Our first league meetings with Palace were in 1921 in the inaugural season of Division 3. Both games were draws, 2-2 at the Nest which was their home before Selhurst and 1-1 at Cassio Road where we resided before moving to the Vic.
We've met 101 times with us winning 38 drawing 24 and losing 39, scoring 138 and conceding 156. Our biggest win was 7-1 at the Vic in Sept 1954 in Division 3 (S), with our biggest loss five years later at Selhurst when we went down 8-1 in the same division.
In South London we've played the Eagles 50 times, winning 14 drawing 11 and losing 25, scoring 51 and conceding 85. A couple of the more notable victories we've had there include the fantastic 3-0 first leg playoff win in 2006, and a win by the same score back in April 1982 that put us just four points away from promotion to the top flight for the first time.
Last season, in an opening day battle of the playoff semi finals losers, we earned a creditable 0-0 drew at Selhurst. For the second season running we put them out of the FA Cup at the Vic winning 4-3, and a month later beat them 2-0 in the League with Don Cowie and a Fonte own goal earning us the points.
Like ourselves, after failing to progress in the 2008 playoffs, Palace haven't really troubled the top six since. This season they are draw specialists having managed 8, a record beaten only by Ipswich and Donnie. Four of their last five games have ended 1-1, the only one that didn't was the most recent game played at Selhurst when they beat Boro 1-0. They are currently 13th with 23 points.
One very notable absentee from tomorrows game will be Jobi McAnnufff. He always seemed to relish the abuse given to him by the Palace fans and would raise his game a hundred fold whenever we met them. It won't be quite the same without the two sets of supporters trying to out sing each other with the different versions of his song. Oh well, maybe we could all join in with their version this time round.
