a piece of bad luck a Keith Bergersen cross was parried out by Fraser, who to his horror, saw the ball strike Moore and rebound straight into the unprotected goal. So Stockport appeared to be on their way to their 4th win of the holiday season, but Carlo was yet to figure further in the match. Another double save by Fraser kept the lead down to one, and then Carlo somewhat rashly rushed out from his goal once again, but this time Matthias Svensson chipped the ball into the area, and Hayden Mullins was given the simple task of beating Carlo to the ball and placing it neatly into the back of an empty net. Within 10 minutes Palace once again got the better of Carlo when pressure from Leon McKenzie saw the keeper fail to collect a high ball, and it fell kindly for Wayne Carlisle to force the ball home. From 1-0 down we were suddenly 2-1 up, though it remained up to Fraser to maintain that lead for us, with once again great stops from shots by Moore and Dinning.

So, Stockport's home record was in tatters, we had belied our poor away form, and with some degree of confidence we can all look forward to the home match against Barnsley where we will have our first chance of completing a rare double for this season, having won the away fixture in the opening round of the season. One can be assured that the wheels will probably fall off, but then the Palace enthusiast has never been shy of living in hope.

Colin Pryce

Stockport County: Carlo Nash, Sean Connelly (Chris Allen 80), Mike Flynn, Jim Gannon, Shane Nicholson, Kevin Cooper, Tony Dinning, Colin Woodthorpe (Karim Fradin 24), Kent Bergersen, Ian Moore, Laurent D'Jaffo.

Substitutes not used: Martin McIntosh, Ian Gray, Alan Bailey.

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith, Andy Linighan, Wayne Carlisle, Dean Austin, Hayden Mullins, Jamie Fullarton, Terry Phelan, Leon McKenzie, Matthias Svensson, Simon Rodger.

Substitutes not used: Steve Mautone, David Woozley, Clinton Morrison, Craig Foster, Andrew Martin.

Attendance: 8,570

Referee: Mr A Hall (Birmingham).