October 5 2004

Crystal Palace

Refreshed and reinvigorated after a sojourn in his beloved Greece, Jamesey was delighted to witness the demolition of the Cottagers

What a pleasure it was to stroll down the Holmesdale Road with that warm glow of victory again after last night's Fulham fixture (Oct 4).

It was my first live football for six weeks since the Chelsea home defeat in August and to be off the bottom of the table after a 2-0 victory was a better feeling than winning the Champions' League for a Galacticos supporter.

Football has a habit of turning up all sorts of interesting scenarios and to play Fulham at home in the Premiership was particularly interesting for yours truly.

For a start, Fulham is my local club geographically and - for a few years - was a regular pre-season friendly fixture which I religiously attended.

How superior I used to feel in the 90s when we turned up at that shabby home of former glories, Craven Cottage, to give the once-lofty but now downtrodden and struggling Fulham, anchored in the lower divisions, a thorough going-over.

Once headed by an old-fashioned comedian, Tommy Trinder, but now run by a dubious Egyptian entrepreneur, Fulham FC has reinvented and reinvested and is now a totally different proposition.

The Cottagers are also managed by a great personal favourite of mine, Chris "Cookie" Coleman, a giant figure of the Palace defence in the club's finest era (in my opinion), the eary-to-mid 90s.

Not only was Cookie one of our best-ever central defenders but he turned his hand to being a fair striker when the departures of Wright and then Bright left us rather short up front.

Anyhow, casting old affections aside, it was great to see Cookie's fellow-strugglers well and truly taken apart.

Two-nil gave us the points but it could have easily have been a far wider margin and, for once, we seemed ruthless enough to take advantage of playing against 10 men for most of the game.

If we continue in that vein, if only at home, my early pessimism could well have been unfounded and maybe we could survive that notoriously difficult first season in the top tier.

I would be absolutely ecstatic to be proven wrong.

Email Jamesey with any of your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com

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