August 23 2006

Michael Hughes

Jamesey reflects on CPFC's early exit from the Carling Cup on August 22.

For the second time in four days, we managed to lose a game by conceding a late goal in the dying moments.

There was no disgrace the first time when we lost in the league away to Birmingham City (Aug 19, 2-1). Losing by the odd goal to the Championship favourites on their own turf is hardly a tragedy, although it would have been great to have hung on and come away with a point.

However, repeating the scenario on our own territory to a side two divisions below us is a rather different matter.

Notts County, quite honestly, looked the better side on the night and a fair few of our non-regular first team choices didn't look up to scratch by a long chalk.

It was always going to be a quiet night. I even had a table to myself in the Selhurst Arms at gone 7pm, an almost unprecedented occurrence on match nights these days.

The four-and-a-half thousand souls who bothered to turn up were treated to an underwhelming performance from the red-and-blues and the paucity of the crowd added a surreal note to the proceedings.

I was strongly reminded of the dark days of the early '80s when such tiny gates were not all that unusual.

You could hear the players shouting at each other above the "roar" of the crowd. And the lacklustre football did little to encourage much noise.

Well, I may as well confess. With a few minutes to go and an awkward journey facing me, I thought I could see extra time and even penalties looming. So I legged it.

Of course, checking the results later I saw that County had scored and won the tie 2-1.

The last time Notts County visited Selhurst Park was in November 1993 for a Division 1 (as it was then) fixture.

That was in our promotion season and we boasted many Premiership standard players in the team like Gareth Southgate, Nigel Martyn, Richard Shaw, Chris Coleman and Chris Armstrong.

The result? County won 2-1.

Yes, history does repeat itself...