We went to watch this epic third round FA Cup tie yesterday afternoon. I’d not been to Selhurst Park before. It’s obviously a ground (and a club) that’s seen better days. When we got to the visiting fans ticket booth there was a largish queue and not a lot happening. It seemed that there was a shortage of tickets. Not a shortage of actual space – there were only just over 10,000 people in a ground with a capacity of over 26,000. No, they hadn’t actually printed enough tickets to sell to people. In other words, they’d underestimated the number of Swindonians who’d actually bother to show up.
Sadly, the game was disappointing, with Palace quickly going a goal up. Swindon had a few opportunities, but by now the heavens had really opened and the game was becoming literally bogged down, although the pitch did hold up well.
Palace got a second and it looked unlikely that Swindon could mount a comeback. But with less then ten minutes to go, they got one, and there was a bit of a scramble to try and find an equaliser.

It wasn’t to come, but the performance hadn’t been bad and fans around me, who’d been in good voice throughout, were relatively upbeat.
We went on to a pub to watch the Liverpool v Arsenal game, featuring two great goals from Tomas Rosicky and a fabulous individual effort from Thierry Henry.