Crystal Palace - 3 (Morrison 5. Mullins 24. Svensson 49.)
Grimsby Town - 0

Grimsby Town arrived in South East London, having made a reasonable start to their League campaign for the season. In contrast Palace were languishing at the bottom of the table, and were surely ripe for many more defeats, allowing the opposition to simply turn up, run around the field and take home the prized three points towards either their own promotion or at least to settle themselves into a comfortable mid table position.

Palace though, are not used to finding themselves at this end of the table, unless unfortunately it is another of those years struggling at the foot of the Premiership, and with a good comeback result against Leicester midweek to lift the spirits the Eagles took to the field determined to prove that they could well be a team to be reckoned with come the end of this campaign.

The teams lined up under the direction of Mr Walton, and play began with Palace looking by far the more alert of the two teams. Having scored two late goals in the last game, the side were determined to start off better this time.

And start off better they did. Fan Zhiyi was the first to make a serious attempt on the visitors goal. His free kick from 25 yards out swerved around the wall, and Danny Coyne could do no more than parry the ball away. He only managed though to knock the ball down to Clinton Morrison, who pounced on the loose ball and made an easy shot for his 6th goal of the season.

Our earliest goal of any game so far this term saw the Selhurst Park crowd rise as one to applaud Clinton's class. No wonder other teams are looking to take him away from us. To ruin the effect though, he really should have scored again not too many minutes later, his header being stopped on the line by Stacey Coldicott.

Jack Lester then started to make his presence felt; he was by far the most dangerous player on the visitor's card. His first attempt was played straight to Fraser Digby, before David Smith headed the ball straight to the keeper once again.

Palace were starting to get the message that one goal was not going to be enough to settle this match, and thus they picked up the pace once more. It was left to our home debutante, Chris Sharpling, to create the opening.

Playing a very clever exchange of passes with Hayden Mullins the ball was eventually threaded through to Matthias Svensson on the edge of the box. Leaving the ball, some may unkindly say almost losing it, it was Hayden who was directly behind him that sent in a good shot that deflected past the keeper and into the corner of the net. The rest of the first half seemed to have little interest for the home side, though the visitors showed once or twice that they were not yet out of the match. Good chances to both Lester and Smith should have provided the wake up call that even two goals was not a safe margin against this side, and the home fans found themselves wishing that the half time break would arrive so that Steve could get them into the shed and settle down the nerves that were obviously playing on the players minds. It is rare indeed for them to find themselves two goals up with only a fraction of the match gone, but though they created few chances for the rest of the first stanza they rarely looked to be in trouble against an opposition that looked really out of form.

The second half was about to get underway, and the home supporters looked forward to more of the same.

If the crowd thought the first half opening goal was quick, then the second half opener must have caught a number of them still not back in their seats. Only four minutes had passed when a corner awarded to Palace was quickly taken by Simon Rodger. The corner was met by Matthias rising above the packed area to head powerfully into the back of the net, and finally put the game beyond the reach of the visitors. It is rare for a team to come back from 3-0 down, and so it proved on the day. Palace took their foot off the pedal, and simply cruised to their first home win of the campaign - at least it was not so long in coming as in some seasons past.

The win took the side to a relatively comfortable position, though I guess any position is comfortable after being at the bottom! The fans were happy with the result, and needless to say Steve was happy to end the run of recent defeats.

Another couple of wins in this vein, and we will once again see Palace scrapping for a position amongst those that wish to be promoted.

As for Alan Buckley? Well, he will take his team home, and for sure he will work out ways to improve their fortunes for the rest of the season.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith, Dean Austin, Fan Zhiyi, Andy Linighan (Andrew Frampton 56), Chris Sharpling (Lee Bradbury 66), Hayden Mullins, Jose Antunes Fumaca (Steve Thomson 80), Simon Rodger, Clinton Morrison, Matthias Svensson.

Substitutes not used: David Woozley, Matthew Gregg.

Grimsby Town: Danny Coyne, Stacey Coldicott, Richard Smith, Steve Livingstone (Danny Butterfield 54), Tony Gallimore, Kevin Donovan, Paul Groves, Alan Pouton, David Smith (Wayne Burnett 74), Jack Lester, Lee Ashcroft (Bradley Allen 54).

Substitutes not used: Steve Croudson, Kingsley Black.

Attendance: 13,294

Referee: Mr P. Walton (Northants)