Bolton v Crystal Palace, 1964-65 and 2004-05

I am not much of a betting man; a bit on the national-lottery-type thing we have here in Spain, and membership of a couple of pools syndicates at work. That's about it. And yet, if I had been more of a betting man, I'd be quids in tonight.

A few weeks back, it became apparent that Crystal Palace might make the Division One play-offs at the expense of Wigan, who had been in the top three for most of the season, or possibly Sheffield United or even Millwall, and it was at that moment that I suddenly had a vision of them, not only reaching the play-offs, but also winning them. I even mentioned this to some of my colleagues who are known for liking a flutter (you know who you are, Mark and Hamish). If I'd risked £100 or so, I might have been sitting on £1000 this evening. Ah well.

Following on from the theme I began last week, about where people perceive various teams to 'belong', I am reminded of some thoughts I had at the end of the 1963-64 season. I was still at school, but was managing to attend quite a lot of Burnley's matches, as, influenced by my friends and cousins, I had almost convinced myself they were my real favourite team, though not quite. However, I was in the north and Charlton were in the south, and there wasn't anything to be done about that. The way fixtures were arranged in those days meant that other local teams were often played back-to-back at times like Easter and Christmas, sometimes with surprising results. Burnley hosted Manchester United at Turf Moor on a snow-covered pitch on Boxing Day that season, and won 6-1, only to fall 1-5 in the return fixture at Old Trafford just two days later.

Easter 1964, and this time Burnley's local rivals were Bolton, then struggling near the bottom of the table. On 30 March, which I think must have been Easter Monday, at Burnden Park, the result was a surprising 2-1; I know, I was there, a sunny evening as I recall, and a feeling of an unfair result. Even more unfair the very next night, 31 March, at Turf Moor, where the score was 1-1. An old man behind me was nodding sagely; "we've given them the points to help keep 'em up", he averred. "We gave Blackpool four points over Easter a few years back, too", he went on.

However true this might have been, it proved to be of no avail, and Bolton went down. My final memory of that season was of 21 April, three Tuesdays later, when Burnley played Tottenham.Burnley were going to finish around 7th, whatever happened, but the home game against Spurs was always an enjoyable one. The two clubs were very friendly as a result of their joint domination of the league between 1958-62, and this friendliness extended itself to the supporters as well, which is unthinkable these days when it is obligatory to hate all fans of opposing clubs. I went over to Burnley with a good mate from school, had tea at his Mum's, and we went down to Turf Moor and thoroughly enjoyed Burnley's 7-2 win. This game had been postponed from earlier on in the season, so most of the league tables were already finalised. Brian and I were discussing the implications of this during the second half, when I suddenly realised that Bolton would be playing Crystal Palace in a league game the following season, and Coventry too. These two had won promotion from Division Three, and as far as I know had never been higher than that in the league before. It seemed so odd. Bolton v Crystal Palace; Coventry v Bolton. Unthinkable. As unthinkable as, say, Rochdale and Liverpool being in the same division of the league would seem to today's generation.

So now, at the end of another season, I can once more contemplate Crystal Palace playing Bolton, and this time in the top division, too, and of course Palace have been such a successful club in the last twenty years that it has entirely ceased to seem odd. But of course I'm not going to make any comments about rightful places or Palace being back where they belong. They have won the play-offs, from a last-minute arrival in 6th place in Division One; some might argue that the team finishing 3rd should go up, but I don't. The system is the way it is, so you play the system, Anyway other clubs have been promoted from 6th, Burnley in 1994 from Second to First; and of course Charlton were 4th in 1997-98, prior to beating Sunderland in that amazing 7-6 final a few weeks later. So good luck to Crystal Palace, the club no-one would have bet on three months ago, and which I was tempted to bet on six weeks ago.

Unlike my friend Inspector Sands, I have no negative associations with Selhurst Park, as of course I have always had to follow Charlton from afar, but surely going there for an away game would just serve to emphasise that it's just once a season now, not all the time.

Only tangentially connected with this is the brief story on the Soccernet home page giving a summary of Palace's victory, in which there appears the following: "Shipperley's 61st minute bundling home of a fumble from Stephen Bywater sees Premiership football back in south London". Odd that. Perhaps the writer doesn't think Charlton's football counts as genuine Premiership stuff. A lot clearly don't. Or perhaps he just doesn't know where Charlton is...