Crystal Palace - 1 (Fan 45.)
Bradford City - 0

Steve Coppell had to cast his net wide to put a workable team onto the pitch for this match. With so many players leaving on the stroke of deadline day, it was quite amazing to see the side that he had managed to cobble together. Back into the side came Sagi Burton, and making his debut was David Woozley. To make up the ranks of the young contingent Wayne Carlisle, Andrew Frampton and Andrew Martin all found themselves on the bench.

The opponents for the day were flying high in 3rd place, and could indeed go 2nd, an automatic promotion spot, if they could only win here. To offset this though Palace boasted a record of not being defeated at home since September, and their last three matches at Selhurst had all resulted in wins.

At the start of the match Palace had a scare when the ball, sent in by a header from Lee Mills, rolled agonisingly along the line, with no-one on hand to put it in the back of the net. The pressure, such as it was, shifted though, and Palace came more and more into the game as the match progressed. Both Fan Zhiyi and Craig Moore saw their headers go wide of the mark. Despite most of the match seemingly being played in our attacking half of the field, the goal that would assert our superiority seemed loathe to come. But come it did. As the half progressed deep into injury time Sagi Burton let loose a shot that was blocked in the area. The ball fell kindly for Fan Zhiyi, and though he was fully 30 yards out from the goal he let loose a thunderous shot, which took a slight deflection from Stuart McCall, but still looked fairly safe for Gary Walsh in the opposition goalmouth. It was at this moment that the "famous" Selhurst Park bobble came into play. The ball deflected off a divot, or some such other peculiarity on the pitch, evaded the keeper, and rocketed into the back of the net. There was insufficient time for the ball even to be taken back to the centre of the park for the restart, before the referee blew the whistle to signify the half time break.

The dressing room spirit would certainly have been buoyant, but there was still the whole second half to go.

The second stanza started fairly quietly, and when Bradford made their two substitutions for the match, in particular bringing on Lee Sharpe (of Manchester United fame), the visitors finally managed to win their first corner for the match! Indeed it was the home side that still saw the better part of the play, and looked the side most likely to score again. Fan came close once again, and good chances were wasted by both Leon McKenzie and Clinton Morrison, but none of that mattered to the Palace faithful as the clock inevitably wound it's way down to another home win. The match finished with a flurry of corners, all in our favour, and the last of these was in fact unable to be taken due to the time being up.

Let's all hope that the Easter weekend brings us as much success as the recent weeks have done.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Miller, Burton, Sun, Austin, Moore, Woozley, Foster, Fan, McKenzie, Morrison, Mullins.
Not Used: Carlisle, Frampton, Martin.

Bradford City: Walsh, Todd (Sharpe 57), Jacobs, McCall, Moore, Westwood, Lawrence, Windass (Blake 57), Mills, Whalley, Beagrie.
Not Used: O'Brien.

Attendance: 15,626
Referee: Mr J P Robinson (Hull).